Chance a junior for UT Austin, Rice, JHU, MIT, Berkeley, and Ivies

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics: Asian female, North Texas, definitely won’t qualify for financial aid, parents didn’t go to college

Intended Major: Most likely bioengineering/biomedical engineering

Stats:
GPA: 4.32w, school doesn’t give out unweighted :confused:

Rank: 102/1384, around top 7-8%, not good enough for auto admit to UT Austin :frowning:

SAT: 1510 with 740RW/770M, superscore 1530 with 740RW/790M

Subject Tests: Taking MathII & Bio E/M on 6/1

PSAT: 1490 (likely Nat Merit Semifinalist?)

ACT: Taking on 4/13, aiming for at least a 34

APs: 5s on Human Geography & Comp Sci Principles, 4 on World Hist

AP Courseload:
Currently taking Bio, US Hist, Comp Sci A, and Eng Lang; other 2 classes are Honors PreCal & Honors Physics

Taking Calc BC, Physics 1 & 2, Gov, Macroecon, Chem, and Eng Lit next year

ECs, Honors, Awards:
Band for 2 yrs in high school, have played clarinet for 5 yrs, achieved highest rating at local Solo & Ensemble every yr so far

Biology Club for 2 yrs

Science Tutoring Club for 1 yr - Tutoring high school freshmen in honors/regular bio

Founded and ran Rubik’s Cube Club - 2 yrs

Not sure if relevant, but I average 15 seconds on Rubik’s Cube, personal best of 8sec, 3-4 min blindfolded (self-learned)

Member of World Cubing Association, volunteered at WCA competitions in my area

Archery for 7+ yrs, member of North Dallas Junior Olympic Development Team for around 5 yrs

Level 1 USA Archery Coach - Can coach introductory archery courses, helped to run local tournaments

Numerous podiums at state-level archery tournaments, ranked about 39th in my gender/age division nationally

NHS Member

“Party Organizer” for volunteering at Feed My Starving Children - Not much, but about 30 hrs a yr

Helped my mom run her small business in the summer - Have experience interacting with customers & performing basic transactions

I know I’m lacking in academic ECs, but I’ve applied for the UT High School Research Academy program and am still waiting to hear back… Other than that, any tips on what I could do to strengthen my apps? Any other match school suggestions?

2

So your parents are fine with $65K/year for you to attend UC Berkeley?

UC’s have their own GPA calculation using only 10-11th grades for the a-g course requirements. As an OOS applicant, only AP/IB classes will count for the extra weighting that are taken 10-11th grades only. Senior grades are not considered by UCB.

Here is the UC GPA calculator. UCB will look at all the UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

3

Quick googling tell me Columbia has a women’s archery team, that may be your best bet among top colleges.

4

I’ve actually spoken to the Coach at Columbia, and I filled out his questionnaire with my info/stats already! :slight_smile:

5

You have only 1 match school- UT-A- which is a great one to have, but I strongly suggest that you identify one other school that is safer than a match, and that you would not cry if it was your only option. College admissions can be brutal.

As for all your other (high reach) schools, note that for any (eg Cornell) where you apply directly to engineering (v to the university as a whole) your 1st semester senior year marks (Calc, Physics, Chem) will be particularly important…

…and your senior year course load looks over-heavy, esp for given that in the fall term you will be writing college apps, which is almost like taking another class (if you think that you are going to do them over the summer, ime that rarely ends well- either they don’t get done, or by October when you re-read what you wrote in July it doesn’t hold up well).

Agree with @Gumbymom - are your parents ok w/ spending $275,000 on college for you?

6

15 sec is very impressive. Back in the day many many moons ago I was a top cubist but my averages was in the 45-50 second range. There was the food rat ever national competition back in 1981 that I choked in the finals of the Chicago regionals. The winning time was 57 seconds, way over my averages. The national winner won in 22 seconds a few months later and that guy subsequently won the world championship as well. I’ll have to see if it’s on Youtube since the nationals took place on live TV on a show called That’s Incredible. Edit: I do see the worlds championships from 1982 on YouTube - the very first one, where winning times were in the 20-26 second range.

Anyhow, Texas A&M always has powerhouse archery teams and they should have scholarships as well. Your ECs are extraordinary different and a school like Stanford likes applicants like you.