<p>I made a post earlier, but I’ve beefed up my stuff, and so I’m back.
So: </p>
<p>User Name: sriharifez
Gender: M
Ethnicity: Sri Lankan (if don’t know where Sri Lanka is, go look on a map)
College Class Year: 2008
High School: Public
High School Type: rarely (like really rarely) sends grads to top schools
Will apply for financial aid: Yes</p>
<p>Academics:</p>
<p>GPA - Unweighted: 3.98
GPA - Weighted: (school doesnt weight)
Class Rank: top 9%
Class Size: 297</p>
<p>Scores:
(Sat scores are predicted)
SAT I Math: 800
SAT I Critical Reading: 710
SAT I Writing: 740
ACT: 32
SAT II Math Level 2 (IIC): 780
AP Calc AB-5
AP Calc BC-Yet to take (prob a 5)
AP Phys C Mech and E&M-Yet to take (prob a 4 or 5)
AP Gov’t-Yet to take (prob a 5)</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
-AMC 10 2006 1st in state (score : 114)
-Wyoming State Math Contest (either first place or second place for five years)
-Baseball-Traveling team (I would consider it Varsity level)
-Tennis-JV
-Swimming-JV and V
-Track-JV
-Coaching Little League this summer
-Member of Society of Physics Students (at the university)
-Member of American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)
-Summer Research Apprenticeship Program 2006 (a program at the University of Wyoming where I studied Computational Relativity)
-Amateur Jeweler</p>
<p>Junior classes(this year):
-AP Gov’t
-Chemistry 1
-Intro to Art
-Writers Workshop (sem1) and Survey of Fiction (sem2)
University classes:
-Foundations of Geometry (Fractals and Projective Planes) (semester 1)
-Classical Mechanics (Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics, not the easy stuff) (semester 2)
-Physics 2
-AP Physics C-Mech and EM-Ind. Study
-AP Calculus BC-Ind. Study</p>
<p>Planned Senior Classes:
note: college classes are dual enroll at University of Wyoming.
-AP English Lit
-Advanced Art
College Classes:
-Calculus 3
-Applied Differential Equations
-Linear Algebra (stuff like eigenvectors and calc based matrices)
-Circuits and Systems w/Lab</p>
<p>Okay here are my prospective in order of preference schools:
1)Caltech
2)MIT
3)Princeton
4)Harvey Mudd
5)Carnegie Mellon
6)Cornell
7)Brown
8)Stanford
9)Yale
10)Harvard
11)UC Berkeley
12)UCLA
13)UCSD</p>
<p>You are top 9% at a non competitive and have uneceptional ECs. Most of your list is totally unrealistic. AMC is nice but can’t make up for the rest.</p>
<p>I’m more optimistic about your chances than Bobby is (as I think I said in another thread). Are you a U.S. citizen? If you don’t have to compete with the international pool, I’d expect you to get some offers. Your advanced coursework is terrific. And the ECs aren’t bad for a math person.</p>
<p>1)Caltech - Reach
2)MIT - Reach
3)Princeton - Reach
4)Harvey Mudd - Match
5)Carnegie Mellon - Low Match
6)Cornell - Match/Low Match
7)Brown - Slight Reach
8)Stanford - Reach
9)Yale - Reach
10)Harvard - Reach
11)UC Berkeley - Low Match
12)UCLA - Low Match
13)UCSD - Safety</p>
<p>However, even though HYPS are reaches, as are Brown, MIT, and CIT, being from Wyoming will help. Most of these schools look for some geographic balance and qualified applicants from Wyoming are few and far between. If you score as predicted on your SATs (and maybe push you class rank up a bit, if you can) my bet is you’ll get into at least a couple of these schools.</p>
<p>I say all the Ivies and Ivy calibur schools are reachs, and all other ones are matches. I tihnk the fact tha you;re from WWY will help. There’s almost no one there.</p>
<p>I suggest getting your professional certification in jewelry and joining your state guild. That’s what I did; it pays off because you can get work as a jeweler and also improve your craft.</p>
<p>Being from Wyoming will help you, as others pointed out. But I would make sure that for OOS the UCs you mentioned care if you are from an under-represented state; I am not at all certain they would care. If they don’t, you may have tougher time than people here realize (I would gladly be contradicted by someone who knows more) at the UCs. And if that is the case, you had better add in some other schools that are clear matches or safeties.</p>
<p>Other UCs in order of my preference not prestige or difficulty (with my commentary):</p>
<p>UCSB (great location in Santa Barbara near the beach, good academically if you can concentrate in such an idyllic environment, if I think it’s easier to get into than the others you mentioned)
UC Davis (wholesome, good school nearish to Sacramento)
UC Santa Cruz (beautifully situated hippie school about 1 1/2 or 2 from SFO)
UC Irvine (solid, don’t know it that well)
UC Riverside (don’t know it)
UC Merced (new campus, don’t know it)</p>
<p>I would think all of these would easier to get into than the other 3 UCs you picked, with the exception of Davis (I think) that I believe is on a par in terms of entry with UCSD (correct me, people, if I’m wrong). I believe that there is a lot of uniformity between different UCs in terms of their application. So the incremental difference would be the app fee.</p>
<p>Pretty much all UCs have decent profs. The question is the relative quality of the student body, IMO.</p>
<p>I think some of you are undercutting his achievements. With an unweighted 3.9 and over a 2250(assuming he hits that mark), he’ll likely have decent chances at some of those schools, if not the best ones.</p>