<p>Info:
Junior in HS
Ethnicity: Chinese American
Gender: Male
Low income family: applying for financial aid</p>
<p>Intended Major: Business/Finance/Computer Science</p>
<p>Average:
Class Rank: Top 5% in a class of 4000+ students
Unweighted: No Clue =/ For Junior Year Unweighted: 92.9 Weighted: 96.7
Weighted: 95% AVG</p>
<p>Current Schedule:
Math B H
English H
Finance
Accounting
Pre-Calc H
Physics H
Spanish H
AP US H</p>
<p>Standardized Test Scores:
SAT Reasoning: 1700 520W 650M 530CR (Plan on increasing to 2000~) (Took it early for Junior)</p>
<p>APs:
11th: AP US
12th plans: AP Physics, AP English, AP Calculus</p>
<p>ECs:
- Chinese Culture Club Club: Possible Treasurer (12), Member (9,10,11)
- Habitat for Humanity: Member (11)
- Special Olympics Volunteer: (11)
- Fencing Team: Member (10, 11) Possible Co-Captain (12)</p>
<p>Honors/Awards:
- National Honors Society</p>
<p>Community Service:
- Volunteer for various walks for causes
- Volunteer for Special Olympics Program</p>
<p>Employment:
- SYEP Employment Program
- Business Internship (This summer)</p>
<p>Other Schools of interest:
Cornell - ED
NYU
Carnegie Mellon
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>Pretty empty at the moment as I just started my junior year.</p>
<p>Also, if anyone is from New York, I'm wondering if I should take Collegenow or should I take more AP classes instead? Any help is highly appreciated ^_^</p>
<p>Do some research if CS is really your thing.</p>
<p>And seriously consider not using this forum if you’re just starting junior year. Bad to try get into college so early…</p>
<p>I would suggest AP courses.</p>
<p>While it always looks good to see a student challenged himself in high school with courses at the local college, at Cornell, these credits RARELY transfer, and they are looked at no different (if not slightly lower) than AP classes. </p>
<p>If your high school still has AP courses for you to take, enough for you to take a significantly rigorous course load, take the APs. Colleges will rate you based on your utilization of your high schools resources, including the percentage of the AP’s your school offers that you took</p>
<p>Also, I agree, you might want to definitely research CS way more in depth. If you haven’t taken a programming course yet, you will soon learn that you either get it, or you don’t get it. I know many a people who had never taken CS before, and declare themselves as CS majors because they think it’s cool, only to get to college and realize they totally don’t understand the concepts behind computer science.</p>
<p>Now go out and enjoy life. Get off of this board until next year, and have fun in the meantime, please?</p>
<p>College applications are a small blip in your life, in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>I guess I disagree it is too early to plan ahead. Many students wake up their senior year suddenly realize they didn’t take enough foreign language, science to get into colleges, or “I didn’t realize 9th grade GPA mattered.” I am in no way saying your total focus should be on the college process or only do ECs to get into schools, but you can’t lose the sight of it.</p>
<p>Do what’s necessary to bring up your SAT I. It is very low for asians, sorry to say that, but you will be compared to other asians. Your ECs are very average, no leadership. How good are you in fencing? If you have any talent at all, focus on it and become very good. Drop the Chinese Culture Club (unless you love it) and spend more time on Special Olympics, possible good essay material.</p>
<p>My theory is to take difficult courses in HS, but not necessary the hardest because it is important to maintain high GPA. As an example, if your school offers multivariable calculus and only a handful of students take the course, unless you could do very well, I would not take it because you could end up with below par grade. It may make a difference to take such a hard math course for schools like Stanfor or MIT, but not for Cornell. My friend’s son from a top prep school in NYC took the route of taking the toughest courses at his school, ended up with 3.5 GPA. He was not admitted to Cornell or JHU.</p>
<p>Why are you taking both finance and accounting, and 2 maths in one year? If you were my kid, I would have advised you to take fewer classes and focus on SAT I and IIs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the opinion guys. As for finance and accounting, it’s part of the Academy of Finance program, its mandated for the elective. As for two maths, I chose it so I could take AP Calculus next year. My school isn’t one of those top schools unfortunately (1700 is actually good in my school :x), AP choice is very limited and computer science is not one of the offered courses in my school. I learn about programming in my free time though.</p>
<p>i dont get how, being the top 5% of ur class, you only have a 1700 SAT even as a junior</p>
<p>is your school competitive IE sending a lot of people to top schools because if not, that could be a problem for Cornell/CMU/UCB OOS</p>
<p>Nope, my school is one of those “meh” public schools. About 1 or 2 out of the senior class get into a Ivy/Top school. I’m trying to do the best I can to go to these schools though, I don’t want to be stuck at certain colleges because of where I live.</p>
<p>The 1700 will make it very hard to get in so I advice you to study alot and hope to break 1400 (cornell looks out of 1600)</p>
<p>you need to bring your sat score up!!! (why dont you take the ACT? my CR score is like high 500s,but i got a 31 on the reading)
btw,what borough are you from?</p>
<p>Staten Island, the forgotten one 
How is the ACT? I’ve had SAT prep but I have no clue on what the ACT is at all. Also, the Critical Reading doesn’t matter to Cornell? Cause I won’t make it part of my studies if it isn’t.</p>
<p>Cornell looks at the critical reading score…but does not look at the writing score. So…they look at your math+CR score.</p>
<p>im from staten island too
mmm,actually,to me,the reading section is so MUCH easier than CR. the questions are more straightforward(and no sectence completion :D,only passage-based reading). the math section on act is not bad… i would say its level is between math B and pre-cal.
if you have no clue on what the ACT is,just get a preparation booklet from your school (it’s free) and see if act makes you feel more comfortable.</p>