Can more graduated seniors do "actual results" threads?

Chance Me / Match Me!
2121

Now that D is in college, here are her stats:

White female from over-represented suburban area.
3.75 UW
7 AP classes, all A grades. 8 tests, because she self studied one. 5 x 5, 4 x 2, 3 x 1.
SAT 2240

Accepted to: SUNY Geneseo, Clark U, F & M, Dickinson, Whitman, Kenyon, University of Rochester, Oberlin, and Bates, where she attends.
WLed: Oberlin, Bates and Carleton, denied at Tufts and Brown.

ECs were probably a weak point, but included a musical instrument and a few clubs at school, one minor officer position, and yearly volunteer work at the same place for four years. Various other activities.

Strong points were excellent course rigor, good grades, probably very good teacher recs, probably very good essay.

2122

How much does overall GPA factor into American college admissions? I am a Canadian student with an overall 3.7 GPA with a 3.67 fresh, 3.41 soph, (ouch) and 4.00 junior. I’m asking because in Canada, schools mainly care about junior year. Will my GPA drag me down and prevent me from getting into any good (top 25) schools? Or can it be balanced with a decent SAT score and EC’s?

2123

If it’s relevant, my freshman GPA without electives would be a 4.00.

2124

@redwall1521 haha you mean 50 kids to a counselor?

2125

GPA from all years are counted. With a good standardized test score and EC’s you should be fine, but it depends on what schools you want to apply to. Post in the “What are my chances?” thread for more responses.

2126

@ghvan99 Some colleges don’t factor freshman year grades. I believe this is true of most Californian public colleges and Stanford. Apparently Canadian colleges also don’t factor freshman grades.

2127

Ok, so here it goes;

Accepted: SUNY Buffalo (5k scholarship a year), SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Geneseo (3k scholarship a year), Cornell, McGill University (I have dual citizenship), University of Pittsburgh (1/2 tuition, attending), Case Western (1/3 tuition scholarship), University of Rochester ($17,000/ year).

My top two choices were McGill and Pitt, Cornell, UofR, and Case were too expensive

No Rejections or Waitlists

ACT: 33
GPA 92.7 UW, 96.3 W
Class Rank: N/A

Stuff I did: I was a competitive gymnast for twelve years, and competed in track and field in high school.
Model United Nations -VP
National Honors Society
A couple of others… It’s been two years since I graduated, give me a break

2128

Been waiting for a year to post on this forum, so excited to finally add actual results! Hope this helps someone!
Accepted: Baylor, TAMU (with emphasis on Corps of Cadets) Dallas Baptist University, SFA. Considered Rice or West Point but didn’t think my ACT was good enough.
Attending: Baylor

School Type: Homeschooled

Location: RURAL Texas

Hooks: not many, wealthy white female. It does help that I am from a very rural area and that I am homeschooled - For Baylor, my mom is an alummni and we are Baptist, which helped. For TAMU, I was a female interested in the Cadets, so that also helps.

Prospective Major: Pre-health studies, working on becoming a military physician

Unweighted GPA: 3.9

Class rank: n/a homeschooled

ACT: 28 first try, 31 second. Never give up! I had poor math scores both times.

Extracurricular Info (I think my ec’s were very diverse and that helped a lot. In a small town there’s not much to do and I drove all over Texas to do some of these!)
*4-H: showed livestock, baking competitions, etc
*fashion shows
*Science Fairs
*STEP and CAP - basically ROTC but only in summers
*Church Teen leader
*Teen Court Volunteer Attorney
*Calf Scrambling
*NRECA Youth Tour - spent days in DC and at service academies learning more about careers in public service.
*JR Press Corps

Volunteering:
*Teen Volunteer at rural surgical clinic for 3 years
*Through 4-H: landscaped sr citizen’s center, built houses for homeless, raised funds for vfw, etc
*Church Volunteer: VBS leader, Backyard Bible club
*Mission Trips
*JR Tutoring

