Transfer Student, Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi all. I'm new around here so let me just make this post and get a feel for the site. I'm a Freshman at a junior college in Los Angeles. I took 4 years off due to family issues and the fact that I became genuinely disinterested in school after graduating from high school. After the time off, I have a lot more passion for it, and I'm planning on making a few applications for this year.</p>

<p>I've lurked on this site once or twice, and I'd appreciate it if someone told me what my chances are [more or less] in my current situation at the institutions I'm shooting for. My major is a double of Physics and [Molecular?] Biology</p>

<p>[High School]
GPA: 3.982
Rank: 6 (or 7? 5?) out of 500+
Graduated June 2004
Member of Speech and Debate Team [no special mention]
Member of Academic Decathlon for my senior year [Won Silver Medal for Speech]</p>

<p>SATs: Very Low. 520 on Verbal and 580 on Math. [Probably my weakest point]</p>

<p>AP Breakdown [Total of Eight]:
Spanish Language - 5 [freshman]
Spanish Lit - 4 [sophomore]
Biology - 5 [junior]
English Lit - 4 [senior]
Calculus - 3 [senior]
Computer Science - 3 [senior]
US Government - 3 [senior]
US History - 4 [senior]</p>

<p>[College]
GPA: ~3.8ish
Classes taken Fall 2008/Spring 2009: Chem I, Phys I, Calc I, Calc II, Linear Algebra, Eng I, Eng II
NO ExtraCurriculars. I do, however, work. For Fall semester, I worked 40 hours while attending college full time as well. For spring I'm working part time so I can better handle the workload.
[Misc]I'm planning on going to Germany for the Summer, regardless of whether I get into any school or not.</p>

<p>Not sure if I should mention this, but I was employee of the month for the Finance division where I work for September 2007, and Employee of the Year for 2007.</p>

<p>These are the schools who will suffer the torture of reading my application:
- Stanford
- Johns Hopkins
- Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>I can get pretty great recommendations from my Counselor and my Mathematics professor. I'm unsecure about my SATs and my lack of extracurriculars (although I will probably mention that I was fully involved in work/school).</p>

<p>So, if any information is missing, please let me know. Otherwise, have at it :D</p>

2

<p>You need to retake the SATs and apply to these schools after 2 successful years at your cc.</p>

3

<p>Ah, I forgot to mention. For Johns Hopkins [which is where I actually want to go] SAT scores are not required for admissions. I e-mailed with an Associate Director from Undergraduate Admissions and he clarified that for me.</p>

<p>As for Carnegie Mellon, their web site explicitly states: "These tests are designed to gauge your abilities at a very specific time during your educational journey. They will not be as useful to us if you complete them once you have already enrolled in a college/university."</p>

<p>As for Stanford, the chances are about as big as an icicle's chances in hell, so I don't plan on retaking them. </p>

<p>I don't mean to be rude [and I apologize if you interpret that I was, I'm just <em>trying</em> to be funny], but I already put a lot of thought into whether or not to re-take the SATs. I opted not to. I'm not sure whether you'd like to know my reasoning, but here goes:</p>

<p>I spent a lot of time in my senior year curriculum. I hand-picked every class with no support from anyone (some teachers were actually unhelpful) and with Academic Decathlon I slept, on average, 5-6 hours. I decided then that I didn't want to spend time on preparing for standardized testing. I figured that if they would prefer to overlook a rigorous high school curriculum for SAT scores, then I probably would rather not go there.</p>

<p>I realize this puts me in a horrendous position, especially since most schools will want me to take a TOEFL since my Verbal score was below 600. What can I say? I've never been much of a fan of memorizing. Like an old chemistry teacher used to say, "You shouldn't take a class and hope to remember. You shouldn't take a class and memorize things. What you should do is know things."</p>

<p>So... yeah =. And it's pretty hilarious because I consider myself a very good writer, and no test [sans SAT] has ever said otherwise.</p>

<p>I also consider it a pretty great achievement that I went from ESL 1 => AP Eng Lit within 3 1/2 years. My teacher was horrendously hard, but I'm thankful for everything she made us do (including making us learn most of the Prologue to Canterbury Tales. Whan that aprill with his shoures soote...)</p>