<p>I am an African-American female at an urban public highschool (in the gifted magnet) in Los Angeles but I am from an upper middle class family. My stats are:</p>
<p>Academics:
-GPA
<em>unweighted 3.95
*weighted 4.2
*UC weighted 4.4
-ranked in top 2% out of 990 (15th)
-mostly A's with the exception of two B's (in SPanish freshman year and an indepedent study life skills class)
-SAT I
*first time: 1340 (680v, 660m)
*second time: 2250 (790m,790v,670w)
-SATII
*Biology: 730
*US History 770
*will take math 2c
-APs
*Spanish 2 (oops)
*US History 5
*Eurpean history 5
*Biology 5
*English Literature 4
*to be taken:
*</em>AP Calculus AB
*<em>AP Economics (will take two AP tests)
*</em>AP Psychology
*<em>AP Government (will take two AP tests)
*</em>AP English Composition
-Honors filled the rest of my schedule with the exception of Spanish (not offered in honors) and my PE classes</p>
<p>ECs
-captain of the soccer team 2 years (only freshman on varsity since freshman year)
-Jack and Jill (cultural/service organization)
*member since age 9
*treasurer 2 years
*parlimentarian 1 year
-Science Bowl
*on team 3 years
*captain 2 years
-member California Honor Society
-member California Scholarship Federation
-Mentor 3 years</p>
<p>Summers:
-before 9th grade Traveled through Europe playing with soccer team
-before 10th grade Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth summer program in Maryland
-before 11th grade UC COSMOS summer program at UC Davis
-Before 12th grade
*job as office clerk 2 days a week
*internship at USC Keck School of Medicine assisting with research 3 days a week</p>
<p>Volunteering- 250 hours
-Test Sucess Tutoring underpriveleged youth
-Cooking for homeless
-Ronald McDonald House
-many small projects with Jack and Jill
-Mentoring (3 years)</p>
<p>Awards Received
-national merit commended student
-national acheivement commended student (as of now)
-Who's Who Among American Highschool Students (know it doens't count for much)
-Second All-League Soccer team (2 years)</p>
<p>What could I do this year to increase my chances of getting in and set myself apart?</p>
<p>I'd say you're in everywhere but that Yale/Harvard are not a given (because they aren't for anyone). Yale is the most selective school in the country.</p>
<p>To increase your chances, make sure you get recommendations that tell about the personal side of you. Perhaps ask teachers whose classes you didn't do best in, but who know you the best personally. And add the optional 3rd recommendation if you can find a non-teacher who knows you and your work ethic, personality, etc very well and can attest to it. </p>
<p>You have excellent academic credentials but you have to make yourself sound interesting and different (through your recommendations and of course your personal essay) in order to cement your chances.</p>
<p>Oh, so posterx Yale/Harvard are reaches for everyone but somehow princeton, duke and stanford aren't? That is illogical on your part and invalidates the first part of your post. The second half is worthy advice however, but I don't think pton or stanford will be a breeze. (I know you are agitated princeton is ranked number 1, but please don't disseminate lies via CC)</p>
<p>Prefontaine, in the Princeton Review's ranking of the "best overall academic experience for undergraduates", Princeton does not make the list of the top 20. Yale is the only Ivy League school to even be included on this list (all the other schools are liberal arts colleges with small enrollments). Everyone has different rankings but the bottom line is that the best school is the one that's best for you.</p>
<p>Now, from my personal experience, Harvard, Yale and MIT are the three hardest schools in the country to get into. Other rankings seem to agree with me. Northwestern, Duke, Princeton, Tulane, Stanford, etc. are also hard to get into but Harvard/Yale/MIT are by far the most selective. And based on the original poster's record, I think she has a great shot at every school but H/Y are going to be a 50/50.</p>
<p>Only 192 African-Americans nationwide scored 1450 on the old SAT in 2003. The OP's new score is the equivalent of a 1500, which would place her in the top 100 AA students on the SAT in the United States. This year, Harvard alone admitted approximately 175 African-American students, of which roughly 140 are attending.</p>
<p>Posterx, you are simply wrong. So now we use Princeton Review's rankings as the legitimate source of school news? I think that is a farce, but hey if you want to play by rankings I will too. Princeton is designated the 3rd toughest school to get into by Princeton Review, and is in the top 10 and 20 of more categories than Yale. Also, there is a little magazine that publishes rankings and is known as the default rankings in America. While I'm not deeply in love with it, it goes by the name of USNEWS and it has Princeton and Harvard at number 1. So, unless you enjoy your ignorance you can't claim yale to be "by far more selective."</p>
<p>As an addendum to my previous post, Atlantic Monthly last year placed Princeton at number 2 only behind MIT with Yale finishing in a dismal position. So stop the lies. Your alumni have lied to me enough the past few years.</p>
<p>Prefontaine, all I said is there are many so called "rankings", that place Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Princeton or other schools in various positions #1, #3, #5, whatever. The Atlantic Monthly rankings you refer to put MIT, Caltech, Princeton and Yale at the top, with Harvard #5.</p>
<p>David Brooks even came out with his own ranking, and said Yale is the best university in America (and he's a UChicago alum - so should I claim that USNWR shows a bias because their editors are Princeton alums?)</p>
<p>But the selectivity statistics don't lie. I invite people to interpret them for themselves, and I gave my opinions on them already.</p>
<p>Princeton Review's got it Carleton, followed by a tie among Amherst, Pomona, Smith, and Haverford, for combined academic quality/quality of campus life. Harvard and Yale are not in the top 10. Dartmouth and Princeton barely.</p>