Your thoughts on my chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a high school senior currently enrolled in a public high school of approximately 1500-1600 students in a suburb of Portland, OR. My previous three years of high school I attended a public high school in the Central Texas area of approximately 2000 students. I was rank 1/461 when attending my previous school.</p>

<p>Colleges I have applied to:
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Pepperdine.</p>

<p>General info:
Male
Asian American
Currently living in Oregon</p>

<p>Tests:
SAT I - 1600
Presidential Scholar nominee (1 of approx. 2600 in nation...)
SAT II - Writing: 800, Math IIC: 800, Chemistry: 800
National Merit Finalist
Four "5's" on AP tests - APUSH, AP Stats, AP Eng Lang and Comp, AP Chem -> AP Scholar with Honor</p>

<p>School:
GPA (UW): 4.0, weighted is really quite irrelevant
Rank: 1/371, whether weighted or unweighted
Currently taking four more AP courses, including AP Bio...</p>

<p>Sports:
Played JV Tennis for my freshman and sophomore years in Texas, didn't get anything but 1st in district for boys' singles, then quit tennis to focus on other things.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
-Academic Team for my HS in Texas for three years, served as treasurer, went to State competition in Science and Social Studies, won 6th place at State in SS.
-Did C/X Debate for three years, reached state competition my freshman year, other two years I was just pulled in at districts b/c someone lost a partner due to grades or other equally lame circumstance.
-USAD (Academic Decathlon), placed 1st at region in mathematics and second in essay writing... team didn't advance.
-Student Council - was a sophomore class representative (elected, 1/6 total)
-Tennis, already mentioned above.
-Science Bowl - participated this year, was an "All-Star", but our team did not advance when docked points in a tied round due to highly irregular proceedings out of our control (we should have contested it, in retrospect).</p>

<p>Member of/past member of... (clubs/organizations)
-NHS
-NFL (National Forensics League, not pro-football :P)
-German Club
-Amnesty Int'l Club
-Asian Awareness Club (haha)</p>

<p>Volunteer work/community service:
-Total of over 200 hours over the past two years (all documented)
-Volunteered at a hospital, an animal shelter, a library, and a museum
-Also tutor after school once a week</p>

<p>Job (only one ever):
-Tutoring</p>

<p>Awards:
-Presidential Scholar nominee
-National Merit Finalist
-AP Scholar with Honor
-All American Scholar Award
-Who's Who...
-Many other minor ones, etc.</p>

<p>Other:
-Published essay
-Published poem
-Won a visual arts contest freshman year</p>

2

<p>I wish I had a 1600, ya you have an amazing shot, you'll def. get into more than one of those schools. Your EC's are on the weaker side, I mean, you have no 1 strong EC. Are you East Asian?</p>

3

<p>In response to the weakness/lack of focus of ECs, I would say that it was purposeful because I was trying to diversify rather than focus (although some would prefer focus, I'm sure). And yes, I am East Asian in ancestry :)</p>

4

<p>Duke and JHU are a lock, hopefully one or two of HYPS will come through.</p>

5

<p>typical asian overachiever...nothing special, but amazing stats. I'm sure a top school will accept you- relax</p>

6

<p>Wow, Pepperdine seems like an outlier in that set...</p>

<p>Beautiful campus though, and a view to die for.</p>

7

<p>"typical asian overachiever...nothing special"</p>

<p>Sure, to many I would seem to be a "typical overachiever", but I assure you that those who know me know better. :)</p>

<p>"relax"</p>

<p>Definitely good advice. I laugh when other people are "freaking out" about college admissions... if they didn't apply to at least a few realistic schools they are asking for trouble... ;)</p>

8

<p>hmm what school do you go to, i used to live in West Linn</p>

9

<p>ScubaSteve87, I think you guessed correctly ;)</p>

10

<p>That's either the most beautiful record I've ever seen, or some kind of sick joke.</p>

<p>btw, you left out piano, violin, and cello (10 years)</p>

<p>or maybe it was too trivial</p>

11

<p>***????? Asian and no violin, piano, or cello????? Ok never mind, you're totally academically driven. whatever, are you female or male? (just wondering. i have have this innate predisposition to correlate uber smart people with asian males. cause it just seems to me(at least from what I've observed st my high-school)that asian females are less uptight than the males.</p>

