<p>Hey guys and gals, thanks for taking time to read through this.</p>
<li><p>Basics
Male, Asian, Junior, residing in California, upper middle class
Attending competitive high school, ~300 students each grade level
Applying to: All the UCs, but with great emphasis in UCLA, UCBerkeley
Majoring in Business or Economics, most likely also minor in music</p></li>
<li><p>Standardized Tests
SATI
First time: 2180- 720 CR, 780 Math, 680 W
Second time: 2100 (Ouch)- 670 CR, 730 Math, 700 W
Thankfully, UCs take the highest one-sitting score
Ambivalent about whether or not to take it a third time in the fall, probably not.</p></li>
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<p>SATII
Taking Math/Hist this week.
Expecting ~780 Math IIc, 700+ US History and Chinese (in fall)</p>
<li><p>Academics
Top 10% definitely
GPA (9-11 so far): Weighted- 4.229, Non-weighted- 3.971
GPA (10-11 so far): Weighted- 4.304, Non-weighted- 4.000
Honors classes: Geometry, Algebra 3-4, Pre-Calculus, United States History
AP Classes: None freshman/sophomore year.<br>
Statistics and Music Theory in Junior year. Took both exams as well as United States History AP. Awaiting score.
Note: My Senior year will be much more rugged than the years preceding it. Taking AP French, AP Calc B-C, AP Environmental Science, Honors English, AP US Government. I have not taken any other science APs because frankly I hate science intensely. My course selection is sort of challenging; I’ve taken most of the APs available so far except for English and the major sciences obviously.</p></li>
<li><p>Extra-curriculars
Here is where the extreme milking starts. START!
Piano (11 years so far), probably the only true passion of mine.
California’s Certificate of Merit Tests 8 and 10 (Honors)—Not that impressive
Panel Advanced Level—Only a bit impressive
Small, unimportant regional award. Tried countless of competitions, but never won; too little practice because of focus on academics.
Piano teacher (in reality to close friends and relatives, but I nonetheless teach them)
40 hours community service (hah, required to graduate, didn’t have a choice)
Working at hospital for 1 summer: this coming summer haha.
Misc. club membership: 2 years Key Club, Red Cross, and other forgettable school clubs
Wow in text it looks like a lot to me, but this whole block could have been reduced to one phrase: “piano…meh” My EC cows are totally dried up now.</p></li>
<li><p>Essays
I think I’ll have above-average essays, but nothing eye-popping spectacular. Probably writing on the death of my aunt who was my piano student for a long time, but not going to dwell on the subject, expanding it on broader terms, incorporating other ideas yadayada.</p></li>
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<p>I really hope to get into UCBerkeley, but more importantly my preference, UCLA. My safeties will hopefully be the other UCs… Thanks much again.</p>