Articuno, Jinx, Nitorina, beedrill, haunter, squirtle, please CHANSEY me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I hope some fellow nerds lurk on CC and love the pokerap enough to see this thread and chance me :) If I come off arrogant, pompous, on my high-horse, etc, I am not posing myself to be that way.</p>

<p>** Personal **</p>

<p>State: WA
Ethnicity: Hispanic (if you just see this and write me off, see the very bottom of this post).
Male
Income: 85-90,000
First generation
Financial info: Sister to be in 4th year of school, in-state, no financial aid/scholarships. I will be applying for financial aid, and it was one of the most important factors in my list.</p>

<p>** Schools in no order**
Harvard
Wharton
Princeton
CMC
Pomona
Davidson
Bowdoin
Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore
Colby
Grinnell</p>

<p>At first glance, you may think I'm an arrogant moron for not having a safety. I was initially looking at WWU or UW Seattle for a safety, however, I have completely thought about it, and I would rather get rejected from all of these schools and attend CC for one or two years, and apply later, than attend a school with large classes and an environment I won't enjoy. There is nothing more to that</p>

<p>Academics</p>

<p>IB diploma candidate (most rigorous). </p>

<p>Freshman: 3.05/3.10 (no honors courses)</p>

<p>Sophmore: 3.23/3.4</p>

<p>Junior: 4.00/4.00</p>

<p>Senior: TBA</p>

<p>Pre-IB: English, World History, bio/chem (semester each)
4 years Japanese
IB World Lit SL/HL
IB History SL/HL
IB Bio SL/HL
IB Marketing SL/HL
IB Calc SL
IB Philosophy SL
IB TOK</p>

<p>** Additional classes I took (CC)** <em>note, I took these throughout the year, not at same time</em>
Junior: ADV alg/trig, pre-calc 1/2, discrete mathametics, Statistics, Ceramics 1/2, health.</p>

<p>** Final GPA should be in the broad range of 3.7 to 3.9, including my exterior classes and predicting my senior year **</p>

<p>** Best test scores **
PSAT: 230 (80 CR, 80 W, 70 M)
SAT: 2320 (80) CR, 800 W, 720 M)
ACT (35): M (30), Sci(36), CR (36), W (12)</p>

<p>No SAT IIs yet</p>

<p>** ECs **</p>

<p>JSA
Sophomore: Secretary
Junior: Secretary
senior: President</p>

<p>Medical Club (founder, also helping organize in WA)
Sophomore: President
Junior: President
Senior: President</p>

<p>Key Club
Sophomore: Fund Raiser
Junior: Fund Raiser
Senior: President</p>

<p>** Volunteering **</p>

<p>Key Club: 200 Hours (three years)
Library tutor/general helper: 800 hours by end of senior year (four years)
Senior Center: Activity coordinator/general helper: 500 hours (four years)</p>

<p>** Awards <a href="Bolded=%20all%20succeeding%20years">/B</a></p>

<p>Freshmen: Japanese Award, Honor Roll/Society
Sophomore: ** Key Club awards, Japanese Honor Society,** 5th place FBLA regional/3rd state, Reflections honorary participant award
Junior: 2nd DECA area, 1st DECA state, 5th DECA nationals, Reflections state participant
Senior: TBA</p>

<p>** How I spent my summers **
Freshmen: Volunteering, writing poetry
Sophomore: Volunteering, business camp, writing poetry
Junior: Volunteering, working, taking courses at CC, business camp, poetry.</p>

<p>** Work experience **</p>

<p>Michaels: Sales Associate (two years), thinking of trying to get Lead Sales Associate position
Student store: Manager (one year)</p>

<p>** Other information **</p>

<p>My poetry has been published from our school literary magazine to some national stuff. I have a portfolio of some favorites I'm making up.
High level of proficiency in Spanish
CEO of business-camp (state thing, not like CTY or what have you) team two years in a row, ranking top three.</p>

<p>Ok, now for the big part. I hate affirmitive action with a passion. It is racism by disregarding the majority in favor for the minorities. The overall idea of it is bad, especially when you have 1/2 1/4, 1/16, etc of a URM. My question is, if I put 'race not indicated", where would I stand in the admissions process? I want to go to these colleges, but I'm also fighting the ethical issues at hand. The fact that my freshmen and sophomore years were not even 3.5s, in fact my freshman year I received a C+ and three B-s, and in my sophomore year I received a D and two B-s (by semester of course).</p>

