<p>Also, what are my chances for UCLA and UC Irvine </p>
<p>I live in Pennsylvania
I'm Indian
I attend a large public school
Class Size: 550
Decile: top 40%
GPA: 3.53
Sat: 1730 (CR620, M550,W560) fairly low, I know.
AP's: World history (3) English Lang (3)
Senior Schedule: Accel Pre calc, AP Bio, AP US History, AP Psychology, AP English Lit, Accel wood working 2
Current senior GPA: 4.2
Intended Major: International Affairs/Politics/Relations or Global Studies (The name differs from school to school) </p>
<p>EC's
National English Honor Society
National Social Studies Honor Society
Poetry published in Anthology Sunflowers and Seashells pg. 204 (sold on amazon)
Superintendents Recognition Letter for achieving an outstanding amount of community service hours
Article published in People to People Ambassador Magazine pg. 24 (quarter of a million people read the magazine) Paid 30 dollars (not a lot but whatever)
Student Council 9th grade
Reading Olympics: Won 2nd place 10th grade, 1st place in 11th grade
Key Club in 10th grade
Girl Scouts since 2001
Voting member of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania Board (elected as Girl Delegate)
Volunteer at Autism Cares Foundation
Obtained 110 L.I.N.C.S hours
Volunteer through Girl Scouts
Completed Girl Scout Bronze Award: 15 hour service and leadership project collecting good for the Red Cross
Completed Girl Scout Silver Award: 40 hour service and leadership project cooking meals for shut ins through Aid for Friends
Working on Girl Scout Gold Award: 80 hour service and leadership project, social entrepreneur project, building awareness among our youth about indigent peoples in 3rd world countries
Working at Rainbow Academy Day camp: Junior Counselor working in an inclusion program including kids with Autism and Down Syndrome
Traveled on People to People Student Ambassador programs: summer before 10th and 11th. Traveled to Ireland, Wales, England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, Sicily, and Greece
Created a website that I update a lot: Motley</a> Essays - Home</p>
<p>Maybe you have a shot at Irvine, don’t know about Cal. Just try though.</p>
<p>I often evaluate these not if you will be accepted or not, but rather if it is worth the time and money applying or not (essays can take a while). These are my comments:</p>
<p>-Decile not impressive at all. This in itself may count you out.
-Sat doesn’t help… it hurts your application even more
-AP scores are low… again doesn’t help
-We don’t care about weighted GPA. We need unweighted. If that 3.53 is weighted, there is seriously a 0% chance of acceptance.
-You are an indian, doesn’t help again.
-I see now ECs that show that this major is good for you
-Honors societies are R</p>
<p>Thanks for the input wallrus75. Considering what you’ve told me I don’t think it’s a good idea to apply to any of the UC schools.
Also, as far as student council involvement only in 9th grade, I ran every year but lost and I wrote my essay on that and how despite losing year after year, I didn’t give up. Should I rewrite my essay about something else?<br>
Additionally, how should I tell a college why they should care about ALL of my activities. Where is there room on my application to do so? I was told essays should be about extracurriculars?</p>
<p>Hmkkk… So here are answers:</p>
<p>-As I read “I wrote my essay on that and how despite” and at that word I knew exactly where you were going to go. What I find pretty silly about these essays is why does it matter if you are on student board? You get to plan dances? See, it just doesn’t seem like it is anything that you will bring academically to colleges or anything really unique. </p>
<p>-I would recommend writing either about girl scouts or volunteering. Either one you do, choose a specific moment or person who changed you and what you learned. Do not make a generic volunteering essay and how you are such a better and more charitable person now. I recommend that you reevaluate your essay and ask yourself, “If a college adcom looked at this essay, why would they want me?” If it is just that you don’t give up, that is a weak topic; I would say that every person who has been accepted to berkley is a persistant person who hasn’t given up.</p>
<p>-In terms of ECs, you can go to my chance thread and see what I have going on, and also read the paragraph below that I wrote up to give people like you:</p>
<p>"You need focus. What do I mean by focus? Focus is something that much of your ECs revolved around, and something that you were successful at. Most importantly however, focus is what college admissions think you will bring to the college and why they should care about you. Now your focus doesn’t have to be unique; mine is mathematics research and engineering. Of course I backed this up (Siemens comp participant, submitted paper to journal, presentation at a conference at a college, tutor in engineering teams at elementary schools (engineering tutor of the state 2x), and competing at an international college engineering competition.</p>
<p>Of course yours doesn’t need to be this extensive, but you do need to tell colleges why they want you to come to the school. Once you find your focus, write your R</p>
<p>And focus shouldn’t be volunteering. I believe that is rather weak. I would recommend that you would try to make your focus revolve around something like writing and organization. You can speak on your leadership with girl scouts and how that also mixes in with your extensive writing skills. I’m not sure if that works or even makes sense, but you need to find something along those lines.</p>
<p>Well I’m not sure what your student council does, but ours is centered around community service and planning fundraisers for different causes, but anyhow, it’s not important. </p>
<p>I thought that my EC’s where focused around three main things that I love to do: writing, community service and global studies. Don’t these things pertain to my major of international relations? I thought they did… am I missing something? </p>
<p>I’ve always been told that writing an essay about something reflected in my application like volunteering is something to avoid. I have several other essays. One is about wind surfing and how I’ve grown from that experience and the other is about the death of a classmate and how I gained an emotional maturity I lacked before. Do you think those essay topics would okay? </p>
<p>and as for looking at your EC’s I don’t see how that would help me. Applications are due soon and I don’t see how I can magically add more EC’s that are in my “focus” area.</p>
<p>The essay topics seem fine. And it is completely fine to discuss volunteering. Why adults tell you not to however is because they often turn into essays that sound like “I arrived nervous, I met an awesome person, we got to know each other, I left excited to go back the next day.” </p>
<p>Of course if this is the essay the applicant shouldn’t admit it. But it is unjust to make the blanket statement and assumption that this is all everybody can write about.</p>
<p>Well, thanks for the interesting advice. I’ll definitely take it into account. As for UCLA, UC Irvine, and Berkeley, I heard they do not really take interest in out of staters, let alone low qualified out of staters, so I guess I just won’t apply. </p>
<p>What state are you from? I noticed you want to go to UPenn, good luck!</p>