Work Experience
*40 hrs a week as a pharmacy clerk for one year, then it got to be too much and I had to quit before I had a nervous breakdown!!
*4 hrs a week Babysitting

Awards:
*Gold Start honoree (leadership award)
*Heart O Texas livestock scholar
*Top Three Science Students
*First place Fashion Extravaganza
*National 4-H Ambassador
*NRECA Youth Tour Honoree

Good Essays, my dual credit English teachers looked over both and helped me.
Recs: Though I’m homeschooled, my town is so small I do a lot of actives at the public school, like 4-H and FFA. The school administrator actually wrote my rec and talked about how I was just as well educated as his students, which was pretty great. My other rec was my dual credit adviser.

I just want to say don’t despair if you are a homeschooled student. It may feel like you’re basically teaching yourself. So what? That’s good. You have control over your future. Use that to your advantage.

2129

I was also accepted to Texas Tech.

2130

accepted: UGA, USC (south carolina), Clemson, Tulane, King’s College, Ohio U, Colorado School of Mines, and Eckerd College
still waiting: Georgia Tech, Harvard, Wofford, Hawaii Pacific, UNC Chapel Hill
denied: none

test scores
35 act, 35 superscore
2170 old sat, 2190 superscore
1440 new sat
3.6 gpa
IB diploma student

other academic
teacher aide in IB design technology
wrote 35+ pg paper on design in engineering

other
summer job
skipped a grade
volunteer every week at a church
currently taking ap calculus and ib math studies at the same time
two sports

I haven’t graduated yet, but I thought this might be helpful anyway.

2131

High School Class of 2016

Accepted: GWU (EDII), Case Western (EA), Bentley (Half-tuition), Pitt
Deferred: Tulane, Northeastern
Waitlisted: Babson
Attending: GWU

School Type: Large Public

Location: Suburban PA

Hooks: LGBT?, wrote my essay about veganism which I think was interesting but not a “hook”

Prospective Major: Geography and Finance Double

Weighted GPA: 3.8 (school does not do unweighted)

Class rank: School doesn’t rank but I was some sort of cum laude and got the Presidential Award (these things don’t really matter lol)

ACT: 30 both times

Extracurricular Info:
Five-time varsity letter winner in track and xc (large majority of my time)
Founder and president of club
Member of many clubs
Lots of volunteer stuff
Various jobs
Attended NIAHD at W&M

Awards:
PSAT National Merit commended or whatever
AP Scholar
Awards for class rank and GPA

My essays were fine and recs good

***********I feel that this is really important: In my JUNIOR YEAR (!!!) I got a C- in AP calc and still got into top universities and business schools. Don’t give up hope!!! I also only got one A my junior year (my courseload was ridiculously hard)

2132

High School Class of 2016:
Accepted: UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCD, UCI, UCR, Boston College, Pepperdine
Waitlisted: CMC, Carnegie Mellon
Rejected: USC, NYU

Major: Business Economics/Business Administration

GPA: 4.6-4.7 (top 10% at a competitive CA high school) - only 1 B, the rest A’s
SAT: 2200 (670 CR, 730 MA, 800 WR)
Asian male (disadvantage for sure)
Took 11 AP/IB Courses

EC’s:
Varsity swim for four years
FBLA awards at sections and state
150 hour human resources internship
2016 executive business manager of school newspaper
swim team captain my senior year
principal honor roll
secretary of peer tutoring club
there’s probably more but I don’t remember the minor details

Just thought i would share here

2133

Not Graduated yet, but I am a senior with results.
Early Decision to Northwestern: Accepted (will attend pending financial aid award).

White Female (straight)
Low-income, single parent home
Declaring Neuroscience Major with intention to double major in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, with a possible minor in music theory (I want to study how music interacts with the brain)

4.0 unweighted GPA, 4.345 weighted GPA (13/434–Last full time music kid in the top 3%)
Rigorous schedule with a few discrepancies–I’ve chosen music and AP science classes over AP History classes (US History or Human Geography), instead electing to take regular US History and World History as online classes in the summer. I intend to defend this choice in the supplemental information section. I also chose music in place of taking French 4 junior year. Music also interferes with both AP Chem and AP Physics, so I’ve taken neither (my school works on block scheduling making scheduling music kids difficult). Other than those, I’ve actually run out of honors classes to take at my school.

