<p>Male, Taiwanese (There are very few but I don’t think it’s considered as a minority, more as Asian), Raised by single mother, NYC, Specialized High School, Highly Competitive</p>
<p>Im in a very competitive school with a graduating class of 1600. (Yes, the entire school is almost 6000 students)</p>
<p>GPA: 93 (until end of junior year)
improved from a 60 to a 97 from freshman year to junior year
SAT: 2290
APs: us history 5, java 5</p>
<p>Major: Business</p>
<p>Volunteer:
160 hours working for John Liu, political campaign who just won the NYC Comptroller election
200 hours working at the local community library
50 hours working for Red Cross</p>
<p>Work:
Private tutor for first graders from 9th grade to 12th grade</p>
<p>Academic Honors, Awards, Distinctions, Clubs and ECs: (9 to 12th Grade)
Red Cross Club
Business Association Club
Revolution Club
Ping Pong Team
Concert Band
Rowing Club
Bowling Team
Semi Finalist - HSBC Junior Achievement Contest
Finalist - NYC Annual Poetry Contest (Poem got published in a book)</p>
<p>Please also chance me for:
Princeton
Michigan
NYU - Stern
Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Looking at the class profile, I’d estimate that Stanford admits at most 13% of people with your SAT score. I don’t see any academic achievements outside your GPA (of course I would need to see a school profile to judge the significance of your GPA better) that would make you stick out in a crowd or any real leadership roles. I don’t have a clue about how well you write or anything else that would make you standout from any other one of the Taiwanese males from NYC with high GPA’s and SAT’s and a lot of service hours and plenty of club memberships. This is Stanford admission, and it’s not necessarily something you can count on or expect.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you, but I’d definitely call this (and Princeton) a reach. Your chances are better at the other three, I believe (but I can’t be too sure about Michigan since it’s a state school), but I definitely wouldn’t call any of them safeties.</p>
<p>Thanks for the honesty.
Should I sumbit my senior year grades and not use early action? This would increase my GPA. As for my writing skills, they’re great, I got a 12 on the SAT Writing.
What SAT score does Stanford or Princeton want?</p>
<p>^A 2290 is good enough for Stanford. Work on your essays.</p>
<p>A higher GPA couldn’t ever hurt, but I don’t know if it would help significantly. In any case I wouldn’t take the chance and wait for the regular decision cycle.</p>
<p>I meant that I would wait for the RD cycle. That increased GPA might help your application, depending on how much it rises. Going in RD would also give you more time to improve your essays.</p>