What Are My Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Interested in knowing what my chances are for a top 30 school.
I am only a sophomore, but am planning my classes for the next 2 years. My school also doesn’t offer too many AP’s, so taking more than 3 or 4 is pretty impossible.
FRESHMAN:
Algebra 1/2
English
Social studies/history (you receive history credit, it is just required for all freshman)
Science (just standard science)
Art (required)
PE (required
Spanish 1/2
GPA: 4.0

SOPHOMORE: (for the first semester, I attended school in the Czech Republic. My mom is from there and my uncle just got really sick so we moved there for 6 months. So my first semester transcript is a Czech transcript. All the lessons were in Czech. I was able to get pretty good grades in them but I am not sure how relevant listing what classes I took there would be. So this is my second semester at my high school in California.)
Geometry
English
World History
Science
PE
Spanish 3/4
Psychology
Nonfiction
GPA: unknown, but probably will be a 4.0

JUNIOR:
Advanced Algebra (possibly honors)
AP COMP
APUSH
Advanced Journalism
Spanish 5/6
An elective class that is either leadership of Peer resource, still waiting to see if I got in.
AP BIO (most kids at my school take Chem before AP BIO, however I like bio and think I will be okay with not taking chem. However, is it essential to take chem in high school? I am interested in pursuing English and writing, so I don’t really want to, but am willing.)

Senior:
Pre-calc or AP stat
AP LIT
AP economics
a semester of GOV (it is required)
AP Spanish
Advanced journalism
leadership or PR

EC: varsity track (all 4 years), Varsity cross country (2 years), JV Soccer (2 years), Daraja club (girls education), PALS club (hanging out with special ed kids), JR Lifeguards (4 years), I volunteer a lot around my community, internship, living abroad, and I have a job.

My family is pretty low income. Neither of my parents went to college, my parents sold drugs all my life, my dad died when I was 11 because he overdosed, so now my mom is a single mom. She makes about 30,000 a year.
I am also very aware that I have not taken the SAT or ACT yet, and I can’t exactly put more credentials that I could possibly earn later but am not sure about at this time.

2

First of all, it goes without saying, my condolences to your family’s situation. The fact that you are seemingly thriving in school despite all of this adversity is remarkable.

Obviously, the priority is standardized tests, but if you get around 1500/33, you should be fine.

As someone who is currently taking AP Bio, Chem is somewhat helpful, but usually the chemistry portion of the class is reviewed at length at the beginning of the course. Plus, chemistry is not usually assessed at length on the exam, so I think you’ll be fine.

Do you have your W GPA? I know people whose W and UW were close, which indicates a weak course load. I think you have the opportunity to have a GPA to rival top applicants, but that’s only one part of the equation.

Your story and your ability to comprehend Czech should give you an admissions edge. But regardless, Ivies are notoriously difficult to get into, and no matter how awesome your application is, know you can still be rejected. But as it stands now, you look pretty good for the lower end of the spectrum but need high scores to get into Ivy consideration.