Chance A Black Guy For Top Schools

Hey everyone, I’m a rising senior, and I just want some opinions on my chances at the schools on my list.

PROFILE
•Black Male (2nd gen African immigrant to be specific)
•Family Income is ~$65K
•Dad has degree from East African country, doesn’t use it anymore as evidenced by family income hahaha
•Definitely need financial aid, will be applying for QuestBridge

ACADEMICS
•GPA: 4.60 Weighted, 4.0 Unweighted, Rank 3 of 620 students

•SAT: 2290 (730 Critical Reading, 770 Math, 790 Writing) [Hope CR doesn’t hurt me, I had no $$ to retest lol]
•SAT Subject Tests: Math Level 2 (800), Chemistry (800), US History (780)
•AP Courses So Far: [All 5s] Physics 1, Chemistry, English Lang, US History, World History

SENIOR YEAR APs: Physics C, Calc BC (ashamed I haven’t taken this yet), Lit, Gov, Macro, and Spanish Lang (yikes!)

MAJOR: Aerospace Engineering (Mechanical Engineering for schools without Aerospace)

AWARDS/ACHIEVEMENTS/HONORS
•USA Astronomy & Astrophysics Olympiad – Qualified for last round to compete for spots on US Team
•Discovered 2 Eclipsing Variable Star Systems | Submitted in International Variable Star Index
•Key Club Articles published in regional Tex-O Key Publication
•National Merit Recognition (at least commended since SI is above 209, but IDK about semifinalist)
•Awarded 1st Place Key Club in Texas-Oklahoma Region
•2015 Superintendent’s Scholar (just a local PSAT award)

EXTRACURRICULARS (Sort of my weak point I guess)
•Summer Astrophysics Research at SMU (8wk Internship) - Analyzed photometric data to find variable stars. Discovered 2 eclipsing variable stars.
•Amateur Astronomy (9-12) - Personal hobby of mine. Used my own telescopes and equipment to view planets and DSOs. I’ve always shared it with family, friends, and community.
•Key Club (10-12) | (Editor 11th grade) - I was the guy who wrote and edited articles, some of which were featured in the regional publication, and as an officer I also led service events. We were awarded the 1st Place Overall Key Club for having an outstanding board.
•United Nations Club (9-12) | (Representative 10th grade, Historian 11th grade) - I was the “face” of the club as a representative, documented events as historian. We held annual UN show, which showcased world cultures. Service events like helping Syrian refugees. Love this club, had lots of fun.
•HOSA (11) - Competed in regional medical math competition, placed 4th in it. Helped me with applied math and health education. Probably won’t continue though because I’m more focused on engineering and physics.
•NHS (11-12) - Typical NHS club, honor based, community service, yadda yadda.
******There might also be another activity listed here with my involvement in the AAVSO, but I’m debating putting that for now, depends on where it goes.

ESSAYS: Working on supplements, I’ve gotten really good comments on my main essay from AP Lang teacher and some CC members, but I’ll still be editing and reviewing that.

LoRs: Physics 1 and Lang teachers. I’ve tutored for my physics teacher, she’s my favorite teacher of all time, and we’re pretty close so I’m sure that’ll be good. Lang teacher is great too, she’s HILARIOUS, and my relationship is fine with her too.

SCHOOLS:
•Stanford (Top choice, gotta dream big right?)
•Yale (Love this school though it’s not particularly strong in engineering)
•MIT (Every nerd’s dream)
•Columbia
•Cornell

•UT Austin (I have auto-admit as TX resident, but engineering school is not a safety for anyone)
•Rice
•Carnegie Mellon
•USC
•UT Dallas (Safety, Qualify for scholarship that covers 100% of aid)

How do I look? Any recommendations or advice you wanna give me?

Thanks for reading everyone!

First off your GPA, class rank, test Scores, and EC’s are stellar and worthy of admission to any of these schools even if you weren’t an URM. Add QuestBridge and URM into the mix I think you have a match for many of these- probably your top choice!

Its funny, In reading your bio the simple sentence “Love this club, had lots of fun.” struck me as sincere/ heartwarming… and I found myself rooting for you! (Can you keep that in your description?!)

I think you have an excellent chance! best of luck!

a family friend’s son has very similar stats and applied for exact same major ( AA, top 5 rank, etc) but even slightly lower test scores and got into several ivies( including harvard) and stanford. Though not guaranteed, I think you have very excellent chances!

Have you heard of Kwasi Enin? He had an SAT score of 2250 (slightly lower than yours). And Kwasi was accepted to all 8 ivy league schools.

You’ll have a lot of options next April

@runswimyoga Holy smokes, thank you! I seriously wasn’t expecting that. Wow, that gives me lots of encouragement. And yeah, I’ll definitely include that about the UN club. Wow, I’m quite surprised by all of these comments. Thank you so much!

@iska123 That’s certainly encouraging to hear! I hope the same is true for me haha. Thank you!

@sgopal2 That’s incredible to hear. I’m still going to prepare myself for the worst because, you know, nothing is guaranteed in life. But I didn’t know URM played this big of a role in admissions. I kinda feel bad now :confused: A lot of my friends are white and asian, I sure hope no resentment arises between any of us. I’m rambling haha. Thank you for telling me about him and for your comment!

Don’t feel bad. Use whatever advantage is given to you.

Add some more reaches to your list. You’ll probably even get 100% aid at many of these schools.

I think you’ll do well with a number of acceptances. Financial Aid should be very good but unless you have more than a family of 4 income may be slightly too high for Questbridge. They weigh a variety of factors so can’t be sure. Have you considered Cal Tech? If you make it through on Questbridge they could be a good match option for you.

With your top 0.5% rank and other academic credentials, it would be hard to see you not getting your desired engineering major at UT Austin, although in the absence of a stated automatic admission to major policy, the best you could call it is a low match. Is UT Austin affordable on ordinary need-based financial aid? If not, then you would have to reassess reach/match based on whatever merit scholarship you need to afford it.

Looks like you have UT Dallas as a safety already. Is the scholarship you need automatic?

The private schools on your list are generally in the “reach for everyone” category, except maybe USC (but probably at least high match or low reach for everyone).

@acdchai Yeah, that’s my concern with QB since we’re only a family of 4. It won’t hurt to try though since it’s very similar to the common app. I have researched Caltech and I’ve determined that it just isn’t for me haha. But thank you for your comment!

@ucbalumnus UT is generally stingy with aid, both need-based and merit, unfortunately. It’s likely to be the most expensive school on my list. However, I do know people from my school with lower stats and around the same income who had most of their UT tuition covered, but they still had to take out small loans (~$2K a semester).

UTD doesn’t state that having certain stats will automatically qualify you for that scholarship, but it’s solely based on SAT or ACT scores, and my SAT is well above the average SAT for people who received it. My counselor also told me that she doesn’t see anyway they wouldn’t give me that scholarship, so I feel comfortable with it.

Thank you for asking those questions!

You are the unicorn that all of the schools are looking for. You also might check out Harvey Mudd. Best of luck!

Congratulations on your accomplishments! Your chances at Rice are very good. If there is anything working against you at Rice, its geography. There are plenty of Texans applying to Rice, and the only thing I can see that would make you more attractive to the school is if you were out of state. However, the school is 45% Texan, and I think you’ll make it in.

Considering your race, you have a very good chance of getting into all those schools. If you were Asian or White, probably would be a reach. Only reach is Stanford. You should add harvard and princeton to your list as well.

“Only reach is Stanford.”

I would truly disagree. I’ve seen some things at Stanford that make me think differently. OP is a strong candidate for Stanford.