Crystal Said:

What are my chances at UPenn, USC, and UCLA?

We Answered:

I think you have a pretty good shot at getting into USC or UCLA. It will be extremely difficult for you to get into UPenn (let alone wharton or huntsman). You have some impressive stats: good community/club involvement, challenging courses, and good grades. Unfortunately your SAT2 score is low and your SAT score is below the 25th percentile for UPenn. On top of being hurt by your test scores, you will also find that through affirmative action you will be viewed as an overrepresented minority. . .consequently it is much harder for asians to get in than prospective students of any other race. In addition to searching for ethnic diversity, UPenn also searches for geographic diversity; and, so many kids apply from california that it becomes much harder to get in if you apply from there. My advice for you is to keep up the good work as far as ec's and grades go, make sure you write amazing essays, and try like hell to improve your standardized test scores. UPenn allows superscoring on the SAT, so you can take the test multiple times and combine the best of each section. As a result, you can take the test once after studying like crazy for math, once for reading, once for writing, and then just combine all of the good section scores into one amazing superscore. You should also consider taking the ACT; many kids find that one of the tests is significantly easier than the other. Good luck to you :)