How should I go on about from here? (CHANCE ME!)

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hello Everyone! My name is Joshua and I’m currently a Sophomore attending an American School in Taipei.

While I’m not in my Junior or Senior years yet, I figured that I should probably have someone do a reality check on me and see what I can do to improve my chance of being admitted into an elite university. Please take a look at some of my specs below and tell me what I can improve on.

I also listed my dreams and goals, to give a bit of insight on what I want to be in the future.

[Background Information]

Nationality: Korean
Dad’s Korean, Mom’s Japanese

School Location: Taipei

School Type: International / American

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[Academics]

GPA (Sophomore):
Unweighted: 3.58 - 3.71
Weighted: 3.92 - 4.08
Midterms are coming up and at best (as listed above) I can achieve a 3.71 Unweighted and at worst it’d be a 3.58
2 AP Classes, 2 Honors Classes, rest are regular

GPA (Freshman):
Unweighted/Weighted: 3.42
I took no Honors or AP classes last year.

PSAT/SAT:
(Just took the PSAT recently, scores will be released in 5 days.)

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[EC + Achievements]

I don’t really have a lot of EC nor do I have any flashy Achievements during the span of my Lower, Middle, or Upper School Career, so I really want to build on it starting this year (Currently a Sophomore).

EC
Baseball (Started Freshmen Year)
FRC (Starting Sophomore Year)
MUN (Starting Sophomore Year)
Service Club (Started Freshmen Year, I climbed my ranks from a normal Member to President)
Game and Program Development (This is just something I do for fun, thought I do plan on entering competition next year and if possible, this year. PLEASE if anyone knows some good competition I can sign-up online, hit me up.)
Comp Sci Team (Plan on Joining Junior Year)
AI Club (Plan on Joining Junior Year)
Game Development Club (Plan on Creating Junior Year)

Achievements
None.

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[Dreams + Goals]

A lot of people have these kinds of questions so I’ll answer them now.

I want to Major in Computer Science, and if that’s not possible I’d want to major in Political Science (Or something similar to Politics).

I have tried to be as flexible with my options when I was younger, and now I’ve reached a point where I want to take two paths. One, is through Comp Sci. and the other is through Politically Related Majors.

Places I WILL Apply (I don’t really care if I don’t have a chance or not, I will make sure they recognize me and hopefully, get accepted)

PRINCETON AND ONLY PRINCETON.

I do have other universities in mind like Cornell, McGill, Seoul National University, Kaist, so and so on, but all of these are far off from my main Goal.

Now that I’ve said all that, is it alright if anyone could give me advice and some recommendations on what I should do on here on out? Like take the SAT early, or improve my EC and achievements to make me look more “Unique”?

Anything will be helpful

Thanks for spending some of your time going through all of that!

2

It is good to plan and think ahead.
-Take your first standardized tests by November or December of junior year, then you will be able to better gauge yourself with respect to other applicants.
-Your grades are tracking upward; keep up the good work.
-You said that you have no achievements, but you have worked in the service club, right? Princeton values “In Service of Humanity” and “living purposeful lives” to “build community connections” (paraphrasing from Princeton’s webpage). Continue earnestly with the service club and reflect on questions, such as, How have you served? What have you learned from serving others? How have serving others enriched your life? How will you serve others through your knowledge in say, computer science or political science?
-Perhaps find out if there is a Princeton alumni organization in Taipei and contact them for their experience about Princeton. There must also be students from Taiwan at Princeton, see if you can contact them and ask for their advice.

Do pursue your dreams and aim high; however, do understand that the chance of failing to get into Princeton is around 95%.

3

Joyful Prince,
I have one more comment. Considering your background, I wonder, in addition to English and computer languages, if you can converse in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or other languages? If so, do explore using your knowledge in languages to help shape your application.

4

If you’re aiming for schools like Princeton and Cornell, ECs only matter after the student demonstrates superior standardized test scores and GPA. ECs add on to superior stats, they don’t replace or excuse inferior stats. Without the superior stats, a student could have fantastic ECs, and no chance of admissions.

According to their Common Data Set, the average UW HS GPA of admitted first year students to Princeton last year was 3.90 with 87.1% having a GPA of 3.75 - 4.00.

SAT score range 25th/75th percentile was: 1440/1570

First, get your GPA up. Second, get great SAT scores. Then, and only after you have the first two covered, worry about your ECs.

