What are my chances at getting admitted to USC?

joshyclavat
Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:24:57 +0000

I’m currently a senior and was wondering if you guys can give me some analysis? I’ve already (obviously) sent out the app. But I’d just like to know my chances since this is one of my top 3 schools.

Asian (Chinese)
Californian Resident
Planned Major: Business (Accounting), Marshall
Applied Priority

Top 100 in the country’s high school. Very competitive magnet high school. Not sure if it makes a difference though. >> It did half kill me, going there.

my school’s transcripts gives TWO GPA’s, these are Academic only
GPA 9th-12th (unweighted): 3.47
GPA 9th- 12th (weighted): 4.13
GPA 10th-12th (unweighted): 3.32
GPA 10th- 12th (weighted): 4.0

Total GPA (9-12) (unweighted): 3.52
Total GPA (9-12) (weighted): 4.12

School doesn’t rank but I know I’m in the 30th percentile.

Freshman Classes:
Computer Logic and Algorithms
Fundamentals of Programming
English I Honors
Spanish I
Geometry H
Biology IB SL
Geography IB SL

Sophmore Classes (I traveled to China for the first semester, hence the double classes)
Information Technology in a Global Society IB
English II Honors
Spanish II Honors
Algebra II
Chemistry
AP European History

Sophmore America Classes:
Same as above except
AP Computer Science A (replace ITGS)
Chemistry Honors
Algebra II Honors

Summer of Sophmore Year (because of my China trip, my grades were horrible Sophmore year, in Algebra II I got a D so I had to retake it):
Algebra II

Junior Classes:
Business and Management IB SL
AP/IB English Language
Spanish IB SL
AP US History
Pre Calculus
Physics

Senior Classes:
AP Government and Politics
AP/IB Biology
AP Calculus AB
AP English Literature
AP Macroeconomics
Drawing and Painting
Accounting for Business
Troy Tech Internship (our school’s tech program, we do an intership through this)

SAT I:
CR: 800
Math: 670/700 (T.T failure Asian, failure at math :])
Writing: 690/730
Highest one sitting: 2200
Highest composite: 2230

SAT II’s:
Bio/E: 660 (bad, I know)
Math IIC: 690 (T.T fail, I know)
US History: 730
Literature: 650/720 (No idea why theres such a big difference)

No ACT

APs:
Comp Sci A 3 (bleh)
European History 3 (also bleh)
US History 5
English Language 5

Plan to take Bio, Lit, Gov, Econ, Calc this year

Awards (weak here):
Principle’s Honor Roll
Honor Roll
California Scholarship Federation member
AP Scholar with Honor
National Merit Commended Scholar (215 :[)

Extracurricular (pretty weak here too)
Swim 10th and 11th, JV
Leo Club 11th 12th grade
Tzu Chi (Taiwanese global community service/volunteer organization) 10th 11th 12th grade
Go/Chinese Chess Club 11th 12th grade
Summer Internship at NOC SELPA (North Orange County Special Education Local Plan blah ><): basically I helped to design and implement curriculum for autistic and special needs middle school children.

All of my community service is probably no more than 120 hours ><

Teacher Rec: I got my couselor to write this one, I would imagine it to be average to pretty decent.

Essays: I would like to think these are pretty strong >< but some of my other classmates wrote pretty DARN GOOD essays.

My essay was about my experience in school in China. I talked about how it made me more independent. It was a pretty strong essay (I hope).

My two short answers were probably weak. This was one of the first apps I submitted so I didn’t write as well as I did for other apps. They were both about a small paragraph in length. The first was about my experience in Tzu Chi, the second about how Business class started my interest in business. :] My quick takes were interesting though.

I also wrote a short paragraph noting that I had a reaaaally big drop in my GPA sophmore year (2.8 GPA) because after I came back from China, I wasn’t really prepared to come back up to the standard of work that my home high school had. But in junior year, I really brought it up with straight A’s (and 1 B)

Thanks a bunch for reading through all this!