Chance a junior for LACs

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Self:
Asian male in Southern California who wants to major in English

GPA: UW: 3.77/4.0 (ugh, all my B’s come from math or science classes… 3.86 Freshman, 3.57 Sophomore year, 4.00 so far Jr year)

RANKING: top 40% at pretty large, extremely competitive public school known for math and science(ranking is one of the things that worries me the most)

SAT: 2320 (800 CR, 800 M, 720 W)

SAT II: Math II 770

APs taken/will take Senior year: US History, Chemistry, Biology, Calculus AB, Literature, Government, Economics, Spanish, Statistics

ECs:
VP of Art Volunteering Club
Staff Writer for Literary Magazine and Science Magazine (hope to get leadership positions / promoted to copy editor)
Debate (Parliamentary - no notable results)
National English Honors Society - hope to get leadership position
Calif. Scholarship Fund.

Outside School ECs:
Teen Library Council member at local library
Volunteering at autism center, retirement home
Unpaid English tutor
Writing poetry (hope to get published in some online magazines – though not prestigious ones)

Summers:
Some writing conferences/workshops for poetry (one of them was Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference)
Dog walker (paid)
English tutor (unpaid)
History research paper (at summer program)

Schools: I want to apply to: Wesleyan, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Vassar, Kenyon, Oberlin, Bates, Colby, Kenyon, Hamilton
and some safeties

Do I have a chance? Obviously I need to raise my GPA, do well on my other SAT IIs, get some leadership positions, and hopefully get some minor publishing credits.

How far off are these schools? How much would ED help?

2

Bump

3

Yes you have a chance. However, just be aware of the percentages of students at these colleges who originated outside of the top quarter of their HS classes:

Bowdoin: 3%
Vassar: 5%
Bates: 5%
Hamilton: 6%
Oberlin: 9%
Middlebury: 9%
Kenyon: 14%
Colby: 14%

(Wesleyan: NA)

ED would have the potential to help you, perhaps more so for the lower schools on this list. However, I’d never recommend it as a strategy for any school other than one you are confident you would be extremely happy to attend.

4

@merc81 Those are for reported rankings, though, right? My school technically doesn’t rank, just gives deciles in the school profile.

Also those percentages aren’t acceptance rates…or would the acceptance rates for those outside the top 25% be around the same as those listed?

Also I’m guessing many of those outside the top 25% who attend those colleges are either URMs, actually recruited athletes, or development cases.

Another thing to note: my school’s deciles are based on UW GPA. I’m pretty sure if my school went by W GPA my ranking would go up, but that’s not the case. Will colleges take that account when looking at my ranking / what decile I’m in?

By itself my GPA doesn’t seem that bad if I can bring up to a 3.8, but even then I’d only be in the third decile (but once again going by UW GPA) :confused:

Also, sorry to overload you with a bunch of questions, but how great of a chance do you think I have?

5

Yes, those percentages are for reported rankings. A decile system may give you some advantage, though in principle it shouldn’t matter a great deal.

Correct, they are not acceptance rates. The figures are simply measures of class compositions, to the extent they are known.

Yes, I’d say the students from outside the top quarter who were accepted at these colleges must have had something to set them apart. However, remarkable SAT scores can be one such thing, particularly if most other important factors are in place.

6

Colleges will place your GPA into context.

Your chances at a few of your choices may be at least OK if you bring them a well-crafted application. Your better odds may be at those schools that accept at least 25% of their applicants.

I’ll ask semi-rhetorically, have you earned your place at one of these schools with your academic efforts? Your self-assessment along these lines may be similar to the way the colleges themselves will view you after they have read your entire application.

Once again, your standardized scoring is remarkable, and would seem to keep most schools in the entire country within the realm of possibility.

7

@merc81 Ok, I’ll respond since it’s only semi-rhetroical :wink:

I feel like I overextended myself sophomore year since I took the most advanced courses even in the stem track, even though stem is not my strength . I got bs both semesters in Calc ab, but normally sophomores can’t even take Calc at my school. Chem honors I got a b both semesters but I’m hoping to rectify that by getting a’s in ap chem this year. I got bs both semesters in java, as I wanted to challenge myself and see if I liked it. Now I regret not doing art or something else instead because without the bs in java I would still be in the top quartile (or at least third decile,wwhich colleges wouldn’t be able to distinguish from the top 25%)

I’m still taking the most advanced humanities courses, which I haven’t received anything lower than an a in.

Also my school is a top 20 public school in stem (though just a regular public school not magnet)according to us news (as much as cc ers distrust us news lol) and fir what its worth i gotr a 5 on the ap calc test even tho i got a b both sems,but I don’t know if they’ll know that the stem courses here are very rigorous??

My sat score doesn’t give me much confidence because these lacs don’t seem to take much stock into them anyways, hence thetest optional policies.

8

You have pursued rigor at some potential risk to yourself. This is what colleges say they want. Now let them prove it.

Your choices will receive a “secondary school report” from your HS. This will clarify for them any aspects of your school that you have partially explained here.

Top LACs – test optional or not – like all statistically excellent schools, are in somewhat of a mathematical relationship with SAT scores. They report high scores because they accept high scores. So don’t discount your standardized testing.

Since you are strong in humanities, you may want to demostrate this further with an SAT II in one or more humanities areas.

9

I agree with @merc81. One of the ironies of a college adopting a test-optional policy is that a high score suddenly becomes a hook, all other things being equal. For Wesleyan, I’d definitely submit yours.