Some good news here: I talked to my counselor just now and they might be able to let me retake the first semester of physics and completely wipe away the initial grade because of the abuse I suffered from the teacher. I anticipate that this will help me tremendously if I get an A and my transcript will be much cleaner. Hopefully they make this happen. so a couple of b’s in spanish, and 2 b’s in math and history probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but nevertheless i’ll still have the disadvantage of a crappy gpa.
So the thing here is that my grades have typically been very good and I’m taking the most rigorous courses available. So it was a blip semester and I hope they’ll see that. My gpa is definitely well below average for many of these programs, but I’m hoping they’ll see that these 5 months were atypical for me. No idea about rank since my school doesn’t give it. However, there is very heavy grade inflation so I’d assume top 7-9%.
My parents think 2 years at cc and then transferring to Berkeley on the tag program is better than 4 years at ucsc, ucr, or ucm. i’m above the average stats for uci, ucd, ucsb, and ucsd (not engineering), so getting in probably shouldn’t be too big of a deal. My ACT score is above average of UCB and UCLA as is my weighted gpa, probably about average for engineering, but it’s my gpa that’s pulling me down since it’s below average even for L&S.
@lookingforward I understand how tough it is to gain admissions to selective schools. I feel like my profile stands a solid shot in every respect except my gpa and crappy grades this semester. I fear that this is a reason for them to throw me out in the first round. The B’s and C this semester greatly stand out and put an inescapable stain on my application. But the C could end up going away. And I have next semester.
@milee30 @lookingforward I know my ec’s might sound a bit disorganized. Perhaps I conveyed them pretty poorly. I think I just listed everything and a couple of these I only do for like an hour a week and probably won’t include them. Quizbowl was just freshman year. My main things are computer science and social entrepreneurship. I’m making a portfolio of my computer science projects and getting videos from my robotics team which I plan to submit. Maybe 5-10 quality projects in total. Also, I’ll have done two related research papers (currently doing parallel computing and plan on doing computational genetics this summer) with professors which I’ll also include. I’m going to submit them to siemens and Intel in the fall. For the internships, I’ll get letters of rec from my supervisors to discuss my results. As for the startup, we’re creating it for some competitions and making the products and websites. I might be able to get a patent for the product. I don’t plan to get any massive sales, but I’m learning through the process and building the foundations. I’m also a leader in some clubs so I can show leadership experience. Debate is my non stem thing and probably takes up 4 hours per month. Also, would you consider taking online courses in my areas of interest to be quality ec’s? On a related thought, I might have some additional accolades from the more test like competitions like AIME qualification, USACO gold, and USAPHO semifinalist. Competitive programming is something I do and I’m ranked at around the 90th percentile on some of these sites, but would you say that demonstrates potential or results? So, would you consider these results competitive for these schools? What suggestions would you make for improving these and targeting them to these schools? Do I need to win any major awards which I have a .1% of winning, or can my portfolio and papers do results? The spike I’m trying to develop is being a technologist with a social impact.
The 5 schools listed in the title are the places I’m truly aiming for and want to put my attention there. I do feel I fit the hacker/entrepreneurial culture of those. I also follow AO’s on twitter.