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I came to the States in Aug, 2000, from Beijing, finishing Gao Yi, which is equivalent to the first year of high school. I came to US with 7th grade English (I know cuz I took the entrance test which was a grammar exam taken from a local middle school). My first PSAT was a total fiasco, in which I scored 24 on verbal, with a raw score of 1 (10 correct, 39 wrong). Not much Extracirruc was developed for there's no time under the humongous pressure for study in China. I was blank. Pumping my SAT from 1140 (March), 1270(June), 1360(OCt), 1450(650v, 800m)(Dec) was not a pretty task, I've spent my summer devouring vocabs. Anyways, SAT II : writing 540 (taking again in Jan, likely to be around 620), MIIC800, Chem 780(taking again in Jan, likely to be 800, along with Phy). Didn't take Chinese cuz its obviously cheating (no offense to TongBao who did). 6 APs, 4 of them are 5s. Spent 2001 summer at CMU, intern at Environmental Health and Safety dep, while auditing a computer programing course. 2002 summer at UC Berkeley, took Calc 2. Dual enrolled in University of Florida, finished Calc 3 and DFEQ, taking Abstract and Linear Algebra. more than 300 hours of CC, writing a Chinese novel, few notable honors from China, state math competition awards in US.

English had dragged me down quite a bit. 2 Bs and all Cs. (including AP lan&comp, IB HL English). GPA 4.47 weighted(AP, IB +1, Honors, PreIB+0.5), 3.6 unweighted.

Schools applied: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, Northwestern, Chicago, UIUC, MIT, Cornell, Yale, Duke, Univ of Florida, Emory.
half engineering undeclared, half science undeclared.
I've received admission from UIUC.

what are my chances? Thank you guys very very much.

By Weidamengxing (Weidamengxing) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 02:31 am: Edit

president+founder pingpong club
Beijing High School Annual English Competition ---1st level award(10th out of
1500)
Beijing High School Annual Math Competition---2nd level award
Beijing High School Chemistry Annual Competition---1st level award
Xingainian Creative Essay Competition--- 1st level award
Yingshi Cup High School Calligraphy Convention---3rd level award
YuanMingYuan Social Science debate, 1st (group)
Jinfan Project Award, Beijing High School individual Physics Study Competition
Beijing No.5 High School Pingpong competition, 1st (team), MVP,1999
Eastside High School Honor Roll, 2000, 2001, 2002
National Honors Society, AP scholar with honors 2002
Mu Alpha Theta Math Competition Awards (division/State) 2001
Precalculus: 1st Place (team), 8th place (individual)Calculus: 1st Place
(team).
14 Chapters Chinese novel, in process. Most important achievement.

By Weidamengxing (Weidamengxing) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:16 am: Edit

11 college transferable credit in hand (18 by graduation), from Univ of Florida and UC Berkeley.
GPA:4.0

By Burberry (Burberry) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:17 am: Edit

holy ••••

By Burberry (Burberry) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:18 am: Edit

do you sleep?

By Weidamengxing (Weidamengxing) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:29 am: Edit

finishing my history paper, allnighter~~

By Burberry (Burberry) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:33 am: Edit

oh my goodness. um, unless you don't majorly screw up i think you're fine? i hope the admissions officers know just how competitive beijing is, do u plan to get this chinese novel published? what is it about? i dunno if listing high school team awards carries much weight... it just seems to clutter your activities. a lot of your stuff is very impressive tho. also, are you rich?

By Hellooo on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 03:39 am: Edit

You must be filthy rich to be able to come to the United States...

Are you here as an resident alien? If not, you must be rich to be able to cough up the moolah.

Kudos to your hard work though.

By adrasteia on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 04:48 am: Edit

Filthy rich to come to US?

I'm guessing you're some whitey living in the midwest. ALOT of the immigrants from Asia came here dirt poor, then worked their way up. How do you think the "model minority" stereotype came about?

By Weidamengxing (Weidamengxing) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 02:50 pm: Edit

I'm not worrying too much about the financial stuff. It's like my family is little bit over the cutoff line for granting financial aids, which sucks. But affording private schools is not the biggest issue.

burberry-- which is the best situtation? lots of Honors, few ECs; fair Honors, Fair ECs; few Honors, lots of ECs?

Could u guys be more specific of which school I'll get in? ^-^

By tenisghs on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 02:51 pm: Edit

My class valedictorian in my school is Chinese. He was able to live in the States and attend my school because his family is FILTHY RICH (Hong Kong).

By Ling Ling on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 02:59 pm: Edit

Yes but what about all those Chinese refugees from the mainland. Both my parents came here from China dirt poor. But through sheer hard work they've managed to become well-off. My parents are fast-food franchisee's owning 6 Burger Kings and 5 Denny's. Stories like these are why people think of Chinese as the Model Minority.

By Weidamengxing (Weidamengxing) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 06:35 pm: Edit

and most of the cases are similar to Lingling's.

By Burberry (Burberry) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 07:15 pm: Edit

weidamengxing, to answer your question, it's best to have good courseload/good EC's... but of the three options you've mentioned, i've seen more "lots of Honors, few ECs" get into good schools than "few Honors, lots of ECs". The few EC's from the first option should be ver strong; examples include being President of something, winning competitions, or like you, maybe publishing a novel. good luck

By azngal on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 07:26 pm: Edit

Stanford- maybe
All the UC's- California resident, definetely. Non-resident, maybe.
Northwestern- yes
Chicago- yes
UIUC- never heard of it
MIT- maybe
Cornell- maybe
Yale- maybe
Duke- maybe
Univ of Florida- yes
Emory- yes

By d on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 07:56 pm: Edit

UIUC - University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

really good engineering program

By 21st Century Digital Boy on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 08:14 pm: Edit

TenisGHS does have a point though. The majority of Chinese that came to the U.S. from HK, Taiwan, Singapore, or even Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia tend be much more well- off than those from the Mainland. Most mainlanders in China have nothing thanks to communist oppression. So I applaud people like Ling Ling's parents and the countless other mainlanders who work hard and build their wealth from scratch. They are truly the reasons why Chinese are labeled the Model Minority.

By D on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 09:39 pm: Edit

Ling Ling,
i think you're exaggerating, A LOT.
Define "dirt poor." Does that mean they were poor in china too? Did they have an education? Know English? Most immigrants who come poor from another country DO NOT magically work hard and own 6 burger kings. Elaborate on what you said please...

By bing on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 08:53 pm: Edit

yes, most work their way up.