Can you guys chance me?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Rising Senior, Asian (Korean), male, middle class to upper middle class, VA,

9th: English 9, Biology 1 H, Geometry, World Civilizations 1, Spanish 2 H, Health and PE 9, Intermediate Band
GPA: 3.725

10th: English 10 H, Chemistry, Algebra2, US History, Spanish 3, PE/Health/Driver’s Ed, Wind Ensemble
GPA: 3.671

*Note that I transferred from NJ to VA in the middle of sophomore year, and differences in course difficulty as well as Honors course weighing as well as the loss of friends and being behind made my grades suffer a lot.

11th: English Language and Composition AP, Physics AP, Psychology AP, World History AP, Pre-Calculus, Computer Graphics 1, Economics and Finance
GPA: 4.043 (My calculation, report cards haven’t arrived yet)

12th: English AP Lit (Will probably change), Calculus AB AP, Government AP, Environmental Science AP (might change), Microeconomics AP, Statistics AP, Computer Graphics 3 (may change to 2 for easier A)

TOTAL GPA: ~ 3.80 (posted online, though when I calculated myself it was ~3.86)

Scores: SAT (Highest single sitting) 2210 (800 Reading, 720 Math, 690 Writing with 8 essay, only 2220 superscore), SAT II World History 710, SAT II Math II 690(Will retake), May take Literature or Physics SAT II

Extracurriculars:
(9-10) Chess Club, Japan Club, Technology Student Association,Marching Band
(11-12) Coauthoring a book ;(examines the Korean Wave, the increase in the popularity of South Korean culture, with several other students, might become President or VP over the summer), National Honor Society

Volunteering/Work Experience
Midnight Run (distribution of food, water, and basic toiletries to the homeless of NYC) (9-10), about 21 hours; Band Fundraiser Raffle (10), 6 hours

Honors and Awards
National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist (My PSAT score is over the minimum for my state, so this is guaranteed), National Honor Society Inductee

Colleges:
Reach: Cornell (Dream), Emory, Duke, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Grinnell, Davidson, Tufts, UVA, University of Michigan. USC
Match: NYU, William and Mary, Boston College, Brandeis
Safety: Purdue, Boston University, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Northeastern

Please suggest more colleges that you think I am a match for. Thank You.

2

You really need to get your grades up for senior year, work hard and it should be fine. On the other hand, your outstanding SAT grade might save you.
You should decide what SAT subject test you want to take/ retake based on what you want to study in college:
for example if you take literature and want an engineering degree it wont help.

3

You can easily chance yourself by going to the Common Data Set, Section C for each of the schools on your list and comparing yourself to admitted students. For Grinnell, give yourself a boost as an Asian because your are a URM in Iowa. (Not sure about Davidson but may be an advantage there too.)

I’m a bit confused by your list: Not often that you see so many big/urban schools along-side Grinnell and Davidson. They are such different experiences (not good or bad - just different).

Also, I’m assuming based on this list that cost isn’t a factor. You can pay full freight or have checked the expected contribution from your folks and they are good to go, right?

4

William and Mary may be a reach. Your test scores are good but their average gpa is around 4.1+. I am from 's too and that is from Fairfax 2013 accepted students data

5

VA

6

I am an Asian male who lives in Virginia and graduated this year. Here’s my opinion on your colleges/chances
Colleges:
Reach: Cornell (Dream), Emory, Duke, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Grinnell, Davidson, Tufts, UVA, University of Michigan. USC
Match: NYU, William and Mary, Boston College, Brandeis
Safety: Purdue, Boston University, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Northeastern

Low GPA. It will hurt you for many colleges. Co-authoring a book looks good, but everything else is mediocre/not impressive to top colleges.

Those Reaches look good - however UVA may be more obtainable than you think because you live in Virginia and the acceptance rate for Virginians is much higher. I would say UVA is a low reach/high match based on how you do senior year.

7

Seriously guys? Even if he’s Asian, his 3.8 GPA isn’t THAT low, assuming it’s unweighted.

OP, yes some of those schools are reaches, but I wouldn’t stress too much. I’d worry more about the subjective stuff at this point, such as having more distinctive ECs and awards that don’t make adcoms think you’re the typical Asian.

Good luck!

8

To those that have replied so far, thank you very much. I appreciate the feedback a lot.

N’s Mom, I was thinking business/finance for my career, but I’m open to other things. I guess the selection is pretty strange. I prefer NYC and other big cities/colleges,but it’s not that big of a deal. And cost isn’t that much of an issue either, though I want to save money if I can.

AnEpicIndian, my 9th and 10th grade GPAs are pretty much unweighted because I only took a few honors classes (Now that I look at my post, I realized that I didn’t didn’t list US history as an honor course). At my old school in NJ, they would have weighed it +1, by my new school in VA only weighs honors courses +0.5. This of course hurt my GPA. I feel that my school in NJ was much harder, so…

Do you guys think they would consider that I transferred, and that there are differences in rigor/grade scale at my two high schools?