Chance a delusional rising junior: NY resident, 3.9 for Anthropology, less than $60K

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student
  • State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities)
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers):
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional):
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):

Intended Major(s)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA:
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system):
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank:
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Demographics: Asian :skull: Female

Residency: NY :skull: (arguably one of the worst areas for admissions besides cali)

Hooks: Mid-Sized Private High School, First-Gen

Income: <$60k :skull:

Intended Major(s): anthropology

SAT & ACT: not yet but plan on submitting

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.9UW/4.6W Rank: Top 10%

Coursework: AP World (just took), APUSH, AP Bio, AP Lang

Awards: international thing w/ internship, psva, NLE gold, regional art comp, maybe girl scout gold??

Extracurriculars:

  1. Business internship (intern → team lead → staff)
  2. Law internship (intern → team lead)
  3. Started tutoring program w/ my school and local elementary school
  4. Museum tour guide during summer
  5. FBLA treasurer
  6. Teen art council for museum
  7. Girl Scouts (senior leader rn)
  8. Varsity badminton
  9. JV soccer
  10. Editor for school newspaper

Additional Information

Def mentioning that I couldn’t take 4 units of language because my school got rid of mine after 3. Not sure if I should mention extra small ecs like:

  1. Transcription volunteer for Smithsonian
  2. Latin club secretary

Essays/LORs/Other: Not yet lmao

Schools: List of colleges, ED/EA/RD, etc

Reaches: Columbia, Harvard, Vassar, NYU, Georgetown, Boston College, Barnard College, Brown, Notre Dame, Uchicago, Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Yale, Princeton, JHU

Targets: CUNY Baruch, CUNY Hunter, SUNY Binghamton, College of the Holy Cross

Safeties: CUNY City College, SUNY Cortland, St. John’s U

Biggest issue for me is financial aid so I’m mostly applying to full need schools or publics in NY. So far, the ones I like the most are Columbia, Harvard, and Notre Dame. Columbia is right next to The Met, Notre Dame has a special Smithsonian program, and so many high-up staff members at The Met went to Harvard. Would love a reality check to see if I truly stand a chance at these schools. I know that without tests or writing it’s hard to guess but do I have a strong enough base of my ecs/gpa?

P.S. Not sure if this helps but I have a way of connecting my business/law ecs with anthropology

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Your private school counselor is going to be a much better judge of whether your reaches are realistic or not (based on past results from your school). And can advise you on whether your course selections are rigorous in the context of your HS.

Have you checked out Questbridge?

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So you’re a year out and yes talk to your school counselor.

And look at questbridge.org and discuss with the counselor if this will be a good idea for you.

Best of luck.

PS -to me, you have too many safeties.

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I don’t think this is a hook.

Well…it will be easier to give you suggestions once you have complete information. And grades from your junior year of high school.

You have a ton of reaches on your list…and the NY colleges. As long as you are happy with the sure things…go for it. I hope you can pare down your list.

I’m curious why you don’t have any DC schools on your list as they are so close to the Smithsonian.

Also, you might want to look at Case Western University which is very close to the Cleveland Museum of Art…a great place if you have never been.

Agree with @blossom that the school counselor at your private school would have good context in terms of acceptance chances for students from your school.

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What is your game plan for a standardized test? Of course, you can go test optional, but a very strong test score could help you.

Top 10% is good enough on the GPA unless you are coming from a private school with very low standards - that is where a high standardized test score and high AP scores can help.

It sounds as if you’re interested in working in a museum? Take a look at which schools have opportunities at museums on campus; for example, half of Egypt is in the basement of the Penn museum (the other half is at the British museum), Harvard has several excellent museums, so does Yale. Not that this is a hook, but it’s unusual for someone to have identified this as a career goal in high school, so this may be your essay topic, and might be the reason that you get in. After all, it does stand out from all the comp sci, premeds, pre-laws, pre-wall street titan applicants. And if you’re trying to use this to stand out, then yes, you should mention the transcription volunteer for the Smithsonian. You’ve done a lot of different assorted activities, but if your goal is working for a museum, then you probably want to emphasize that theme, grouping those museum-related activities together.

Have you identified any particular area of anthropology, or of museum work? Is it art? Cultural anthropology, and the resurrection of lost cultures? Anything more specific?

I think that your reaches are all that, and all but maybe Vassar are actually very high (and hence unlikely) reaches. Your targets sound reasonable. I think that you will get into all of them. Are there any slightly less selective reach schools that offer you the museum and anthro programs that you want, that would meet your financial need? Oneonta, Middlebury, and Bennington offer a museum studies program - Oneonta is a safety for you, and Middlebury is a true reach, but meets full need, and Bennington is probably a low match for you, would offer you enough fin aid to come close to the cost of a SUNY.

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I missed the museum part. I think most are Masters. Tufts is very good. SUNY Buff is as is U of Kansas and Beloit - which seems to give a lot of aid.

Perhaps any would let you bleed your anthro curriculum into their graduate museum programs in upper years ?

KU is very generous and from I read on CC, so is Beloit.

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You don’t necessarily have to rule out schools that don’t meet full need, so long as they are reasonably generous with both need-based and merit. Sometimes you can even end up doing better with these schools, because some full-need-met schools that are stretching to stay in that category end up using a relatively stingy formula to compute your expected family contribution, whereas a school that doesn’t have to meet need may do a more favorable calculation, allowing you to fill the gap with merit and end up with a generous overall package. One example of a school like this is Beloit College, which is particularly known for anthropology and has its own anthro museum Logan Museum of Anthropology • Beloit College - they have a museum studies minor as well. Beloit meets 96% of need, and for a student like you, there’s little doubt that your need would be fully met via need-based + merit. Run the NPC and see how it looks. It’s about 90 minutes from Chicago and an hour from Madison, WI, so lots of major museums within a manageable radius for excursions.

I see Tsbna beat me to the punch while I was drafting this, haha, but I’ll leave as is :slight_smile:

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OP- Get in front of your college counselor ASAP. At a private HS, the counselors already know which kids they think are “in the zone” for Columbia, Brown, Chicago et al, vs. the ones who need to be focused on a different set of schools entirely. Of course you should be including CUNY’s and SUNY’s, but if your counselor tells you that you are highly likely to get into Hunter (for example) you probably don’t need to bother with Baruch or City College. And if SUNY Cortland is both affordable and a rock solid safety admissions-wise, you only need one safety.

There is no downside to Questbridge for you if you are eligible, and there might be a huge upside. So discuss with your counselor.

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What made you choose SUNY Cortland as a safety (one of my kids went there)?

Have you considered New Paltz, Fredonia, Buffalo State, UB, or Oneonta? These schools may be a good fit, based on your interests.

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Well - it’s a solid 45 minute walk, crossing the northern half of Central Park, or a 30 minute BUS RIDE away!? Very doable, my daughter did this quite a few times due to her own interests, or for assignments, but not “right next to” it.

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