<p>Gender: Female
Major: Bioengineering (Bioinformatics) (I want to do premed)
Ethnicity: Asian Indian
Residence: San Diego
Also note I don't go to the best school (Escondido High School)</p>
<p>GPA: 3.95 unweighted (5 AP's and 2 Honors Classes)
Weighted GPA: 4.67
UC GPA: 4.36
Ranking 2 out of 600</p>
<p>ACT Composite: 34 (Do you think I should retake in December?)
Math: 32
Reading: 36
Science: 33
English: 34
Writing: (scores haven't come out yet)</p>
<p>APs I will Take: Physics 1, English Lit, Macro/Micro Econ, Gov.</p>
<p>Extracurricular:
Two month internship in India under a gynecologist. <a href="Took%20patient's%20medical%20history,%20observed%20the%20head%20doctor">11</a>
Intern in an Indian Lab <a href="observed%20pathology,hematology%20departments,%20made%20notes%20on%20current%20technology%20in%20Indian%20Labs">11</a>
CSF [9-12]
NHS [11-12]
Helping out Bhutanese Refugees. Giving them hygenic products and tutoring in English [9-10]
Seva International <a href="Helping%20out%20the%20homeless,%20participating%20in%20food%20drives">10-12</a>
9 years of Indian Carnatic Classical Music (participated in some competitions) [9-12]
Member of BeWise (Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering) <a href="With%20BeWise%20I%20was%20researching%20current%20technologies%20in%20bioinformatics%20companies%20and%20labs">9-12</a>
Interact Club [11-12]
Rotary Youth Leadership conference (RYLA) 2014 [11]
Reading Legacies (I read to preschool children every Monday for 2 hours) [11]
One week crash courses in Java, HTML,C++ [9]
Robotics Team [9]
Fashion Club [11-12]
Anime Club [9-10]
Took one semester of Japanese [9]
Can speak somewhat conversationally fluent Kannada (my family's native language)</p>
<p>Honestly, I am not too sure if it is worth the time and money to apply to hypsm and CalTech, since I probably don't even have a 20% chance of getting in. Do you guys think it is worth it?</p>
<p>Your scores are certainly within the range in which you will receive legitimate attention to your application. That said, the schools you have listed are the most selective in the country–thus, it’s going to be a crapshoot in any event. Is there anything else you can add by way of experience or nexus with the schools that can add to your profile?</p>
<p>I would still serious consider making application though-- my daughter had a similar gpa and rank, and an ACT a couple points lower, but still got into Yale. </p>
<p>@Wizard089 Thank you. I know I’m not a very good student relative to the average applicant pool, so I don’t want to waste money on a school I won’t get into to.</p>
<p>you grungy? it sounds like you flunked highschool and now you just roam the forums here to make other people who got extreme grades feel bad. Keep the negativity to yourself and shoo</p>
<p>@Unitize As if. Have you seen some of the admittance stats to HYPSM? Some of the most highly qualified students get rejected. I just want a realistic chance of getting into those schools so I don’t waste money and effort. Clearly, you’re the mediocre student here, if you don’t even know this much.</p>
<p>I’m just a freshmen at high school, I go to a top 100 high school in the nation so the course load is extremely rigourous. The school’s avg GPA is only about 3.6 so a 4 is extremely good.</p>
<p>@paul2752 Well, UCSD is definitely one of my top choices for Biomedical Engineering… I am also applying to UCI, UCLA, UCB… Though, those aren’t really safeties… Do you think I have a good shot at Cal Tech (if any)? Is it an advantage that I am female and applying for Engineering?</p>
<p>Female applying for engineering will give you some, but not big, boost It’s a pretty important thing for colleges(according to my ex-AP US Gov teacher) to get more female engineers.</p>
<p>UCSD may be a low match for you, and UCLA./UCB are matches in my opinion. On the other hand, Caltech is a reach to anyone, but I think you are a solid applicant. </p>
<p>@poorvi1 - a 20% chance of getting into HYPSMC is certainly a good reason to apply. You’ll be a competitive candidate for all of these schools. Your goal should be making sure you stand out from similar applicants, as most competitive applicants are not accepted to any one given school. Assuming you do a good job of standing out from the crowd, I would put your odds of getting into at least one of them at much greater than 20%. If you submit lackluster applications, then your odds are probably less.</p>
<p>Have you considered Harvey Mudd? It’s also tough to get into but it’s another top school that might suit you.</p>
<p>@BldrDad Well, thank you for the encouragement. Honestly, I’m not sure how I should stand out from the crowd. I have always felt like I am not a very unique individual. </p>
<p>Caltech is kind of quirky in their admissions, so you want a guarantee that Caltech will admit you but the only one who can tell you that is Caltech. </p>
<p>What I see missing from your app is sports. Kids who play sports have to maintain a good balance of their activities and their coursework, along with the toughness of sports discipline-it’s a time management balance. Caltech is trying to reinforce getting their students “moving” by having them participate in sports while on-campus.</p>
<p>My son was admitted to Caltech and is currently a freshman. There were 248 students admitted from the worldwide base of applicants, and a number of his female classmates are engineering majors. </p>
<p>His AP scores and grades were a little higher than yours but he also had sports and Boy Scouts. We were told later, that his essay was extremely good.<br>
You should apply, but you have to remember that the tough schools are all a crapshoot. Don’t set your heart on one school.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if your school has a different semester/quarter grade system, but how do you have a 4.67 weighted GPA with only 5 ap’s, assuming you got all A’s. I took 8 AP’s, only one B for one semester, and I have a 4.56ish. </p>
It’s a pretty important thing for colleges(according to my ex-AP US Gov teacher) to get more female engineers.</p>
</p>