Well, First Things First You Have Almost NO Chance At Stanford. Sorry, It's Just The Truth. Stanford Is a Very Top Elite School With Only 7-9% Of The Applicants Accepted.
And Loads Of People Apply To Stanford With 2400 SAT Scores, Being The Valedictorian Of Their Class, With All AP Classes , Being The President of Their Class or Captain Or Their Varsity Sports Team, and Stellar Essays and Recommendations. And They Get Rejected. Why?
Because They Are Just Like Everyone Else. Stanford Claims That 80% Of The Applicants Have The Academic Ability To Get In And It Depends On Extracurriculars, Recommendations, and Essays. Also, Stanford Tends To Accept Applicants Who Have a Strong Extra-Curricular Record With Sports.
It's Just a Fact. Anyways, If You Want More Information on That Copy and Paste The Link Below. It Explains A Lot Of the Things That I Can't Explain At The Moment.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_get... Moving on to UCLA, I Think You Have a Chance At This School and It Can Definitely Be a "Reach" Goal For You. I Suggest Researching On This School And What They Look For In An Applicant. UCLA Accepts 33% Of Its Applicants.
The Following Link Most Likely Will Assist You In Your Research. http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/se... Your Weighted GPA Is Absolutely Excellent(Going By The Assumption That Your School Weighs GPA On a 5.0 Scale) and Its Really Good That You Are Taking The Most Challenging Courses At Your School And Maintaining Top Grades. This Definitely Increases Your Chances.
However, On The Other Side Your SAT Scores Look Pretty Poor To Me. If You Have The Opportunity To Re-Take Them And Increase Your Score Then That's Good. If Not, Oh Well.
Perhaps You Can Make Up For That Through Essays, Recommendations, Etc. And Your Extracurriculars Look Pretty Average. "Participating In Clubs" Is Something Pretty Much Anyone Can Do.
What Matters Is The Commitment/Passion, What You Get Out of The Clubs Your Participate In, And Leadership. Being In Let's Say Art Club Doesn't Really Get You That Far. But Being In The Art Club For 3 Years, Including Details In Your Application Through Your Essays and/or Resume(AKA Brag Sheet), And Becoming The Vice-President Of The Club Suddenly Make The Fact That You Participated In Art Club A lot More Interesting And Appealing To Colleges.
The Fact That You Are a Minority Increases Your Chances, If You Didn't Already Know,Becausee Top Schools These Days Want To Be More Ethnically Diverse Instead Of Having Only Asian and White Kids. This Puts You a Little Ahead In The Wild Competition For Admission Into UCLA. However, Your Poor SAT Scores Worry Me A loBecausese SAT Scores Really Matter When It Comes To Trying To Get Admission Into UCLA.
But The Absolute Best You Can Do If You Can't Retake The Test Is Get Really Good Recommendations and Write Excellent Essays To Show That You Are Still At An Academically UCLA-Worthy Level. Other Than That All I Can Tell You Is Good Luck. By The Way, It's Not The End Of The World If You Don't End Up In Stanford Or UCLA.
If You Are Truly Interested In The University of California System Than Maybe You Would Want To Consider Some Less Selective CollegeDon't Get Me Wrong Always Aim For Your Best But Still Have a Back-Up Plan. I Suggest UC Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Riverside. These Are Still Decent Universities But Not As Glamorous As UCLA or Stanford.
Anyways, Just To Sum Things Up You Can do It I Know You Can. Work Hard, Do Your Best, and You'll Be Well Off. Good Luck =D Good Luck.
Your gpa and considering your a minority are both really great. But the sat and act scores are too low. You should be getting solid 700s in each category for the sat.
And definitely jump like 5 pts for act.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.