12

<p>your a nerd</p>

13

<p>oops, never mind, i didn't really read yer post the first time just skimmed through it. i was right, yer male. anyway, where wasyer stuff published? school newsletter? cause dat wouldn' coun'. you should try writing a article for newsweek, dey always publish a my turn column dats written by the above average person or by overachievers like you. Dat said, you'll make it into of of hysm, as long as you don' make yerself seem like the personification og haughtiness or anything. btw, have you read of mice and men, i'm a sophomore and i just read the book and watched the movie for english class. great book and movie eh? I'm just sharing my opinion, cause everbody else in my class was making foundationless criticisms about da book and da movie.</p>

14

<p>LOL what is the "asian awareness club"</p>

15

<p>Dude you sound exactly like this kid i used to go to school with name Ben Ko, he was Asian and super smart, I could possibly see him turning out like you</p>

<p>If iyou are Ben, you are def lying</p>

16

<p>geez, i'm so stupid. bubblekid, yer a genius, he IS a nerd. Harvard doesn't like nerds, so you better watch out.</p>

17

<p>ariafrost, you have NO CHANCE anywhere. Your scores are abysmal and your GPA is so bad that it's funny. You need to start applying to Bob Jones University and the like. That school MIGHT be a reach for u tho.</p>

<p>BTW....im kidding</p>

18

<p>"That's either the most beautiful record I've ever seen, or some kind of sick joke.</p>

<p>btw, you left out piano, violin, and cello (10 years)</p>

<p>or maybe it was too trivial"</p>

<p>It is not a joke, happily enough for me.</p>

<p>BTW, I only played piano for two years, and then quit - because I'm practically tone deaf. Guitar is better anyways. ;)</p>

<p>"Dude you sound exactly like this kid i used to go to school with name Ben Ko, he was Asian and super smart, I could possibly see him turning out like you</p>

<p>If iyou are Ben, you are def lying"</p>

<p>Let me highlight some of the adjectives you used to describe Ben Ko (who happens to be in my AP Bio class) - you used the words "super smart". I beg to differ. He barely gets along in AP Bio and often simply skips to avoid tests... He portrays himself as an intelligent slacker, but in reality he is nothing more than a slacker... no comparison to me is possible.</p>

<p>"anyway, where wasyer stuff published? school newsletter? cause dat wouldn' coun'"</p>

<p>My essay that was published was published in [The High School Writer], a nationally distributed classroom newspaper (or so they say). My poem was published in a book of poems of Texas high school students.</p>

<p>And Devil May Cry... LOL :)</p>

19

<p>I also attend West Linn. I'm not sure how long it has been since you've attended school with him, ScubaSteve87, but Ben Ko is certainly not a genius. After his sophomore year, his GPA collapsed (now 3.6 uw). Clearly, this was due to slacking, and that's his excuse for everything (lol... some excuse), but it illustrates an important point: he isn't quite intelligent enough to get by without some work. </p>

<p>For instance, his excuse for getting a 3 on the AP Physics exam (indeed, he's received a 3 on 4 out of 6 exams) was that he "slept in class the entire year". To me, this clearly shows that he isn't a genius, because I slept in the same class, during the same period, the entire year too (1st period... lol), and got a 5. He isn't anything spectacular at standardized tests either (a place where intelligent slackers normally show their brilliance); he wasn't a national merit semifinalist.</p>

20

<p>ariafrost, that comment about ben ko was interesting. People like to stereotype asians as being smart even if some of them aren't. Not that it bugs me, but people like to call asians and such smart just cause they try to outsmart the teacher, and get good marks on tests. True, the majority are def above average, but people don't realize that truly amazing asians and such are those that are passionate about learning and other stuff as well.(not just books) See, i have this kid in my class, his name's shiny somin or other, and these kids are like oh he's a genius cause he got 100% on one quiz and knows slightly more math than the rest of us cause he lerned it in his native country probably. And he brags too:"I don't study, i don't read, i still get 100, but i'm not THAT smart." Get over yerself kid. Don't get me wrong, he's nice enough, but he just cannot be classfied ain the same league as genius. He's NO EINSTEIN! </p>

<p>as for the standardized test comment, i half agree with it, some people are just bad test takers, but since it's impossible to study for those tests, it is a way for slackers to show their intelligence. Of course no one can ace tests without doing any work, but if one can do minimal work, and still achieve high marks and such, well then, they are a truly intelligent person. Not saying that intelligence is everything, but that is inherent intelligence for me. Those that stay home and study all night, well, they have manipulated intelligence that will only ever get them through high-school. Then there are the inherently unintelligent of course, but i'll leave them alone. Don't want to come across as mean or anything.</p>