Chance me for LACs and other schools! (updated & hopefully finalized list)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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this is my updated list (and yes, I am applying to many, but a lot of them have no essay or have the same application or don’t have a fee, so I’m shooting my shot bc I need at least 1 good acceptance lol)

Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • Type of high school: public school
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: female, white (middle eastern)
  • Other special factors: suppose female in stem but that’s ab it

Intended Major(s)
mathematics or economics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.96
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.76
  • Class Rank: top 10%
  • SAT Scores: 1390 (will retake it 2x, currently scoring 1500s on practice exams)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
AP classes (five max in school): WHAP (5), APUSH (5), APLang(5), APGov(senior year), Macro(senior year)
DE classes (over 32 classes): most GED courses with a strong focus in mathematics, business, and accounting. will get 3 associates degrees by the time I graduate
Level of math (highest): linear algebra and differential equations
Level of language (highest): highest possible spanish course offered (4th year)

Awards
(general to maintain anonymity)

  • 1st place public speaking contest (regional)
  • volunteering award
  • 1st place short story contest (school)
  • runner up poetry contest (international)
  • academic excellence (3 yrs in a row) - I am 1 out of 2 students who got it each year
  • MUN comp award

Extracurriculars

  • 10+ yrs of martial arts, almost 2nd degree black belt, teach kids karate, judge black belt tests and karate competitions, and have my own awards in regional competitions
  • 300+ hours of volunteering (tutoring math and teaching Ukrainian kids english)
  • 4 yrs of VP on student gov (+ another niche position)
  • 4+ yrs part of activist/cultural org w my posts reaching over 30k likes, $10+ thousand dollars raised, led legislative initiatives
  • 2 yrs on county youth intern for policy making and stuff
  • math related university research/internship w professor – might be published
  • financial manager (+ marketing manager) of family run business
  • paid tutor for college level STEM subjects
  • model un club founder, mediocre awards
  • couple more along those lines (mini passion project of an archives page but it’s really small so i’m not including it)

Essays/LORs/Other
essays (i’ve been a strong writer but idk how well i’ll do with word count)
lors (should be decent)

Schools

CSU LB
Calpoly SLO (have no clue if it’s a safety bc of acceptance rate and my major)
umass amherst (EA)
washington state (rolling)
bryn mawr
university of washington
university of oregon (might not apply) (rolling)
carnegie mellon university (also might not apply) OR swarthmore
fordham
lehigh
northeastern (early action)
university of chicago (early action)
villanova
wellesley (dream)
UC Berkely
UC Davis
UC Santa Cruz
UC Irvine
maybe UCLA idk

HIGH HIGH REACHES: cornell, dartmouth, brown, princeton, upenn, stanford – ED-ing either to brown, cornell, or upenn

thoughts or opinions? I don’t need new schools but I’d like to see my chances at these. Do I have enough target schools? Also, if I do get into any of the early action schools I’m applying to (or rolling admissions), I will not apply to all ivy leagues listed.

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also, what do you guys think would help me bump my chances at some of these schools?

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You haven’t addressed the $$ question on either of your posts- have you confirmed that these places are all affordable?

The best thing that you can do to “bump” your chances for admission at any of the selective/rejective schools on your list is to target the schools that are the best ‘fit’ for you - and your list has such a big range that I can’t guess at all which ones those are.

Think about why you like both Lehigh & Bryn Mawr / UChic & Brown / Dartmouth & Swat / Fordham & CMU / Villanova & UWa / Cornell & NE (just to pick some of the less obvious pairings). Fair to say that they are all strong in Math/Econ- but that is not a big limiter, as there are lots of schools that are! Are you ‘work hard / play hard’? more research-y or pre-professional? Extrovert or introvert? Country mouse or city mouse? physical games or thinking games?

“shooting your shot” is a lot more successful when you have identified the target and focused on it. From here it doesn’t look as though you have done that.

Cutting the list of non CA state schools down to the 8-10 (from 18!) best fits for you is more likely to yield a ‘yes’ from a place that you will actually be happy to be a part of for the next four years of your life- b/c college admissions is not just about getting an offer from a “good” school!

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I think I counted 3 actual LACs on your list. And, you’re not applying ED to your “dream” school? I’m sensing some confusion about what it is you’re really looking for.

