<p>The colleges I am applying to are: University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Duke University, John Hopkins University, University of California Berkeley, and Stanford University.
The highlighted part is what I think will help me most and is what helped my friend get accepted into Umich with a 22 ACT!!!
Basics:
State: MI
Application: EA
Major: Biochemistry
Academics:
Schedule pattern (fresh to senior year): ESL and regulars-->Half honors and half regulars---> Half AP's and half honors---> All AP's
ACT: 30 (Probably =/>31 next time)
GPA UW: 4.000
GPA W: 4.167 by end of junior year and 4.375 (hopefully) by end of senior year
Honors classes (not weighted) 5
AP's : 9 by end of high school (all A's so far)
EC's + Awards:
Apple Award for leadership (freshman year)
KLAA Chemistry Lab First Place (regional , junior year)
AP Scholar
Honor Roll all years
NHS member junior and senior years
Environmental Club (Senior Year)
Tutor (school and out-of-school)
Teacher helper (grading)
Student teacher my sophomore year (help ESL kids since I speak two other languages)
Misc:
Permanent resident of the U.S. from Iraq, also a refugee (fled the country with family after receiving threats from Islamist extremists)
Ethnicity: Chaldean (Assyrian or Iraqi native, minority)
Languages: Arabic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, and English (obviously)
Recs: Great (counselor said she couldn't wait to write my letter) and AP chemistry teacher (got A+) and ESL teacher (whom I helped sophomore year and with grading)
Essay: I can write about my background (I have only been here since freshman year) and how I overcame the challenges I faced and still face (low-income) + I'm good at writing (or so my essay grades imply)
School: Public and ranked top 4-5%.
Thank you all so very much!</p>
<p>yes. it is possible not to get into any of these.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley won’t give you adequate financial aid. Why not consider one of your other, excellent Michigan public schools like Michigan State, Michigan Tech, GVSU, etc? Those are excellent safeties, and will give you a high quality education. </p>
<p>Stanford, Duke, and Johns Hopkins each accept less than 15% of all applicants. That means 85%+ of students, including valedictorians with a 36/2400 get rejected all the time.</p>
<p>Michigan State is supposed to be my safety school, but I just can’t stand the thought of going there, and it’s already expensive enough to apply to five schools, so it’s seems like a waste of money to apply to a school I’d rather suicide than go to. I mean, I’ve been working so hard in high school to maintain a perfect GPA, and next time I take ACT I’ll get at least 31 for sure. I know I deserve better than MSU. Honestly all I want is to get accepted to Umich. The others are just my very acceptable alternatives, even though I know I am a reach. Do I have a chance to get accepted to one of those schools at least?</p>
<p>UMI: Match</p>
<p>In state for LSA, you are match for UMich.</p>
<p>Your stats are good…and I would think that your unique background would be viewed as a great asset, but the schools you are considering are wildly popular, huge name recognition …and with the exception of Michigan I think all of their acceptance %'s are 20% or lower. And if financial aid is going to be an issue at all…that just makes things even more difficult. If you were my child, I would encourage you to add at least a few solid matches, acceptance rate of 50% or better that you know you can afford. There are alot schools out there…take your time. No harm is shooting high, but having options is the most important thing.</p>
<p>Unless UMich has a process that automatically admits in state students who meet certain criteria, OP needs safeties.</p>
<p>A safety is one where you are willing to go because it is affordable and where you are guaranteed to be admitted. Once you have one of those on your list, then you can apply to as many reaches as you want.</p>
<p>Stanford accepts 6%, Duke 11-12%, JHU around 15-17%, and so on.</p>
<p>Any student needs safety schools on the list. No exception. There is no automatic admission for UMich in state either.</p>
<p>If you don’t like UMich (which is the only match–read, “not a reach”)you have in that list) but still consider it your safety school, my advice would be to find another safety school that you actually wouldn’t mind going to because the mistake of only applying to reaches, not getting in, then having to go to the school that you hate and only applied to because you were told you had to is one people make a lot. There’s no telling who those other schools would reject or accept, since all of their applicants are really good and competitive.</p>
<p>UMich may be low match to match considering in state, GPA, scores, and hook, but I would not consider it a safety due to the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate and safety can have a relationship if acceptance rate is 100% for someone with a specific set of attributes. </p>
<p>In Texas, anyone in top 7% can get admitted to UT Austin irrespective of any other criteria which makes it a 100% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I know that is the case for UT Austin, but there is no such rule in Michigan. In state students are slightly favored but no automatic admission. I have also seen students with perfect GPA and SAT scores got rejected. So the acceptance rate does matter. A safety school should have at least 75% chance to get in considering all factors. All students within the 25-75% admission stat still have only 30% chance of getting in for UMich. The OP has around 75% of admission stat (higher for GPA but lower for ACT) and should have around 50-75% chance to get in, not quite a safety yet.</p>
<p>Safety has a specific definition - if one applies, they have no chance of being rejected.</p>
<p>I don’t believe U Mich fits that bill for OP.</p>
<p>So OP needs to add more lower tier schools to the list and apply to a few to ensure an admission.</p>
<p>^ Definitely. He mentioned to pick MSU as safety which should be a reasonable choice as his stat is way above 75% admission stat and the acceptance rate there is really high. In general, it is a safety school for all students with a match for UMich.</p>
<p>OP. If you cannot afford applying a safety school due to a financial problem, drop Stanford and JHU from the list. You will have very little chance there anyway. You may regret in not having at least a safety school on the list. If you really don’t like MSU, find another school as safety although you have a good chance to be accepted by UMich. It is a waste of money by applying to a school that you have almost no chance or a school you will not go after all. A safety school is not only for a high chance of admission, but also affordable and you will have no problem to attend.</p>
<p>I would not discourage OP from applying to reach schools and they will give him a waiver if there are financial issues for the app fee.</p>
<p>There are some interesting attributes to OP and provided he can write interesting essays about his life, some will admit him. He just needs more reaches to reach out to see who is interested.</p>
<p>I don’t want to discourage the OP, but having a safety school is more important than having several reach schools. One need to be realistic. Of course, if he can get waiver for application (and score submission), there is no reason not to apply to them.</p>
<p>One note: although your background is interesting, and may help you at some schools, you are not an underrepresented minority (URM) for admissions purposes at US colleges. You will be counted as “white.”</p>
<p>I think the OP will get into UMich Ann Arbor. However, I would recommend that he/she apply to either MSU or GVSU as a safety to UMich. U of M’s admissions have changed in recent years and I would recommend having a backup when applying there. Also, GVSU will give you a lot of scholarship money and MSU would invite you to the ADS scholarship competition.</p>