5

If you want to have a realistic (ie, at least 1%) chance at acceptance to Princeton or Cornell then you are going to need to get your GPA up quite a bit. You need to be striving for A’s and A+'s. Half A’s and half B’s will not do it.

The acceptance rate at Princeton is less than 5%. The acceptance rate for international students is probably less than half that. Being Asian will not help you at all. However, probably close to 80% of the applicants to Princeton are academically qualified to attend.

Your chances at McGill are probably a lot higher than at Princeton or Cornell (for example being Asian will not hurt you at McGill). You junior year of high school will matter a lot for McGill, and you will need to have a lot more A’s than B’s to get in there also. One plus is that your freshman year will not matter at all at McGill (which is good since 3.42 is not enough for any of these schools). Also, your chances of staying in Canada after graduating McGill are a lot better than your chances of staying in the US after graduating from Princeton or Cornell. However, you will need to get your unweighted GPA up as much as you can.

There are other schools in both the US and Canada that you can attend with an unweighted GPA around about 3.5 as long as you are okay being full pay. In most cases they will not be famous nor highly ranked, but will be good schools. “Full pay” will of course vary some between the US versus Canada, and between schools.

6

I’m curious. Why only Princeton?

Personally, I think kids get too wrapped up in ONE school. And, too wrapped up in thinking Ivies are the only way to go. I would seriously think about the environment you want to be in, and more importantly, where you could do well. At a top school, that admits only top students, the rigor will be very high. Are you prepared for that and interesting in living in that environment for at least 4 years?

7

Ahahaha.

It seems I have exaggerated a bit too much on the “ONLY PRINCETON” part.

Like I mentioned before, I have found interest in two fields which are completely different from one and another. Computer Science and Political Science. I just can’t find myself to choose one over the other. I know I will have to choose eventually and I probably will by the end of Junior Year. From what I know (please correct me if I’m wrong) Princeton is well known for their Humanities and such. While this is the case, Princeton also offers Computer Science and you can declare it as your major. It’s kind of hard to explain and sorry if you’re getting a bit confused by reading what I wrote here but, right now I’m really indecisive. I’m not sure which route to take on in the future and I’m still thinking hard about what do about it. If I was dead set on going through Computer Science let’s say, I would probably have wrote a different thread and ask others about the schools that are more focused on Computer Science, Engineering, Robotics, etc. Like Carnegie Melon, I did consider this school for a bit, but I later came to realize that if I ever wished to change major midway through (which is probably not good), I’d probably have to transfer to another school.

Sorry if the paragraph was hard to read above, let me try to sum it up in a few words.

I wanted a school which offered the courses I was interested in majoring in the future. I thought Princeton would be a good place to learn, whether it’s through the Political or Computer Sciences. And I am aware of the big obstacles I must be able to overcome, such as raising my GPA, and receive good SAT scores but yeah.

Sorry this was hard to read, even I’m having trouble reading what I read. It’s just kind of hard to explain I guess.

8

Okay! Thank you!

9

Places where you can major in CS and a liberal arts discipline? Princeton is very, very far from the only answer to that question.

You could do that at most research universities and a significant number of liberal arts colleges. Some have elaborate distribution requirements, inflexible prerequisites or oversubscribed classes that can make a late change of major difficult, but keep in mind that a minority of college students graduate having majored in the field they intended at the time they were applying to college.

10

If you are not an American citizen, needing financial aid can be a huge issue at some schools. Princeton is one of a handful of schools need blind to international students. Still, what they think you should pay and what your parents are willing and able to pay, may not be in concert. You should run some Net price calculators because you do need to show ability to pay to get a student visa .

What will be of great importance here is what your school’s record is in terms of students applying and going to Princeton and like schools. If your school is known to Princeton, and your grades are in line with past students accepted from there , along with ECs commensurate with yours, you have a better chance than applying from an unknown entity with less than perfect grades and being the very top of your class. Your test scores are going to be very important in the process When you take the tests as long as they meet deadlines isn’t going to matter. I don’t remember whether SAT2 tests are recommended or required.

Princeton’s single digit accept rate makes it a lottery ticket school for most anyone as are other schools that selective. Without some hook in there, like development , legacy, celebrity, recruited athlete , Underrepresented country or ethnicity, your chances are even lower than those published as such applicants are in the mix.