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Are you aware how much work is involved in submitting quality applications to all these schools? That’s an insane number of colleges. I honesty think it will be impossible to do a great job on all these apps. And you have Wellesley as a dream school, and Fordham and Villanova and Bryn Mawr and Brown. These schools are wildly different. Why on earth are you applying ED to your “high high reach” schools if Wellesley is your dream school?

These schools are ALL high high reaches:
U Chicago
Wellesley
Swarthmore, if you apply there
UC Berkeley
UCLA
All the ivies
Stanford
Carnegie Mellon

Even Northeastern has become a high reach, with an alleged acceptance rate of 8% this year.

You sound like an above-average excellent student, possibly a bit better than that. Your chances seem reasonable at some of these schools. I think your ECs are a good fit for Wellesley and I am not sure why you aren’t applying ED there.

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Congrats on a great record. Wow, you have a lot of DE classes! Personally, I would be very tempted to go to a school that accepted these credits (publics usually do, privates often don’t.) You could graduate from a UC in 2 years, and have your masters (maybe from one of your East Coast reaches) after 4 years instead of just a bachelors.

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I am not applying ED to my dream school just in case any of the UCs accept me (due to the high amount of DE credits). I am even on the fence about applying ED to any ivy, but because I already have a 1% chance of getting into those, I might as well ED there to not “waste” my ED chance. Wellesley is too financially a risk to ED to (and so are the ivies but, again, I have a super small chance at getting in during the ED round)

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that’s so true which is why i’m internally hoping for UC Davis or Irvine, but we’ll see!

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I can’t risk Wellesley for ED just due to finances. I have a super low chance at the ivies, even during the ED process, so my reasoning is applying to an ivy ED just to have two shots at the same ivy. But realistically, I am still on the fence about applying ED anywhere due to finances and perhaps a UC acceptance that will allow me to transfer my Dual Enrollment credits.

I do not have a specific type for a college, and I honestly prefer a lot of different types (hence the huge variety). And because I can’t decide what I like best when choosing colleges, I will let my acceptances determine where I go, since honestly I feel like I’ll be fine anywhere. Also I’ve already finished a lot of the first drafts for most of these colleges that have been on my list since march!

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I can understand not wanting to apply ED anywhere because of questions about financial aid. Unfortunately, that kills the whole purpose of a Chances thread since the answer is uniformly going to be “It’s a crapshoot” for everything but your matches and safeties.

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Have you run the NPC? It should tell you what your estimated costs are.

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and honestly that’s okay for me. I just wanted to see if my new targets and safeties were really targets and safeties or if they were too high of a reach.

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If cost is an issue for your family, why are you applying to U. of Washington, U. of Oregon, or U. of Massachusetts? There is rarely much money for out-of-state students from those schools, and neither U. of Washington or Oregon is part of the WUE exchange. Unless there is specific scholarship money that you think you are likely to receive at one of these, I wouldn’t bother applying to any of them if they are not within your family’s budget.

The application process for the California publics is such that I don’t feel comfortable chancing on any of them, apart from UC Berkeley and UCLA which are low probability for just about everyone. Perhaps @Gumbymom or @UCBalumnus can share their insight? Also, are you in the regional zone for any of the California publics on your list?

If you haven’t already, have your family run the Net Price calculators at these schools. If the numbers don’t come up affordable, then you just saved lots of application time, because the vast majority of the schools in the Low Probability list do not offer merit aid. If the numbers do come up affordable, then apply to the school that is your #1 choice. If Wellesley is your #1 choice, and the NPC says it’s affordable, then that would make a great ED. Admissions rates and shooting your shot have nothing to do with it. If you’re going to ED, only do it at the school where you think you would be happiest (and can afford).

This is how I’d chance you for the schools on your current list.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Washington State
  • U. of Oregon

Likely (60-79%)

  • U. Massachusetts
  • Fordham

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • U. of Washington
  • Lehigh
  • Bryn Mawr

Low Probability (20-39%)

  • Villanova
  • Wellesley

Lower Probability (less than 20%)

  • Carnegie Mellon
  • Swarthmore
  • Northeastern
  • U. of Chicago
  • UC – Berkeley
  • UCLA
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth
  • Brown
  • Princeton
  • U. Penn
  • Stanford

ETA: Moved Fordham into the Toss-Up category.
ETA2: Moved Fordham into Likely and Bryn Mawr & Lehigh into Toss-Up after seeing that the College Board data on admissions was inaccurate.

