Chance a first-time poster (I know you're reading this)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I've been reading the boards for a while, so I get how this works, haha. I will chance back.</p>

<p>Bio: I'm a Jewish male from New Jersey, Class of 2013. I will be applying for aid, but my family's well-off. No early decision until I visit more of these schools.</p>

<p>School: Biotechnology High School, Newsweek #25 public in the country and rising. However, the school was founded like 6 years ago and is not well known to colleges yet. As it is a magnet school I play sports for Shore Regional.</p>

<p>Courseload: All freshman and sophomore classes are considered honors level, and all junior and senior classes are IB. Physics, bio, and english are HL. IB diploma candidate.
The school basically lets you have all of three electives in four years. Those three for me are Spanish 5, Advanced Experimental Design, and Anatomy/Physiology. I take 4 years of Bio, 1 year Chem, 3 years physics, and 2.5 years research. Math, English, History, Spanish, core courses etc. are all 4 years. This is predetermined by the school.
The school does not offer AP classes.</p>

<p>GPA: 3.9-ish unweighted. It's like a 96 right now. School does not weigh courses differently.</p>

<p>Class Rank: School does not rank students, too competitive.</p>

<p>SAT: I only took it once so far. 750 math, 760 writing, 640 reading (don't ask :P). I plan on retaking once or twice. So far, total is 2150.</p>

<p>SAT II: At the end of junior year and beginning of senior year I will take Bio-E, Bio-M, Physics, and Math II. I expect 750+ on the Bio-M and Physics.</p>

<p>ACT: Will take sometime.</p>

<p>Athletics:
Tennis: four-year varsity, team has made sectional finals each year so far. Currently, we are in Division I Monmouth County and I play 3rd singles.
Other: soccer as a freshman (stopped due to injury), two-year varsity swimming (11/12). Various extracurricular sports.</p>

<p>Service: Temple: for five years, every sunday for two hours during the school year, I volunteer as a religious teacher's assistant and librarian. The other service hours I have are far less significant.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
School Clubs: Dance Club, Music Club, FFA, Science Competition Club, Math League, Spanish Honor Society, and National Honor Society (senior year only).
Piano: Ten years piano training, both classical and modern.
Dance: Hip hop choreographer/breakdancer.</p>

<p>Leadership: 2-year tennis captain, Biotech boot camp and Biotech info-session annual volunteer, Dance club co-president.</p>

<p>Work Experience: Three years front desk at King's Star Chinese. Trying to get a job playing piano, but that's sort of a stretch :)</p>

<p>Awards: Possible national merit recognition, I got a 2140
And I know this sounds cocky but I honestly believe I will win JSSF, national FFA, and possibly Delaware Valley Intel science fairs (well, honorable mention maybe for that last one). I have awesome projects. I wish I could count research as an extracurricular :)</p>

<p>Essays: Well I have no idea what I would write about, but I'm a pretty good writer. Then again, it seems like everyone's a good writer at this point.</p>

<p>Recommendations: Everyone on these boards is like 'I have AWESOME recommendations.' But I have no idea how mine will turn out, so I'm going to leave that as pretty average.</p>

<p>Schools: uh, Brown, Northwestern, UCLA, UPenn, Michigan (Ann Arbor- also my mom went here for her MD), Stanford, Rice, USC, Boston U. Okay, I have a lot of reaches :)</p>

<p>So guys, chance me? Oh but more importantly, what part of my app can I improve on? (besides that reading score)</p>

2

<p>Alright, you didn’t think I would write this much and not bump it, did you?</p>

3

<p>My goodness. It’s hannukah, help a brotha out</p>

4

<p>Well, a lot is up in the air right now (as you well know), so these chances may or may not hit the mark, but I figured I’d help another '13er out:</p>

<p>Brown - reach, maybe a low reach. Depends how well your testing goes, to some degree. Brown is a hair… random in terms of admissions, though; essays will definitely be important. Also, for your sake, I hope those science fair awards go through. Yeah, how good your chances are for Brown is fairly dependent on how well things you hope fall into place… fall into place.
Northwestern - I believe Northwestern has been, in recent years, really stat-oriented for admissions. If you do well on your SAT IIs and your next attempts at the SAT I, I’d say you have a very reasonable chance.
UCLA - match. You’re roughly at its 75th percentile for the SAT as of now. The UC system has become more OOS friendly, too.
Penn - reach, much the same as Brown.
Michigan - match. I’m not sure how much legacy helps at Michigan, and I’m not sure if your situation counts as legacy, so I don’t know how to weigh that.
Stanford - reach, more so than Penn or Brown. Of all the schools on this list, I like your odds for this one the least… I know some people with similar ECs and 2300+ SAT that got turned down this year by Stanford EA.
Rice - not sure, and I can’t find a link to Rice’s common data set.
USC - probable acceptance, basically in.
Boston U - probable acceptance. Your SAT already exceeds its 75th percentile overall (which, for the record, is about 2070)… I don’t see BU declining you.</p>

<p>As for improving your app:

