what are my chances at...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a rising senior from Arizona and my biggest worry is my GPA, I did pretty badly my freshman/sophomore year but I tried to bring my gpa up my junior year. There's a clear upward trend throughout all semesters of high school, and in my last semester of junior year i got a 3.75 unweighted and a 4.25 weighted. I have a pretty good and unique essay idea so I should hopefully write a good essay. Please let me know what you think!</p>

<p>I'm thinking of applying to Stanford, Rice, Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Berkeley, UCSD, and Columbia. My major is probably going to be biomedical engineering or bioengineering. </p>

<p>SAT: 2100/2400 (1440/1600) (750 CR 690 M 660 W)
ACT: 34
GPA: 3.62 Unweighted, 3.97 weighted (we use the +/- system)
SAT 2's: 690 Physics, 730 MAT2</p>

<p>Clubs:
Speech and debate (varsity member, co-captain, participated in all of high school)
National Honors Society
Spanish Honors Society
Diplomatic Corp. (shadow program)
Literary arts magazine committee (1 year)</p>

<p>Volunteer Work:
Over 200 hours at TeenLifeline (and counting) (basically I'm a counselor)
Spent 80 hours tutoring children over a summer
Kino Border Initiative (went to mexico to work at a soup kitchen)</p>

<p>Internship:
Intern at the Arizona Democratic Party...putting in over 100 hours, and I could get a letter of recommendation from a state senator...let me know if you think this is a good idea please!</p>

<p>Awards:
Has won multiple debate tournaments
3rd at 5A State this year
Co-Champion at the National Qualifier and qualified to nationals.
Top 60 at the national debate tournament
AP Scholar with honor</p>

<p>Honors and AP classes:</p>

<p>Freshman year--Honors english, Honors Geometry, Honors Chemistry</p>

<p>Sophomore year-- AP Biology, Honors English 2, Honors Algebra 2 (Got a 3 on the AP bio exam)</p>

<p>Junior year--AP English 3, AP Physics B, AP US History, Honors Spanish 3, Honors Pre-Calc (5 on AP lang, 5 on APUSH, 4 on AP physics)</p>

<p>Senior year schedule: AP English 4, AP Chemistry, AP Econ/Gov, Honors Calc, Honors intro to engineering, AP Psychology</p>

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<p>Stanford - high reach
Rice - low reach
Johns Hopkins - low reach
UPenn - reach
Berkeley - low reach
UCSD - match/low reach
Columbia - high reach</p>

<p>My recommendation is to portray your ECs as being part of a big picture of who you are; right now they seem a little unfocused - what I mean is that you could phrase your descriptions of them to show that they complement one another, as well as talking about one of them in depth in one of your essays. Of course, get the best grades you can senior year.</p>

3

<p>well i’m kind of planning on doing that. (i’m a sikh male for background) My essay is going to be talking a lot about what its like to be a first generation american in the family. </p>

<p>it’ll say stuff like immigrants have a lot of trouble communicating who they are to the rest of america and this leads to ignorance. i plan on tying all my speech and debate experience, along with the democratic party internship to show how ive tried to learn how to articulate who i am in a persuasive manner to prevent atrocities that happened due to ignorance (hate crimes after 9/11 and also the Oak Creek shootings). I also had a petition to help spread awareness against the ignorance of sikhs that got over 2000 signatures in 4 days. </p>

<p>what do you think about that idea? do you think such an essay would make some of those colleges more attainable? thanks!</p>