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Here are some admission rates by HS GPA for UCs:

Recalculate your HS GPA with GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub . Use the weighted capped version for the table below.

Fall 2021 admission rates by campus and HS GPA range from Freshman fall admissions summary | University of California :

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 75% 35% 5% 1%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%

These are for the whole campus. Different divisions or majors may have different levels selectivity (usually, engineering and computer science majors are more selective).

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Here is some additional admission rate information for UCB (note that it uses a different HS GPA recalculation from the table above). The math and economics majors are in L&S (where all students enter undeclared), although economics will require a 3.0 college GPA in the major prerequisites to declare the major:

From OPA – University of California Berkeley , choose the Academic Indicators tab. “Last updated on October 22, 2021” for the “last 3 complete application cycles”.

GPA appears to be weighted, not capped. Calculate using GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Admission rates only:

GPA L&S CoE CoC CNR CED
3.800-4.000 6.3% 2.7% 4.5% 11.5% 8.7%
4.001-4.199 10.6% 3.9% 8.2% 23.7% 14.7%
4.200-4.399 21.8% 8.8% 17.5% 38.9% 29.1%
4.400-4.599 34.8% 16.4% 33.3% 53.0% 39.5%
4.600-4.799 40.9% 21.4% 39.6% 52.4% 49.4%
4.800-5.000 41.5% 20.7% 36.2% 46.1% 43.0%
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What is your budget per year of college? As others have said, run the net price calculators at each of the schools on your list to get cost estimate. Here’s Wellesley’s: Net Price Calculator

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With math beyond single variable calculus in high school, consider the following (check department pages and course catalogs):

  • The breadth and depth of upper level (and possibly graduate level) math courses available at each college. Since you will have completed most of the frosh/soph level math courses while in high school, you want to be sure that whatever college you choose has sufficient math offerings of interest if you choose to major in math. Because math is a relatively broad subject at upper levels, a larger math department may better the usual pure math areas (analysis, algebra, geometry / topology, logic / foundations) plus applied math areas of interest. Note: statistics, operations research, and even computer science may be part of the math department at some colleges, but separate departments at other colleges.
  • How math-oriented the intermediate economics and econometrics courses are. With strength in math, you likely would prefer courses that use more math. Typically, the economics departments with the most math emphasis use multivariable calculus and/or linear algebra in these courses. Moderate math departments use single variable calculus, while less math departments use no calculus. If you want to go to graduate school in economics, more math is preferred, plus additional advanced math and statistics courses like real analysis, upper level linear algebra, and probability theory.
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ooh okay cool i’m in the higher 4.2+ range if I calculated it correctly, so fingers crossed for UCSC and davis

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Fordham’s RD acceptance rate is 47%, Lehigh’s RD acceptance rate is also 47%, that of Bryn Mawr is 37% (RD), Villanova’s RD acceptance rate is around 31%, and the OP has as pretty strong profile, so I do not think that her chances would be lower than the average chances for all applicants.

I think that these four should be pushed up to Toss-Up, or even the low end of Likely for Fordham and Lehigh.

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The College Board’s website showed Lehigh’s acceptance rate at 32% with OP’s SAT score squarely in its 25/75 range (source). Villanova’s rate was 28%, and OP’s SAT score is also squarely in the 25/75 range (source). Bryn Mawr’s acceptance rate was shown as 33% (source). Villanova was the only one of these schools that shared a GPA breakdown (which is always iffy, as some schools provide weighted GPAs rather than unweighted, though I believe they’re supposed to provide unweighted ones). At Villanova, 72% of students had a GPA of 3.75 or above, and I suspect (based on the SAT range) that those are unweighted GPAs.

For Fordham, I don’t know what I was thinking, because that one is ringing up as 46% (source). That should definitely be in the toss-up pile (and I edited my original post to reflect that).

Essentially, except for Fordham, I stand by my rough categorizations. There’s certainly an argument to be made in OP’s favor, but I prefer to be overly conservative and pleasantly surprised than the reverse. Thankfully, OP gets to receive feedback from many excellent posters like you who may have a different point of view!

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