<p>Korean attending semi-crappy public high school</p>
<p>Essay → immigration/language barrier (moved to U.S. 6 years ago from korea)
Intended Major: Biology (focusing on medicine)
GPA unweighted - 3.952
Weighted - 4.429 (for now…)
rank → 5/704 (weighted)
SAT 1: V-670 M- 780
SAT II- To be taken Jan 22 (last LAST deadline ^^;
ACT: Composite -35 Reading - 34 Writing - 34 Math - 36 Science - 36
AP Courses: AP U.S. History (5), AP Calc AB/BC, AP English (… the only AP courses offered)
HC (Honors-College… basically, it’s a college-level class) Courses: HC Chem, HC Human Anatomy & Physiology, HC Physics, HC American Government (We The People… maybe some people heard of it?.. maybe not…)
EC
Speech & Debate - Congress Event Captain (8~10 trophies)
We The People
NHS - Treasurer
Asian Awareness - Treasurer
French
Amnesty International - Treasurer
United Way - Treasurer
Ping Pong - Treasurer
“Get Your Voices Heard” Committee - Chairman (president), founder</p>
<p>Non-Academic
Earthwatch SCAP (you go away with some scientists for 3 weeks and help them research biology)
Boys State of Arizona (mock government. County Attorney, City Clerk/councilman, precinct chairman (<–hostile takeover ^^;) )
Works 26 hrs per day as a waiter/cashier</p>
<p>Rec letter from a professor in Vermont/Switzerland (earthwatch)</p>
<p>National Merit Letter of Commendation (had the scores to be semifinalist, but I hadto be at least permanent resident to receive it… )</p>
<p>Note: I am extremely poor (annual income $30000~$40000) and had to give up a LOT of opportunities</p>
<p>It sounds like you made the best of what you had available to you, but no one can tell you what your chances are with any accuracy. If you look at the threads with posts from the people who got deferred you will see that there are a lot of really smart people (people with a lot higher scores than me and i got accepted lol) that got deferred…the only difference is that you are applyinig RD, which = acceptance or rejection (or i guess waitlisted but whatever). But you know that you will be competitive and will have just as good a chance as anyone else will. I guess its just kinda random after it gets to a point. But thats my 2 cents. Good luck</p>
<p>Well, i wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is TOTALLY arbitrary, there are some definite things that you can do in order to stand out, but it has to be something big/very unique…don’t try to get in just purely off of academics/school clubs and stuff unless your like a genius or something (one of my friends did that to stanford…4.10 and 1590/countless hours of tutoring/vise pres of NHS, etc…rejected ea)</p>
<p>There’s a statistic that 1/3 of people who score 1600 on the SAT I apply to Harvard. Harvard has a 10% acceptance rate, and most of its students did not score 1600 on the SAT I…this just goes to show you how important other factors are in admission…Harvard doesn’t want to accept an entire class of bookworm studyholics…they’re trying to build a dynamic set of students.</p>
<p>Do something fantastic (or convince them you have)…cultivate a passion.</p>
<p>Well then i guess you better do something insanely amazing within that subject to show that you truly passionate about it and that your not just good at it or something</p>
<p>really, harvard looks for ppl who will add to the school in addition to being smart, so u need somthing that is different, eg sports, writing etc but wat wud u say ur hook is?</p>