Chance me plss and pls give me some advice on having actual shot at the ucs
Demographics: Indian-American female, California, first generation, junior in a public high school, my school doesnt do rank bcs mental health stuff and I am middle class.
Intended Major: Cognitive Science / on the Pre-Med track
GPA: 3.4 UW / 3.76 W ACT/SAT: (working on it this summer because it helps mitigate my low gpa)
AP Coursework:
AP Human Geography: 5
AP World History: 5
AP Statistics: 4
AP Psychology: completed
AP Calculus AB: completed
AP Calculus BC: in progress
AP Environmental Science: in progress
(My school runs on the block schedule)
Awards/Honors: Scholastic Silver Key in Poetry SkillsUSA California State 2026 — 2nd Place, Health Knowledge Bowl SkillsUSA California State 2025 — Top 10, Health Knowledge Bowl
Extracurriculars:
- Wrote an independent research paper on personalized BCI systems for stroke rehabilitation, citing peer reviewed journals including Frontiers in Neurology and PNAS Nexus
- Built AI powered cardiovascular screening app using Random Forest classifier trained on 70,000+ patient profiles, achieving 99-100% accuracy while actively mitigating racial and gender bias
- Cancer research experience
- Decellularized organ transplantation literature review
- SciMi NMP BCI mentorship program
- JHU CTY AP Biology Intensive Program
- IYNA Neuroscience Certification (track 1 and 2)
- Middle school speech and debate coach and judge — runs tournaments among local middle schools
- VP and co-founder of school Taekwondo club — partnered with local studio to bring professional instructors on campus
- SkillsUSA Secretary — grew chapter to 60+ members, coordinated travel for 42 students
- Varsity Basketball
- 3rd Degree Black Belt and Level 1 Certified Taekwondo Judge
- Shadowed neurosurgeon, anesthesiologist, interventional radiologist, plastic surgeon, and veterinarian independently
- LTB tutor
- Volunteer at cancer nonprofit
- junior academy NYAS member
Additional info: Currently pursuing publication of BCI research paper and deployment of cardiovascular app, and cold emailing local professors. And I am applied to Harvard Sri got no shot but I did for the plot ig 😭. But I have secured internship for this summer so I have a back up plan. During sophomore and junior year I went through some significant family challenges that had a real impact on my grades. I've been trying my best but I think the damage is a little too far gone at this point. Hoping my ECs and research can mitigate it even a little