APs (sophomore and junior year): Biology (4), Language and Composition (5), Psychology (5), Statistics (5)
APs (senior year): Literature, Macroeconomics, Government and Politics, Calculus BC

Extracurriculars (school):
Science Olympiad: Multiple time state champion, three-time national competitor, officer
Theatre: Many shows cast and crew, known as the “mistress of the mics”
Choir: Three-year member of Varsity Concert Choir and Chamber Choir (select choir of varsity), made Nebraska All-State choir
Band: Mellophone/French Horn Section Leader, three-year member of Varsity Concert Band and Jazz Band. Played in varsity ensembles on five instruments (trumpet, mellophone, french horn, trombone, bari sax)
Math Club: three-year University Math Day competitor

Extracurriculars (outside of school):
Part time job since the summer after sophomore year: I am a waitress at a nursing home and love every minute of it. (apprx. 10-15 hrs/week)
Church leader: Leading sixth-grade girls midweek Bible study, Sunday School leader substitute
Girl Scouts: Until sophomore year? I was a Senior and got my Bronze award…and possibly my Silver. It got confusing toward the end.

Standardized Tests:
ACT: Composite - 34, English - 35, Math - 34, Reading - 34, Science - 34
SAT (new) (superscored, which Northwestern does for SAT): 1540, Math - 770, Reading - 770
Did not take SAT II

National Merit Semifinalist

My essay is about the ways that music helped me when I was going through some serious medical problems. My English teacher loved it so hopefully it was good?

2134

Current Senior

Accepted: Illinois, Michigan State, Northwestern
Deferred: UChicago
School Type: Large Public
Location: Suburban IL
Hooks: not really
Prospective Major: Physics
GPA: 3.96/4 UW
Class rank: 8/500
ACT: 36
SAT: 1530, 800 on chem and SAT II
Extracurricular Info:
Track, band, quiz bowl
Awards:
national merit semifinalist
AP Scholar
state chemistry competition

I’d recommend to apply to a wide range of schools because if you’re white/male/asian you probably won’t get in to many top schools no matter how good your test scores are.

2135

I agree that people should apply to a wide range of schools, but definitely not the second part of your statement. The mentality that universities are going to reject qualified applicants solely because they’re “white/male/Asian” is false and dangerous to espouse, because it leads into the idea of entitlement (“I deserved to get into HYP, but they gave my spot to some minority with lower test scores”). I’m not saying this is your mentality, but some people on this site think that way.

Your claim is most likely based on your personal experiences, so I’ll give you anecdotal accounts about why your statement can be perceived as faulty. The top 2 seniors in my class were males (one Asian and one white). Both were close or did score a 2400 on the SAT (or I guess it’s a 1600 now). They were both in multiple AP classes and received 4s or 5s on most of them. Both of them were accepted into various Ivies and amazing public and private universities with very generous financial aid packages/scholarships.

I have a full ride at my university. There are plenty of white/males/Asian who also receive the same scholarship I do. When I was visiting schools across the nation that I had been accepted to/received a scholarship from, I ran across a lot of white/males/Asian students from all different types of backgrounds.

You can be denied from a school because you come across as disinterested in your essays, you didn’t take advantage of opportunities/more challenging courses at your high school, you don’t meet the caliber of the rest of the students applying, you have no hobbies/interests you pursued, it’s obvious that your parents or an admissions coach wrote your applications, etc. But I highly doubt that a reputable school will deny you based on factors beyond your control. And even in the extremely marginal chance they did, you would not want to attend that school under any circumstances.