<p>thank you for any and all help you provide! I am very appreciative!</p>

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<p>You are a really competitive applicant. You have a great shot at everything. Get good scores on the SAT Subject Tests and write awesome essays, then there is no stopping you. Best of Luck.</p>

3

<p>ok well, your gpa is probably not very high esp. because of your low fresh/soph grades. however you have a good upward trend and amazing test scores. as much as you hate AA, you really should use it if you really want to get into the likes of harvard, wharton, etc. so I recommend using it.</p>

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<p>Without specifying your race, you could probably get into more than half of the LACs on your list, though you are just on the cusp of the 75th percentile for Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. However, your chances of getting into any of the Ivies will dramatically increase if you do mention that you’re hispanic. Princeton will ignore your frosh year which will help somewhat with the GPA issues, but as for the rest of them you are relatively ordinary as far as extraordinary people go.
I understand your opposition to affirmative action. At times it seems a bit ludicrous to reward someone for race/geographic diversity etc. if it has had little to no impact on their education and life experience.That said, there is no shame ever in taking advantage of every playing card you have. Legacies take advantage of meaningless family connections, athletes take advantage of sports that have little to do with education, and most URMs take advantage of their race whether or not it really makes them unique. Consider that nearly everyone you will be competing with to get into those schools will be throwing every plausible hook they have in the hope of admission.
Ideally you could get into most of these schools with specifying your race, but you can only benefit from providing more information and telling them the truth that you are hispanic. And if you do get into any of those schools because you are hispanic, you can rest assured that you deserved to be there and are as capable as anyone else.</p>

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<p>btw if you checked hispanic on your psat then you’ll undoubtedly get the NHRP in which case colleges will figure out that you’re hispanic anyway.</p>

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<p>and it’s nidorina not nitorina</p>

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<p>Gotta chance em all gotta chance em all! Gotta chance em all gotta chance em all!</p>

<p>@the big cheese: Thank you. My worry is indeed my overall GPA, which may not be low to some, but it wouldn’t be overall competitive for several institutions of higher learning.</p>

<p>@NWdivisionchamps: thank you for your advice.</p>

<p>@elytron: Thank you. The 75th percentile for what though? SAT, ACT, GPA? And wow, you do have a point…I think I might have done that…we’ll see how that goes. And haha, I found that out after I edited it for the first time! damn slight spelling errors! Damn them to hell!</p>

<p>Although, as much as I dislike it, I am kind of leaning towards using AA right now. I’ve seen some CC kids, alot of them are better than me, so without any kind of non-academic hook that leaves me to chance. And it’s not really for me persay where I want to go, rather I think my dad wants someone in the family to go to a prestigious university, even if it is for undergrad, and I think it’d be cool to be the first in my family to do that, and I’d like to think it’d make my parents proud.</p>

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<p>Also, Yale has recently caught my eye. I’m only applying to Grinnell/Colby because they are free to apply to, but say we took them out and added Yale, similar chances to the other ivies (in both situations)?</p>

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<p>hey, u r a really good candidate, especially because of ur upward trends in junior year(i had the same GPA problem- low start, and trends upward)</p>

<p>ur ec’s are strong and standardized test scores are amazing!</p>

<p>AA is ur choice, i dont have much to say about that, but u have some ridiculous volunteer experience so definitely can be used to ur advantage and a wide array of leadership/competitive experience.</p>

<p>Good luck, and I’m sure you’ll get in. Keep up the good work :D</p>

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<p>I’m not sure at how you arrived at a 3.7 to 3.9 cumulative GPA. Even if you got a 4.0 in your senior year I think that you would only average out to a 3.5. With those grades, unless you are in a very competitive school, your chances are significantly decreased. But your ECs and scores are good so I’m not exactly sure what to make of you, and I would worry that the Ivies and top LACs on your list might too. You should apply to a safety school or two. It doesn’t have to be a large state school. There are many less competitive LACs and universities that are easier to get into.</p>

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<p>I would suggest that you do not compare yourself to CC Kids. Most of them are faking it anyway. Go with your heart.</p>

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<p>@thebigcheese</p>

<p>What are you talking about?</p>

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<p>? I’m in IB too, and I’m preetty sure there’s no IB Calc SL. SL math is either IB Methods or IB Studies…</p>

