Well-roundedness

misteranonymous · October 30, 2004, 9:15pm

I don't have any outside research, and I did not take BC in 11th/10th grade. I am, however, somewhat well-rounded. My question is: do I have a chance to get in early or if deferred to regular action?

GPA - 4.24, rank 4/223 (school only says top 10%) Pretty competitive Private School

sati - 800m/710v
act - 32e/34cr/36m/36s - 35c
satii -
800 - bio(m)
800 - math2c
790 - math1c
780 - chem
760 - phys
680 - writing
amc12/aime -
120.5/7 (11)
118/7 (10)

Male, Japanese/White, Hawaii

AP . . . 5 - CompA & AB, PhysB, Spanish, 4 - Eng Lang/comp, This year - BC, PhysC, Stats, Spanish Lit

School Level:
Top student in math (10,11), creative writing (11)
school writing contest winner (11)
Top Academic Student (9,10)

Regional:
Island-wide math league 1st place / perfect average (11)

State:
2nd place in National Spanish Exam (ap level) (11)
National:
National Merit SF - 224
AMC12 top 1%

EC's:
Math team (10-12) - Captain (our team is 12-years undefeated)
Comp Club (10-12) - President (11)
Volunteer Math Meet Coordinator (11,12)
School Website (9-12)
Fencing(6+)
Viola(5+)
Sci-fi Club(9-12) - Treasurer + Webmaster (10-12)
Opera Club (10-12) - VP / Founding member
Tutoring (11)
Literary Magazine (11-12) - Layout Editor (12)

My essays focus on how I became interested in math and writing, respectively. The teacher recs are from the advisors/teachers of those organizations. One should be pretty solid, the other (from writing teacher) should be excellent. Suffice to say, my box is "entertaining."

simfish · October 31, 2004, 2:47pm

IIRC, the Caltech app only has 5 spots for ECs. so put the 5 most significant.

Your academic record is strong and your ECs are also more or less strong. Not having BC Calc before senior shouldn't hurt you much, as long as you're taking theh hardest classes at your school.

simfish · October 31, 2004, 4:55pm

Ack, my bad. Application has slots for 5 awards; 3 mathh/science ECs, and 3 ECs. but they would discourage more.

kyshantry · October 31, 2004, 6:03pm

Yeah, you have a competitive application. My main concern would be that you don't have anything that really stands out, so whether or not you get in will depend highly on the strength of the applicant pool. Also, if I were you I would not write about how you got interested in Math and Writing - unless they're truly exceptional stories. Because you're sort of in that nether region of 'he could do fine here, but isn't blow you away incredible' you want to undertake a mean-perserving spread if you can. That means write risky essays that will really catch the attention of a good number of people, but possibly turn others off. Your essays will be read by between two and three people, so you just hope that they all like them.

Galen