<p>To be honest, probably not. My friend had a 4.0, 2300 on SATs, a bunch of AP classes/honors, hardest imaginable schedule (he had like 5 APs senior year), and was put on wait list, but didn’t make it. He also played sports and had extra-curriculars. I thought it was a flawless record. Everything was perfect.</p>
<p>But yeah, that was for Harvard. </p>
<p>But just shows you, its crazy competitive.</p>
<p>NBAFan- You don’t understand. We’re telling the OP that she has an excellent chance for SCEA because very few URM’s apply SCEA, and an even smaller proportion of those are first-gen. Since she has strong stats to go with her URM/1st-gen status, then she will almost always get in ahead of kids like your friend. Your description of your friend matches tens of thousands of kids who apply to the Ivies and Stanford every year, and are rejected. Just because you have a seemingly-perfect resume doesn’t mean you’re in for sure. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, colleges aren’t looking for just kids who have piled up an impressive record of EC’s and great test scores, but kids who also have something special about them that sets them apart. Since the OP will be able to offer a different perspective on life than the average non-1st-gen Caucasian applicant, and since she has good grades to match, she has a better chance of getting in SCEA, and maybe ever regular, than kids like your friend.</p>
<p>OptimisticGirl- Definitely apply SCEA. A very very very small number of 1st-gen URM’s apply SCEA. That means you’ll be competing with a couple thousand rich, overloaded-resume, great SAT, boarding-school white kids from the East Coast. Stanford looks for kids who stand out from the pack, and you will definitely stand out from the rest of the SCEA applicant pool. However, this won’t be as true for RD, as more kids who are like you will be applying then, and thus you would have to work harder to make your application stand out from the rest.
So I’m going to rubber-stamp SuperEagle and omgitsover’s opinions and tell you to go ahead and apply SCEA. I will be shocked if you’re rejected. You’re exactly the kind of kid who should apply SCEA.</p>
<p>Wow I can’t believe that you guys are speaking so highly of me! This is definitely giving me more confidence in my application, but Stanford is Stanford so my competition will be incredibly tough regardless. I’ve been leaning toward SCEA because Stanford is my first choice but I didn’t know that I would be so different from everyone else that applies SCEA. The only downside of applying SCEA is that I won’t have that last semester to get my grades up…but if everything else looks good then I will go for it!</p>
<p>Thanks for the response!</p>
<p>Oh! My parents decided that we are going to take a family trip to California so that we can visit Stanford this summer! I don’t think that Stanford offers interviews, even though I’ve heard of a few people that have gotten them, but is there anything else I should look into doing when I’m there? There’s a tour for prospective students so I will do that if there are still spots available.</p>
<p>WOAH! Great ECs.</p>
<p>Try to get that GPA as high as it will go. Is anything in your GPA weighted?
SAT: Aim for 2100+ to be safe. 2000…well MANY Stanford applicants have that.</p>
<p>Focus on your personality to get in!
Show HOW/WHY you’ve changed with the things that you do…ect.</p>
<p>Thanks! Haha but really, I just do what I love and nothing more.</p>
<p>No, that is my unweighted GPA…I have no idea how to figure out my weighted GPA so I have to ask my counselor about that. I am aiming for consectutive 4.0s for the rest of high school though. </p>
<p>I want to get at least a 200 on the PSAT but I will try to get my score higher for the actual SAT. Over 700 for each section sounds really hard though. This is a blunt question, but is the SATs something you can just study a lot for and be able to perform well and get a high score? Or do you have to rely on brilliance to do well? What else would you suggest for me to raise my score? I’ll do whatever it takes!</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply!</p>
<p>Any more opinions/advice?</p>
<p>I really need all the help I can get! Thanks.</p>
<p>Which sections of the SAT do you struggle the most on?</p>
<p>Math. I’m okay at it at school but the PSAT/SAT has analytical stuff that I am just not that good at, but I am working on it. Haha. </p>
<p>Mmm anyone else want to chance me? This is kind of sad because my thread is getting really boring… :/</p>
<p>you shouldn’t get in, but if you do, its almost completely because of your race. if that were the case would you really want to go there?</p>
<p>^I think the OP, like many other “chance me” posters, SHOULD get in. Obviously, the vast majority of qualified students do not. And if the OP does get in, it is not “almost completely because of her race.” It is because she is very qualified. Race (and other hooks like legacy and first-gen) tip these qualified people, who are academically similar to other acceptees, in. So it definitely helps, but who is to say the OP wouldn’t have been admitted anyway? Even if they explicitly said you got admitted because of your race, none of that really matters when you get there (I’d definitely still attend). Stanford will not admit a student that cannot academically succeed at the university, and it certianly seems like this student will succeed there if admitted. </p>
<p>I still can’t see why you think the OP shouldn’t get in.</p>
<p>Senior0991: Race and “other hooks” are certainly more than a little “tip”; more like a massive shove.</p>
<p>But would a massive shove be given to a student who is clearly academically inferior to most of the other admittees? That was the point I was getting at. </p>
<p>I think we’d all agree that admission to Stanford is a crapshoot at best for normal applicants. There are thousands of applicants that probably are qualified to be admitted but aren’t, for whatever reason. These hooks just help to remove some of that crapshoot factor for such qualified applicants (but there are hooked applicants who are extremely qualified that get rejected, just look at the decision board). </p>
<p>My advice: look through the decisions board. Look at applicants, and at the end they say if they have a hook and which one. I just looked, and I really couldn’t tell much of a difference between hooked and unhooked acceptances in terms of academic and extracurricular achievement.</p>
<p>And also, don’t misrepresent what I say. I said a “tip” would be given, which I’ll admit is somewhat ambiguous. You interpreted that to mean a “little ‘tip,’” which was never implied in any way.</p>
<p>Ouch… But I guess I should be getting used to people thinking that I can only go places because of affirmative action. Yeah my gpa isn’t what it should be but I’ve never met anyone at my school that’s discouraged it because they just look at the fact that I try really hard to do well in my classes. The majority of my class came from private middle schools or the ‘good’ public schools so it was a bit harder for me to keep up with everyone else. Honestly, I try hard at everything I do especially when it comes to helping others. If Stanford can see that then I don’t think that race would be the basis of acceptance (if I even were to get accepted!) </p>
<p>But if that’s your honest opinion (Buddy and omgitsover) then thank you for your responses.</p>
<p>Senoir - thanks for pullin’ for me! :)</p>
<p>You have an excellent chance of getting in, as long as your essays and recs truly make you distinguishable and interesting. Good Luck!</p>
<p>this may make you more optimistic, but I should mention (if it hasn’t been stated already) that Stanford does not look at freshman grades.</p>
<p>Sirensong -Yeah essays should definitely be my strongest part and I think my recommendations should be good too!</p>
<p>Senior0991 - I know they don’t look at freshman gpas but it still affects my class rank and NHS. Hopefully my improvement will be something positive to look at though.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses!</p>
<p>Woah, woah, woah. NO ONE knows exactly how the Stanford admissions process works, and until you do you shouldn’t be making such blantantly caustic remarks such as “You shouldn’t get in, but if you do, it will only be because of your race.”</p>
<p>We are looking at ONLY objective material in this thread. OP may right such awesome essays that the entire adcom cries and immediately accepts her…and there would still be awful people who chalk up her accomplishments to affirmative action.</p>
<p>The point is, you don’t know how much Stanford weights everything. And until you do, chill the heck out.</p>
<p>With that said, OP, I think you have a solid chance.</p>
<p>URM helps</p>
<p>keep the upward trend as someone else said. they prefer upward trends that start low than downward trends that start high</p>