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I am a senior from Southern California and am looking at various colleges. The list:

On the visited list:
UC Irvine
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Harvey Mudd College
Vanderbilt
Harvard
MIT
Yale (EA, to join the whole circus and kaboodle)
Columbia (no longer applying)

Interested:
Stanford
Carnegie Mellon

Prospective Major:
Computer Science

As it stands now, I'm applying to all the colleges I listed (except Columbia), but if there are any glaring omissions for my interests/there are any that are way too far out of my reach admissions-wise, let me know so I can avoid wasting my application fee.

My stats are:

SATI 1600

SATII 800 MathIIC 800 Writing 780 Physics

National Merit Semifinalist (225 PSAT)

AP (with a score of 5) Computer Science A, AB; Calculus AB; U.S. History; European History

IB (full diploma canidate, 2 tests taken so far: score is out of 7) Physics SL 6, Math Methods SL 7.

Senior Year Classes: AP Biology, AP Spanish 4, AP Calculus BC, IB ToK/Philosophy, AP English, AP Economics (first semester)/AP Gov (second semester)

College Classes/Credit (at a California State University):
Last year:
Math 150A Analytic Geometry & Calculus A (equiv to AP Calc AB)
Math 150B Analytic Gemoetry & Calculus B (equiv to AP Calc BC)
This year:
Math 250A: Multivariable Calc
Math 250B: Intro to Linear Algebra and Diff. Eqns.
Math 270A: Math Structures A (Discrete Mathematics w/ Combinatorics)
Math 270B: Math Structures B

GPA: 4.64 weighted, 3.90 unweighted (4 Bs throughout high school - 3 math, 1 Spanish).
Rank: ?/500 (somewhere between 5-10)

School caliber: I think about 4 went to Harvard last year, 6 to Stanford, 1 to Yale, 20 to Berkeley, and like 40 to UCLA. Fairly good public magnet school, 45 National Merit semifinalists this year.

ECs:
-Internship at game development company where I actually did useful work and didn't just fill their coffee . Made a few small games myself. (great essay/experience)
-Community service (>200 hours) with my church, InterACT club (I am the technology chair for it), and Future Business Leaders of America (which I am heavily involved in)
-American Computer Science League - 5th place in national finals one year, 3rd the other
-Biweekly writer for the local paper this past year (300,000+ circulation)
-A few things I haven't mentioned

Interests: Computer science (won the school's programming contest, participated all 3 years so far), film (done some independent stuff)

Incidentally, I was not accepted into NHS for reasons that will not be disclosed to me because of my school's policy. Considering NHS at my school has nearly 75 members, and I'm ranked about 10/500 in my class (with plenty of extracirricular hours), I feel a bit slighted, but I'll deal with it. How will this negatively affect my chances?

I am sure, however, that the teachers who are recomending me have a very high opinion of me (Spanish/CompSci teachers). My big weakness is my lack of leadership roles, but I hope to overcome that by demonstrating leadership potential and excellent academic promise.

So what are my chances (especially at Yale), and are there any great schools I'm missing?

By Drfunk (Drfunk) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 04:18 pm: Edit

i cant rate you but NHS wont •••• you up

By Nealp (Nealp) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 04:25 pm: Edit

damn. you got me beat (nm ib full diploma candidate also, with research experience, community service, and leadership). you beat me with your 1600 sat! and well those math classes too. i suggest you apply and don't worry about too much. woot for ib

By Clickspring (Clickspring) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 07:14 pm: Edit

Why are you taking Calc BC if you already have credit in the subject and are taking higher level math in college?

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 07:20 pm: Edit

Calc BC is only the title of the class - and the exam we take. In the class itself, we've gone from vector valued function to partial derivatives to multiple integration - all multivariable topics. In May, we have to review last year's material for the AP Calc BC test.

In other words, my math teacher didn't know what to call it, so he called it "AP Calculus BC" on our transcript and tells us to mark it on our college applications as "Multivariable Calculus" and so forth.

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 09:47 pm: Edit

up

By Spikex35 (Spikex35) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 11:32 pm: Edit

Hey, what school are you from? I go to Chadwick in PV, if you've heard of it. We are pretty similar I think, and applying to the same colleges, so I'd be interested in knowing which ones you get accepted to.

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Saturday, October 04, 2003 - 11:44 pm: Edit

I'm from Troy High School in Fullerton. Never heard of Chadwick though :-P. Just a local thing, I guess. I'll be sure to keep in touch - you want to post your stats too?

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Sunday, October 05, 2003 - 03:41 am: Edit

bump

By Cmaher (Cmaher) on Sunday, October 05, 2003 - 04:49 am: Edit

NHS means nothing, don't worry

Anways, what's wrong with CalTech?

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Sunday, October 05, 2003 - 03:49 pm: Edit

They don't have a real undergrad CompSci program.

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 02:28 am: Edit

bump

By Hukddonfoniks (Hukddonfoniks) on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 03:06 am: Edit

hey troy huh....do you happen to know a guy named jonathan lee? he has a sister too who's a senior..they are both in yearbook

hey spike do you know justin hayase? (sp?) he goes to chadwick and i've known him since we were like 5

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 08:03 pm: Edit

I don't know no sophomores, give me a break :P. They're FAR below me :P

By Evil_Robot (Evil_Robot) on Tuesday, October 07, 2003 - 02:39 am: Edit

bump