2136

@philbegas I agree with you. #2115
The people posting acceptances/rejections to HYP, brown, columbia, cornell, dart, penn, mit, stanford is pretty useless because scores aren’t the determining factor; for these schools it’s more about ec’s and essays. That’s something that can’t be helpfully transmitted in this venue. There’s no way that reading about a student with 13 years of piano, or an eagle scout will be of any help to students that are recent to these forums and are researching how to get admitted to schools which is an extremely high percentage of everyone here.

For medium and low level schools, tests scores and schools applied-to are the most important and helpful part of this thread. Don’t get me wrong, it’s also great entertainment seeing how superhuman students get rejected and other not so superhuman get accepted.

So I agree with you that with medium level schools where scores matter in larger part, it is more helpful to get a grasp at our chances and whether we should consider retaking our SATs or applying to a few other schools which weren’t in our previous perview.

2137

Just thought I’d pitch this (really late though).

Currently attending: Rensselaer (RPI).
Accepted: NYU, Case Western Reserve University, RPI, Stony Brook, Binghamton, UMass, Purdue.
Waitlisted: UMichigan.
Rejected: Georgia Tech, Cornell.

Scholarship results:

47k/49k for tuition at RPI (expected to dorm)
53/49k (I think) for tuition at CWRU
42k/49k at NYU (wasn’t going to dorm)
16k/29k at Purdue
All others: fully ride including dorm.

White Male
Computer Engineering Major

4.0 weighted GPA, top 15% in graduating class.
AP World History (4)
AP United States History (4)
AP English Lang (4)
AP Chemistry (4)
AP Calc AB (4)
AP CS (5)
AP Human Geo (5)
AP Literature (4)

Dual enrollment: took three courses part-time at my local community college. One was science, one was sociology, one was computer science. Got A’s in all of them.

SAT I:
Math - 690, Reading - 660, Writing - 770.

SAT II:
Chemistry: 730
US: 770
Math II: 690 (meh)

ACT:
Overall: 31
English: 34
Reading: 29
Math: 30
Science: 32

Extracurriculars (school):
Science Olympiad - regional & states (senior year) - top 10 in regionals.
Men’s Choir - sang at Yale, participated in state competitions.
Programming Club - attented hackathons, etc. in NYC. Taught kids how to program. Started club in freshman year.
Tech Squad- fixed computers, took over in Junior year.
Children’s Hospital - spent 200 hours volunteering.
Outside Work - worked part time while in high-school.
Internship at Fortune 500 during junior year of high school, internship at educational data analytics startup in senior year.

2138

High School Class of 2017

White Female
Environmental Science Major
Location: Austin, Texas

Accepted: Northern Arizona University, University of Montana, Florida Atlantic University, Western Washington University, West Texas A&M, University of North Texas, Texas State, University of Denver
Denied: UT Austin
Plan: Community College for one year, transfer to WWU or University of Washington

GPA: 3.4/4.4 , top 25%

AP World(4)
AP Euro(4)
APUSH(4)
AP Lang(4)
AP Lit
AP Government
AP Econ
AP Enviro
AP Bio

SAT:

Total Score: 1270
Reading/Writing: 710
Math: 560

Extracurriculars:
Theatre- 4 years(9/10 hours a week)
Dance- 3 years(7 hours a week)
Musical Theatre- 1 year(6 hours a week)
Colorguard- 1 year(30-40 hours a week)
National Forensics League- OO and DI(9 hours a week)

Volunteer hours- 60
30- helping run debate tournament
20- animal shelter
10- volunteer at local elementary school

Work Experience
Summer camp counselor- 3 months
Preschool Gymnastics coach- Aug- present

Overall, I had a really bad freshman year. The transition to high school was rough for me, and I was in the colorguard, so I wasn’t getting home until 8 or 9 every night. I had a strong upward trend, though. In the end, I decided to go to the local community college, because they accepted all my AP Courses as credits, so I only need 10 classes to get my associates.

2139

cdhxyx, why do you think you got deferred from UChicago? that’s my dream school, and your scores were really good.

2140

That is racist