<p>Hi everyone, I’m a Cornell EDer, but my number one choice for college is UPenn, and I was thinking about doing RD just as a “hail-mary” application if I get the bad news today at 5:00pm. I never really considered myself to be an Ivy League-level competitive student, but my peers suggested I might as well give it a shot. I know my chances are extremely slim if even existent at all, but I’d like to hear some feedback just for the sake of my own curiosity.</p>
<p>First off, I come from a fairly poor family; my mother is a single parent of three children (including me) and we’ve been struggling financially for as long as I can remember. When I heard about the Ivy League’s insane new FA program, I was both excited and heartbroken because I had always planned to just enroll in the local state university, and had accordingly skimped on my academics to a small degree accordingly. Family issues arose that caused me to become depressed during my junior year (which I wrote about in my essay), and my grades declined partially due to that. But as many great people before us have said, it’s better to have tried and lost than to never have tried at all, so I might as well see if it’s at least worth the effort. Here’s my resume:</p>
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<p>Korean-American male; 1st generation born in America; born & residing in Ohio
I attend a fairly competitive school; we certainly have a lot of smart people, but we’re not elite or anything</p>
<p>GPA weighted: just slightly over 4.0
GPA unweighted: about 3.6~3.7
My class rank was not reported, but I just barely fell out of the top 10% during my junior year (which upset me quite a bit later on)</p>
<p>freshman year I did pretty much nothing except a few basic honors classes that were offered
sophomore year was pretty much the same; could have taken AP US History but was intimidated out of it (later my history teacher told me I should have taken the AP course)
junior year I took AP World History, AP Lang, and AP Biology
senior year I’m taking AP Chem, Latin Literature (AP Latin wasn’t offered this year; our school alternates between the two courses each year), AP Calculus AB, AP Environmental Science (thought it’d be a nice blow-off class; oh how wrong I was), AP Literature, and AP Gov.</p>
<p>SAT:2150 first time, 2210 second time (720 Critical Reading, 740 Writing, 750 Math)
SAT II: 740 Math I, 760 Biology-E (unfortunately I was sort of emotionally unstable that day because of something unrelated, and since I took it several months after I took AP Bio, I think I may re-take them in January)
ACT: 33 (I don’t remember my subject scores for sure, but I think they were 31 Math (lol), 33 English, 35 Reading, 34 Science, 8 essay (terrible, I know)
AP exams (it’s a miracle; I barely studied for these):
Biology: 5
English Language & Composition: 5
World History: 5</p>
<p>Extracurriculars, et al:
volunteer at the hospital (150+ hours) -11th, 12th
summer volunteer at the library - 10th (maybe 9th, I can’t seem to keep my summers
straight, but I made sure I got the year on my Common App)
summer Vacation Bible School volunteer teacher at Korean Church of Columbus - 9th, 10th
Korean Church of Columbus Youth Group senior officer - 12th
tennis team - 9th, 12th (sort of 11th as well, but I didn’t put it on the app since I wasn’t
technically officially on the team)
Latin Club - 10th, 11th, 12th
Japanese Club - 11th (I was sort of a guest)
National Honor Society - 12th (didn’t apply as a junior)</p>
<p>*I really wish I could have taken more after-school activities and summer programs, but money/rides were a big issue. I suppose there’s really nothing I can do to remedy that, though.</p>
<p>Honors, Awards:
AP Scholar
National Merit Semifinalist
local Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Competition - Honorable Mention/3rd place (11th grade)
National Latin Examination Silver Medalist (10th grade)
Academic Plus Pin award (12 consecutive quarters on honor roll)</p>
<p>My essay’s not all that bad, based on the response I got from those whom I asked to read it.</p>
<p>One of my teacher recommendation’s quite specific to her class I was in, but overall it is very good and supportive (maybe even too much, haha), and the other is very well-rounded and fairly typical for a rec letter for an honors student, and is generally quite supportive as well.</p>
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<p>And that’s… pretty much all I could think of. I know my odds can’t be great, but do I have a chance at all? Please give it to me straight; I can take it. I had never even dreamed of attending an Ivy League school, so it’s not the end of the world if my chances are like 0.00001%.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot! ^_^</p>
<p>(P.S. Those Dartmouth ED results are downright intimidating… O_o;; )</p>