<p>Academic Performance
GPA on 4 scale: 3.79 unweighted
Note: 8th grade (middle school) honors/accelerated courses have been included in the GPA as calculated by my high school for some reason
Class rank: TBA</p>
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<p>Testing
-SAT Math: 710 (Will retake and expect 750 or higher)
-SAT Critical Reading: 700 (Will retake and expect 730 or higher)
-SAT Writing: 770
-SAT II Physics: Expect 700 or higher
-SAT II Math II: Expect 750 or higher (Perhaps even 800)
-AP World History: 5
-AP Psychology: 5
-AP US History: 5
-AP English Language: 5
-AP English Literature: Will be taking senior year
-AP BC Calculus: Will be taking senior year
-AP US Government: Will be taking senior year
-AP Economics (Macro and Micro): Will be taking senior year
-AP Biology: Will be taking senior year
-All my other classes during high school have been honors class save for non-honors Spanish in 9th grade before transferring to honors Spanish once I got into 10th grade.</p>
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<p>Other Classes:
Math Research (9)
“Specially designed classes where students are taught topics that are not in the high school curriculum. Topics such as Mathematical Games, Graph Theory and Theory of Numbers are used. Students are also taught skills such as word processing, library research techniques and methods of interpreting data.” I finished with a 97 average and was chosen to participate in the Greater Metropolitan New York Math Fair.</p>
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<p>Extra-Curriculars
-Greater Metropolitan New York Math Fair (9)
-Fencing Team (11,12) - I started lessons under the school’s coach as a class in 10th grade.
-Key Club (10,11,12) - Active member with 150+ hours in 3 years.
-ARISTA Honor Society - Local NHS chapter (11,12)
-NY Blood Center Volunteer - (11,12) - I help advertise on the streets and direct people to the donation area.
-FBLA (11, early 12) but I decided it wasn’t the club for me so I left.
-Volunteer to help teach and watch children on Sundays at my church (11, 12)
-Ronald McDonald House Volunteer via Key Club (11,12)</p>
<p>Based on your stats, I’m pretty confident that you will get into some good schools.</p>
<p>That being said, I think CMU SCS is about a mid reach for you, or a low reach if you are able to get close to 800s on your Math SAT I and II. While the Math Research is cool and the stuff you learned in that class is the same type of material covered in Concepts of Mathematics and 251 here, because you didn’t pursue it past 9th grade it probably won’t help much. The rest of the ECs are pretty good, but I don’t think they’re quite enough for SCS, and don’t really show passion for math or CS.</p>
<p>To be honest (no offense!) I think this might be overanalyzing it a little bit.
There are lots of SCS students who didn’t have very targeted math/CS backgrounds for their applications (I’d be one of them, and I know plenty of people with zero CS experience before doing CS@CMU). If other extracurriculars look solid to the adcom and show the usual “passion, commitment, community service, accomplishment” traits, then you won’t be dinged for not looking like a typical SCS student. Honestly, that diversity ends up being a good thing for each freshman class, and it makes you look different as an individual.</p>
<p>I’d agree with the above analysis otherwise. For your extracurriculars, it’s really about how you frame them in the application. E.g. if you can convey that Key Club meant something to you, and show how you contributed to the org. as a while—and be able to say more than just “150+ hours”—it will seem stronger.</p>
<p>Personally, I feel my classes were intensive enough so I felt no need to pursue academic Extracurriculars. Rather, I preferred to focus on service and the like because I actually enjoy that more for extracurriculars.</p>