<p>Anyways. great SATs, solid GPA (although if it ends up being 3.7 that deeefinitely puts you on the low range) And for ivies, definitely put that you’re hispanic … you may not like Affirmative Action, but I’d say that you should take advantage of what you have. if you decide later on in life to petition against it, go for it. good luck :)</p>

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<p>@thethinker: The way my school calculates exterior classes puts me there. I took a few online and CC courses. And I get what you mean by a safety, but I would really prefer no loan financial aid/need blind. Could Colby or Grinnel fit not as safeties, but as easier to get into than the others?</p>

<p>haha fuzzyfirebunny, I totally get w hat you mean about kids faking it. Or kids “predicting” their life". But at my school we have pre-IB advanced algebra/trig, IB pre calc SL, IB math studies SL, IB Calculus SL, and then we have IB advanced mathamatics topics HL. For the…one kid I know of in history who completed IB HL math before his senior year, we have an independent math-study course.
Our IB coordinator is a humanities gal, but she said “I don’t know why IB Calculus is SL, it definetly is HL material”, so ya, IDK if some schools have IB Calc HL or whatnot, but it’s what we have for some reason or another.</p>

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<p>I udnerstand why you would dislike AA but remember, in life there are factors that we have no control of. I can’t control that I’m black, you can’t control that your hispanic, just as others cant control that their white. And in this situation, we can’t contol that we’re URMs. Like elytron said, put ALL your cards on the table. There are many things you may not like about the Admissions Processes but you have to deal with it. But I certainly see what you mean with AA. When I think about it, AA strikes me as degrading to minorities. Like we’re not good enough to be compared to the normal applicants. </p>

<p>Anyway, back onto the point of this thread. Your GPA is a little on the low side but your standard. tests are what’s gonna help you.</p>

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<p>@Beatfreaks, I see what you are saying. Although had my sophomore year not sucked like I wanted it to (god dammed chemistry, and then track in the spring Fd me up too), I would NOT use AA to my advantage. But, for now, especially because of my GPA I am deciding to use it.</p>

<p>And modified college list</p>

<p>Pomona
CMC
Amherst
Swarthmore
Davidson
Williams
Wharton
UW Foster
Princeton
Dartmouth</p>

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<p>God dammit, can anyone tell me if Harvard/Columbia have any type of a liberal arts curriculum? I kind of have been thinking about these two for a while and I am not sure. </p>

<p>In <em>current</em> preference</p>

<p>CMC
Pomona
Amherst
Davidson
Wharton
Swarthmore
Dartmouth
Princeton
Williams
safety</p>

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<p>Are schools at the bottom or the top of your list more ones you’d like to attend?</p>

<p>Judging by the safety at the bottom, I’m going to guess the latter… If you got into Princeton, you’d pretty undoubtedly get into CMC as well, and, if you’d go to CMC anyways, then why apply to Princeton in the first place?</p>

<p>(Although, if this were to actually happen, I’m sure you would definitely be giving Princeton a gooooood look before choosing CMC over it. I know I would - I visited CMC and its campus was absolutely and utterly blah)</p>

<p>EDIT: and as a sidenote, I think it’s funny how remarkably similar you and I are as applicants… high test scores/low GPAs (but with upward trend). Except you’re Hispanic. Hmmm</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>I’m not sure what you mean due to the way that you structured this sentence, but if you are saying that Colby and Grinnell would be safeties I think that you are mistaken. They would be low matches at best.</p>

<p>Also, with your new lists you seem to be taking away the easier schools to get into. A high score on your SAT is great, but not everything and I would add a school or two that you are virtually guaranteed admission to (this is what a true safety should be: not a school that is easier, but one where a candidate with your qualifications is nearly assured to be admitted).</p>

<p>Lastly, I was not aware that one could apply to Wharton straight up. I could be wrong, but I thought that one just applied to UPenn.</p>

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<p>Wow, I didn’t even chance you <em>Duh!!!</em> LOL. So yeah, although your GPA is on the low side, I think you have a pretty good shot. Obviously, Im going to have to say the Ivies are a reach – they’re a reach for every single person applying. There’s no standard that says “oh you have 2400 SAT; 104 GPA, your in.” But I do think you have a good shot. My advice, try to explain why your GPA is low in your essay or something to that effect.</p>

<p>In <em>current</em> preference</p>

<p>CMC - Low Reach
Pomona - Low Reach/Match
Amherst - Low Reach/Match
Davidson - In
Wharton - Reach
Swarthmore - In/Match
Dartmouth - Reach
Princeton - Reach
Williams - Match</p>