Hi guys,
I am gonna go ahead and list my stats and all, but I just wanna say that I would REALLY appreciate it if you guys could tell me which part of my resume that I should spend the most time improving.
Location: Small town in south Texas
Ethnicity/Race: Hispanic (also first generation college student, parents didn’t even finish middle school)
Parent’s income: 60,000-70,000$
Gender: Male
Intended Major: Neuroscience/Psychology
GPA: 4.5 (W) 3.8 (UW) (all high A’s except for 1 lousey C in Dual Credit College Algebra)
Class rank: 2/84 (very small school)
SAT: 1930, 570(M) 680(W) 680(CR) (Will DEFINITELY improve Math score a bunch in Oct SAT, but my peak seems to be a high 2000/low 2100)
SAT II: Lit (680) USH (680) Math 2 (700) (Taken pre-study, will shoot for 750+)
ACT: didnt do, wont do
APs: APWH - 4, APUSH - 4, AP Lit - 5, AP Lang 4, AP Calc - 4, AP Physics 1 - 3, AP Stats - 4
Senior Schedule: AP Chem, AP Spanish, Dual Credit Govt/Economics
Will be taking Psychology and Literature classes at a local LAC since my school does not offer Psych (the Lit one is for fun) and I will be allowed to leave at noon everyday from school since I have exhausted my school’s list of APs/credits
ECs:
Waiter at a local mexican restaurant (work 23 hours a week, been working there since freshman year, hours vary from 18 to 40 a week)
Member of the UIL Journalism team
Member of the UIL Social Studies team
Member of the UIL Literary Criticism team
Officer of Student Council (2 years)
Officer of NHS (1 year)
Officer of Spanish Club (2 years)
Officer of Class of 2016 (4 years)
Volunteer at the State Hospital Mental Health Clinic (help with therapy activities and shadow doctors)
Volunteer at the local Veteran’s Hospital
Probably about 100ish hours of service hours total.
Awards:
Top student in Pre-AP Algebra
Top student in Pre-AP Geometry
Top student in Pre-AP English 2
Top student in AP English 3
Top student in AP World History
Top student in Pre-AP World Geography
Top student in Speech
1st place out of 12~ UIL District News Writing
2nd place out of 12~ UIL District Editorial Writing
1st place out of 15~ UIL District Literary Criticism
3rd place out of 20~ UIL Region Literary Criticism
12th out of 38 in UIL State Literary Criticism
National Hispanic Merit Scholar (GPA meets requirements/got a 205 PSAT)
National Commended Scholar
AP Scholar w/ Distinction
Safety: Texas at Austin
Reach: Rice, Vandy, Dartmouth
Will have 2 recs from my favorite English teacher and Math teacher who have given recommendations for me before. (English teacher is super honest and straight business who has seen the best of my work ethic/abilities, while Math teacher is a wacky PH.D who knows my personality and can be a bit more personal.)
Pretty mediocre ECs and such, but frankly there aren’t a huge amount of opportunities or organizations out here that I can find, but I’ll do my best with what resources I have available.
I will have plenty of free time for the next few months until college apps so I will try to do the best I can studying for SAT/IIs and looking for opportunities in my very small rural community. What should I improve on and do I have a shot at schools in the top 20?
An interesting tid bit I should add is that two year’s ago (class of 2014) had the the top 3 out of 60 get accepted to Rice, which is what began my interest in Rice/top 20 schools since I was resigned to my fate as an auto-admit to UT Austin (had a 171 PSAT that year) before I realized that Rice was a possibility. AFAIK the 1/60 and 3/60 were NMSF with SATs in the high 2000/low 2100s and decent club activity/part time jobs. The 2/60 had a 2150 SAT but was not a NMSF and did not really have much besides maybe 1 club officer position and a few activities here and there. None were URM (URMs in the top 3 are not really that common at my school despite my town being like 50% Hispanic) and it just seemed really odd to me that 3 people in the same class without significant ECs/2200+ SATs were accepted to Rice, especially considering pretty much every year the top 3 go to state universities, with only 1 student ever going to an Ivy League school (some kid in 04-06 that went to Harvard) in the history of the school. The truth is, my school does not produce a lot of really great talent, with maybe 1 or 2 students cracking a 2000 on the SAT every 3 years or so, and all of them being white (before the class of 2014, the class of 2010 had a girl who was 1/90~ and cracked a 2k SAT. She was accepted to schools like Rice and UC Berkley.) That being said… chances? improvements?