Chance me for HYPS

enaword
Sat, 11 May 2019 04:42:51 +0000

Demographics: East Asian, female, upper middle class, competitive public school in California

Intended Major: not sure–depends on which college I get into, I guess. But I’m considering comparative literature or some major that’s a mix of history and literature.

GPA: UW: 3.93/4.00; W: 4.61/4.00 (if colleges recalculate it, my GPA will definitely be lower, since my school doesn’t consider + or - grades).

SAT: 1600. World: 800; Math II: 800; Physics: 780.

I got a C+ first semester AP Calc BC and B+s both semesters of AP Bio. I was able to get an A- in second semester AP Calc BC, but still. Yikes. I also took History and Philosophy at my community college as a rising sophomore, but ended with a B in Philosophy. I’m thinking that my grades will be a weak part of my application.

APs: 5s in Human Geo, Calc BC, French, Bio, World, US, Lang, Stats, Physics, Psych, Art History. 4s in APES, AP Chem. Will be taking APCS, AP Macro, AP Gov, AP Lit senior year.

Awards: YoungArts honorable mention in writing; Scholastic Gold and Silver medal (along with an array of gold keys); Foyle commended poet; placed in Princeton’s poetry contest; three silver bids to TOC for PF; qualified to nationals for quiz bowl twice; NMSF; generic AP scholar stuff

Extracurriculars:

founder and editor-in-chief of a national lit mag (11-12)

poetry editor for two other international literary magazines (10-12)

had poetry published in three lit mags, with more forthcoming

secretary (11) and president (12) of our school’s writer’s ensemble–hosted workshops for students who want to get better at both creative and academic writing, and also help produced a school literary journal

literature research with a UC professor (11)

writing and misc. academic tutor for other classmates (11-12)

will be interning (unpaid) at a law firm (12)

member of debate team (9), varsity mentor (10), captain (11-12)

placed pretty high at debate tournaments (first speaker multiple times and broke at several big tournaments)

founded Speech and Debate club at a local middle school, developed and taught original curriculum for 40+ students (10-12)

member of quiz bowl (9), vice president (10, 12), president (11)

volunteering: teach English as a second language at a senior residence home (10-12, will have ~80 hours)

Mock Trial member (9, 11-12), placed first for my role regionally in 9th and 11th grade

founded linguistics club (11) and made it to open round of NACLO

will be giving a TED talk to incoming freshman beginning of senior year

selected for my school’s We the People team, which has historically done very well (top 5 nationally for the last few years, I think), for next year

Schools: Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, UCs (all of them, from Berkeley/LA to UC Merced), Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Oxford. Yes, I do have safeties in mind; they’re just not listed.

I’m in love with Princeton–the campus, the writing department, the location, the culture. Would applying SCEA give my application any bit of a boost, or should I just wait for RD?