<p>I already applied, so it's not as though I can change much now, but I just received an additional award and I'd like to get feedback on how much it might improve my chances, if at all.</p>
<p>School: College of Arts and Sciences
Major: English</p>
<p>Race/Ethnicity: Asian (Chinese) female
School: Large public high school in Texas, part of a math and science magnet program
Class Rank: 12/625 (top 2%)
GPA (UW): 4.0
GPA (W): 5.09/5+
Senior year courses: Anatomy & Physiology Honors, Organic Chemistry Honors, AP English IV, AP Biology, AP Environmental Science, AP Calculus BC, AP Macroeconomics/US Government
SAT: 2390 (790 CR + 800 M + 800 W)
SAT Subjects: Literature - 790, Math II - 790, Chemistry - 790, World History - 800
ACT: N/A
AP Exams: World History - 5, European History - 5, Chemistry - 4, US History - 5, Calculus AB - 5, English Language - 5, Statistics - 4</p>
<p>Extracurriculars/Activities (just the most important ones):</p>
<ol>
<li>A <em>tooooon</em> of reading/editing for various literary magazines that are internationally known. My additional recommendation is from one of the editors.</li>
<li>Science Bowl Club - Secretary junior year; Vice-President senior year</li>
<li>Freelance journalist for an international figure skating news source. I'm the chief source on North American skating.</li>
<li>Run my own figure skating blog with an international audience of hundreds</li>
<li>Junior Volunteer at local hospital, 150+ hours</li>
<li>Piano since I was five, some state awards to be mentioned below</li>
<li>Math/Essay tutor in and out of school</li>
<li>Participate annually in a school can drive, leading student groups to collect nonperishables and money, managed to raise $10k+ each year</li>
<li>Creative Writing Summer Programs: Iowa Young Writers' Studio (like the RSI of creative writing); Bard College Young Writers' Workshop (smaller program but still internationally competitive)</li>
<li>Did summer internship/research at UT-HSC, part of the Texas Medical Center</li>
</ol>
<p>Awards:
1. Scholastic Writing Awards Gold Key and Honorable Mention (interstate awards; Gold Key put me in national judging pool)
2. Had fiction published in internationally recognized literary magazine (7% acceptance rate)
3. Will be published in nanomedical research paper (forthcoming 2014)
4. National Merit Semifinalist, AP Scholar with Distinction, honor roll, all that jazz...
5. State-level piano recognition
6. Accepted to New England Young Writers' Conference, but ultimately couldn't attend...
7. NEW AWARD: I was just recognized as a 2014 National YoungArts Winner in Writing. YoungArts is like the Siemens/Intel STS for the fine arts, size-wise. This year, they recognized about 700 winners across 10 disciplines, out of 11,000 applicants.</p>
<p>Essays:
Common App -- Original and honest. I'm fairly certain it'll stand out.
CAS Supplement -- Not much creativity went into it...just talked about my love for writing (mostly) and some other academic things.</p>
<p>Recommendations:
One from English teacher should be stellar; one from math teacher should be pretty good. I'm getting my additional one from the editor of one of the lit mags I work for. YoungArts also wrote me a (generic) recommendation that I've forwarded to the CAS admissions officers.</p>
<p>Yes, I've realized that there's a very large incongruity between my academic efforts and my extracurriculars...</p>
<p>So, thoughts? Words of comfort? Decisions come out in less than 3 weeks and I'm pretty nervous. I fell in love with Cornell after visiting last summer, so I think I'll be pretty crushed if I get rejected/deferred (God, anything but a deferral...).</p>
<p>Thanks, all.</p>