Top Tier Schools - Chance Me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Chance Me: WUSTL, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Hopkins, UVa, University of Maryland College Park (safety), Brown </p>

<p>About me:</p>

<p>Ethnicity: Asian (Taiwanese to be exact)
Sex: Male
Residency: Maryland
School Type: Public, Ranked 250-ish on the latest national high school rating report
Legacy: none.
Parents: unemployed for nearly two years (laid off). clearly in need of financial aid.
Intended major: Biomedical Engineering</p>

<p>GPA: 5.62 weighted (out of 6), and 3.72 unweighted (out of 4).
SAT: 2080 (740M/670CR/670WR) - pending retake in the Fall. Expecting 2200+ hopefully in the Fall, but chance me at 2100.
SAT II: Biology M (freshman year - 06/08): 750; Math II (sophomore year - 06/09): 770; US History (junior year - 05/10): 710 (whoops)
Class Rank: 8 out of 457 (top 2% of class)</p>

<p>APs:</p>

<p>AP Biology - freshman year - 5
AP Chemistry - sophomore year - 4
AP World History - sophomore year - 5
AP Statistics - sophomore year - 5
AP Calculus AB - junior year - 5
AP English Composition - junior year - 4
AP US History - junior year - 4 (pending rescore)
AP Psychology - junior year - 5</p>

<p>APs I'm taking senior year:</p>

<p>AP Physics C
AP English Literature
AP Calculus BC
AP Economics
AP Government</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Varsity Tennis (2010 – Present)
JV Tennis (2009 – 2010)
Spanish National Honor Society (2010 – Present)
National Honor Society (2009 – Present)
Science National Honor Society (2009 – Present)
-Co-founder (2009)
-Vice President (2009 – 2010)
-President (2010 – Present)
National Mathematics Honor Society (Mu Alpha Theta) (2008 – Present)
-Secretary (2009 – 2010)
-President (2010 – Present)
Key Club (2008 – Present)
Chess Club (2007 – Present)
-Vice President (2008 – 2010)
-President (2010 – Present)</p>

<p>Awards/Achievements:
PENDING: National AP Scholar Award
PENDING: AP Scholar Award with Distinction
[Varsity] All-Academic Team Award (2009 – [2010])
Maryland Athletic Association – Scholar Athlete Award (2010)
PENDING: National Merit Scholarship: Commended Student (2010)
Baltimore County Public Schools – Physics Olympics (2010): First Place Team
AP Scholar Award with Honor (2009)
濟陽柯蔡宗親會 Scholarship Award for Academic Excellence (2008) (Awarded by the Jiyang Ko &Tsai Association of Tainan City, Taiwan - PENDING update award this year as well.)
Maryland State Grade Chess Championships (2008) – 10th Grade, Third Place
Perfect Attendance (2001 – Present)</p>

<p>Community Service:
peer tutoring at my high school, tree planting at various locations, soup kitchens, science fair judging, and a "counselor" type organization at my school where we introduce incoming freshman/new students to our high school (give tours, explain how our school works, etc.) (probably a total of 100-150 hours depending - don't have an exact number yet). </p>

<p>Jobs: assistant tennis coaching (this summer of 2010). head coaching anticipated for the fall of senior year (2010) and perhaps even during the spring. </p>

<p>Teacher Recommendations: expecting fantastic ones
Counselor Recommendations: average
Essays: good </p>

<p>Additional Experiences:
Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission – Language Study Program for Expatriate Youth (2009)
-Six-week camp in Taiwan, exploring and learning Taiwanese/Chinese culture and language with international compatriots from over 34 countries.</p>

<p>Quad-lingual: fluent in English, proficient in Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Spanish</p>

<p>Any opinions? Tips? </p>

<p>(Additional note: my extracurriculars involving the Science and Math Honor Society has me organizing and leading school teams to various competitions across the county and state (for Math, with wins here and there). For Science, I am planning to organize our society to the activity level of the Math, including community service, scholarship awards, olympiad competitions, etc.)</p>

2

<p>If you get 2200+ that might be a good list but I would include more “match” type schools at this point. WUSTL, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins are very reasonable reaches; I wouldn’t be surprised if you got into at least one of those. The other Ivy League schools are very difficult without higher test scores. That’s not to say they’re impossible, but most successful applicants have high 2200’s to low 2300’s. UVA looks like a good match at this point.</p>

<p>Also: Is your GPA based on unweighted or weighted class rank? I have almost the same GPA as you and my class rank is much worse. Either your school grades really hard or you’re very lucky to have class rank based on weighed GPA.</p>

3

<p>I think you’ll get into UVA and good shot at Hopkins. I think the ivies will be very, very tough given that you’re Asian, from the mid Atlantic and don’t have a stand out EC. Simply, there are too many kids fitting that description who are vals with 2370s who won’t get into ivies.</p>

<p>I would consider applying ED to WashU or Cornell. If you can raise the SAT 100 points, you’d have a fighting chace there.</p>

4

<p>I’m pretty sure your in at UVA.</p>

5

<p>Okay. Thanks for the input! I would love to ED one of these choices but with my parents’ current financial situation, I would hate to be accepted and then “forced” to go; my parents really want me to get a good scholarship. </p>

<p>And no, my GPA is unweighted at 3.72 out of the 4. My weighted GPA is a 5.58 out of 6. I agree, out of the top 15 in our class, I have the lowest unweighted GPA, but because of the rigor in my classes, it beats out the people who score a perfect 4.0 (unweighted) who don’t challenge themselves. (Yes, our class rank is based on weighted GPA, but don’t think I’m lucky. People who take the normal “honors” courses, which are mostly a joke here, get the same weight as people who take APs.)</p>

6

<p>Most likely rejection at Johns Hopkins BME</p>

7

<p>I dont really know whats expected at Ivy league schools because im not even having a thought of even looking at the application, but I do know that i have some older friends from my school who dont have as many E.C as you and high level courses and got into cornell</p>

8

<p>I’m not very qualified at this chancing stuff, but you have some great ECs. As some people mentioned earlier, work on your test scores. I think the Ivies are a reach though.</p>

9

<p>“I think the ivies will be very, very tough given that you’re Asian, from the mid Atlantic and don’t have a stand out EC.”
Just wondering Redroses… how are his EC not stand out?
I mean the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission or whatever seems pretty interesting and not something a lot of high-schoolers do, not to mention the extremely long list of other ECs he has.</p>