<p>Hey guys. I’m a Chinese immigrant junior at a average to low ranking public school in California. My GPA is about 3.80 UW and 4.10 W (UC system) SATI score 2080 (will retake) I have an opportunity this coming summer to go back to China and participate in some “interesting” activities in and around my hometown. </p>
<p>1) As many of you might know, AIDS is a HUGE problem in China right now especially in my home province of Henan. The Oscar-winning documentary from last year, The Blood of Yingzhou District, was about the AIDS epidemic in my province.
I will likely have a chance to participate in this humanitarian aid program set up by the provincial electrical institution which provides financial and material aid to a village suffering from large numbers of AIDS cases.</p>
<p>2) I will also have an opportunity to do a couple of weeks of internship at 159, a major hospital in our region and the biggest burn-treatment center in the province.</p>
<p>3) Do some sort of internship at the local tv/radio station. I don’t have many details on this one since I haven’t gotten enough information about what it is that I could do there. I think it will probably have something to do with my ability to speak both English and Chinese fluently but this could apply to many college students in China so I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>Now my question is, assuming that I can get extensive confirmation and recommendation letters from the institutions I’ve just described, what can I do to turn my experience into an affective package in my college application process? I’m thinking about applying to UC Berkeley, UCLA, Georgetown, Brown, Cornell, and Rice.</p>
<p>I was thinking about making a documentary-type report on the AIDS situation in Henan with video footage and written report but I’ve come to realize that my exposing of certain “ugly facts” could lead to significant political ramifications for me and my “connection” back in China. So the documentary idea is pretty much thrown out the window for now.</p>
<p>Wow. That looks like a pretty strong extra-curricular to me. Get those letters and then make one of your college essays about the experience. Remember, an extra-curricular is useless if you don’t make clear that you’re passionate about it, and an essay will definitely help.</p>
<p>Definitely a good idea…I did something similiar. I’M transferring from an average school, I had about a 3.65 for highschool, and 3.74 in college, and various regular ECS. I Spent a pretty long time volunteering in SEAsia post highschool and I made a little video project to show for it at the end. I applied to transfer to Clark, Bates and NYU- I got into both CLark and BAtes and have been waitlisted at NYU . (Only 20 people were put on the CAS transfer waitlist, and they had a 6% admission rate, my letter said that over 1800 applied and they only had around 35 spots available) I was told directly by an admissions counselor that my volunteer experiences was what kept me from being rejected…</p>
<p>Thanks guys!
Yeah I’ve been thinking about how I can develop my experience overseas after I get back to the U.S. I mean, maybe I can get in touch with a humanitarian organization or something over here and propose to them the idea of making a documentary type report for their reference or amusement or whatever. I think that if I can pull this off, it could get me some very nice recommendations from sources within the U.S. </p>
<p>But once again that would mean exposing mostly negative aspects of the way the Chinese govt. is handling the situation. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would be interested in hearing about what a good job the Chinese are doing to solve their AIDS problem because they simply aren’t doing a good job. I think it would show A LOT of passion if I can find a way to gather some meaningful facts over there and risk my life in doing so (ok that may be an exaggeration, but it would come with some considerable risk).</p>
<p>Using an alias back here in the U.S. would be a good idea, but I’m more worried about how I would go about shooting footage and what not WHILE I’m in China. I mean, it’s not unthinkable that the local authorities might see me with a video camera and immediately arrest me for some B.S. reason. It also doesn’t help that my connection in China is a relative and I cannot risk anything that would put her livelihood in jeopardy =\ </p>
<p>I hope you find this an interesting topic of discussion. Contributions are definitely appreciated =]</p>
<p>There are tons of overseas volunteer programs that offer stuff in China. WHy not do something like that that would focus on the positive contributions you were making to their society than just the potentially pre-existing negative issues. I volunteered with the program Cross Cultural Solutions which was awesome, but pricey- but I Know there are a lot of other volunteer organizations just like it that offer similiar programs…</p>