  1. You already know, but if you get that reading score up from a 640 to a 740, that gives you a 2250, which is what is generally considered an Ivy-competitive SAT score for unhooked students. As it stands, for the top schools, your 2150 isn’t quite doing it.
  2. Schools like focus, but they also like academic breadth. Have you considered taking an SAT II in, say, literature? Just to demonstrate that you might be a little more rounded than the next guy who applied from Biotechnology High School. Not necessary, but worth considering.
  3. Go for an 800 on Math II. Just do it, man! It’s nothing you have yet to learn, I’m sure. An 800 has been around the 88th percentile for the Math II test as of recent, so it’s not unheard of.
  4. If you could get some leadership in your other ECs, it would only help… but it’s not too important.</p>
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<p>You do have a lot of major reaches. A white Jewish male from LI will need more than a 2150 and average ECs at ivies, the competition in this pool is legendary. You really need a stand out EC to separate you fromthe crowd.</p>

<p>And how does that work being well off but applying for aid? Yu do realize most of these schools offer need based aid only?</p>

6

<p>Because we’re Jewish and don’t like to pay lots of money for things? :)</p>

<p>Thank you guys, especially experientiadocet. If you have any chance threads, post the link here and I will chance back.</p>

<p>As for suggestions:
Yeah that reading score… I’m not great at the reading but that 640 is worse than all the practice tests, haha. I’m gonna get someone to help me with that. Is it true that these colleges will see that 640 even if I do better on the next one? Oh, except UCLA I already know doesn’t let you superscore… damn :stuck_out_tongue:
SAT II in literature, oh lawd. I took a practice one and did really bad, but I’ll look for something that doesn’t fit the ‘Biotech’ mold. Thanks!
800 on Math- I’ll go for it. I understand all the practice problems but they take me forever to do, so I’m not sure I’m cut out for the 800. I’ll give it my best shot though!
Leadership- I agree, I should go for more of that.</p>

7

<p>Make sure to definitely take the ACT. I almost didn’t and got a much higher relative score on the ACT than the SAT. </p>

<p>I would try and see if you could add more volunteer service to your resume outside you temple. While what you have is good, I think it would be even better if colleges saw you reaching outside your comfort area to help people.</p>

<p>I think you should be a shoo-in for BU.
-You may get lucky with the UCs because they are in such bad economics shape, I think they will want more OOS students.
-Stanford will be the toughest for you. They take the majority of they’re class from Northern California (I’m from NorCal) and even then someone with states like yours is unlikely to get in without being recruited for sports.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about the rest of the schools and I’m new to this! Good luck!</p>

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<p>Yes, but the UCs will cost $50K plus with no aid.</p>

9

<p>Can I have a littleeee bit of aid? Rutgers just isn’t that good, ya know.
And I know Stanford’s like impossible, I don’t know anyone who actually got into Stanford :confused:
Thank you!</p>

10

<p>Brown - High/Low Reach? Can’t really say much since Ivies tend to be capricious in their decisions lol
Northwestern - idk
UCLA - Low Reach/High Match, u might get in! :smiley:
UPenn - idk
Michigan - Match
Stanford - This place is crazy… can’t really say lol, i knw ppl with 4.0/2400s who got rejected. -__-
Rice - idk, sorry :stuck_out_tongue:
USC - match
Boston - match</p>

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<p>For aid, if you don’t qualify for need based add some schools where your stats are top 10%. the UCs will not give you aid, USC if you’re NM gives half tuition, BU might I’ve you some money if you raise scores.</p>

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<p>If you actually do win those competitions you were talking about, I’d say you have a great shot at most of these schools. The SAT is a bit low for schools like Brown, UPenn, and Stanford. If you can get a SAT score 2200+, it would help greatly. Good luck on your admissions!</p>

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<p>Thanks guys!</p>

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<p>You’ll probably need a higher SAT score, and like others said, take the ACT. I did way better on the ACT in one try compared to three tries on the SAT. Maybe get more involved with some of your extracurriculars? I don’t know what to say since you’re still a junior and a lot could happen in a year. Good luck with your science fairs!</p>

15

<p>Brown - reach
Northwestern - low reach
UCLA - match
UPenn - high reach
Michigan - match
Stanford - high reach
Boston U - safety imo</p>

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<p>Brown - reach
Northwestern - low reach
UCLA - high match
UPenn - reach
Michigan - match
Stanford - high reach for everyone
Rice - low reach, being from the northeast will help
USC - low match
BU - safety</p>

<p>best of luck! :)</p>

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<p>Brown - Reach
Northwestern - Low Reach/High Match
UCLA - Low Reach/High Match
UPenn - Reach
Michigan - Match
Stanford - Reach…it is for literally everybody
Rice - Low Reach
USC - High Match
Boston - Match/Safety</p>

<p>Thanks for chancing me and good luck! You’ll end up somewhere great regardless of what happens!</p>

18

<p>Brown - High Reach/ Reach - who knows haha
Northwestern - reach/match
UCLA - Match
UPenn - High Reach/ Reach
Michigan - Match
Stanford - Reach?
Rice - Match/Low Reach
USC - match
Boston - match</p>

<p>btw thanks for that chance!</p>

19

<p>Brown-reach
Northwestern-match
Upenn-reach but your second hardest school to get into
Michigan-match
Stanford-hard reach unless ur a URM
Boston U- your in.
Pretty much your SATs are average for your reach schools. Get them up to a 2200+ and youll have better chnces. Otherwise than that your pretty much set. GREAT Ec’s, GPA and everything. good luck!</p>

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<p>Keep it up and you’ll get into a lot of good schools. I’d have a better idea of you if you were a senior though.</p>