Chance a PolySci/IntRelt/Econ Major for northeast schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi everyone! I just wanted you input my application for top northeast schools: Georgetown, Columbia, UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, Northeastern, BC, Tufts, Brown, Princeton and Yale. I am applying to others too and safeties in those cities (such as Fordham, Drexel and UMD).

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown): 1500 (750/750)

SAT II: 680 Math II (Retaking for a perfect score), 680 US History

GPA: Our school only reports WGPA out of 100, mine is a 97.54 and I got all As except for a B in AB Calc this MP.

Rank: Not calculated by my school

AP (place score in parenthesis): APUSH (5), APHUGE (4), AP Enviro (4)

Senior Year Course Load:
AP Gov, AP Spanish, AP Calc AB,
-Half yr courses-
Women’s Literature and Contemporary Novels (Liberal arts college format elective English courses), CPR (Our health course), Public Speaking, Intro to Journalism, CP Astronomy, Managing Personal Finance (grad requirement)

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.):
AP Scholar, National Honor Society, Like 5-6 Model UN Awards

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Model UN (Senior Officer), Debate Club (Varsity Captain and Co-Founder), Student Council (Whole school elected Officer-Historian), Karate (Black & Red belt in Tang Soo Do), Jazz band guitarist, Campaign intern for Congressional bid that won in 2018, Digital Arts Club, Co Teacher for local Nature Classes for little kids, Golfer (Recreational and technically an alternate for the Varsity team)

Job/Work Experience: Babysitting throughout my Junior yr consistently for a family once a week, Microsoft Excel programming for an orthopedic firm in town this winter

Volunteer/Community service: My community service is really through my activities (NHS, Student Council, community garden) in which I’ve volunteered a lot of time to. I also volunteered for the Congressional campaign as above mentioned.

Summer Activity: I took a class on Natural Resources in the Global Market at Columbia this summer. I also spent a lot of time doing research for a local exploratory committee for a community leader considering a Commissioners campaign. He chose not to run due to family things, but I put it on my app because it was a lot of time and effort with gathering voter data, working on mapping with Map GIS and more.

Essay: My common App essay is about losing my aunt to suicide while in the4th grade and the event influencing my discovery of politics as a passion/outlet, in which I have become motivated on healthcare and mental health policy.

Recommendations:

Teacher Rec #1: My AP Enviro teacher, really kind guy who I did a lot of important research projects with and knew my academic commitment

Teacher Rec #2: My sophomore English teacher (yes ik that’s a controversial decision) who is really personable and I have had the most vulnerable and honest conversations out of all my teachers. She helped check my grammar on my essays before writing her rec letter and I think probably highlighted my personality traits. She’s like lowkey my best friend as a teacher so.

Counselor Rec: He’s an uber dry guy but I’ve been the most committed to college with him and he’s seen my brute passion/drive. He also told me he mentioned some personal struggles both academically and at home that he saw me overcome in a really positive way. This one makes me nervous but he said it went well.

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: International Political Economy
State (if domestic applicant): NJ
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Middle Class
No Legacy Status-my parents attended their state school

2

I really need the advice!!

3

Your fate will largely be closely tied to your unweighted GPA and class rank. I understand that your school doesn’t report this, but the admissions offices will be able to easily figure this out.

If your rank is in the top 5% of your HS class then you have a decent shot at the Ivies and other T20s listed above. If not then you face an uphill battle. Did you apply anywhere early decision/early action? That would have been the best choice.

If not then do you have any plans for ED2?

4

How would they calculate class rank if not reported? Also, my scaled GPAs (I self calculated them out) are a 3.8 Unweighted and 4.3 Weighted on a 4.0 scale.

I applied EA to Georgetown, Northeastern, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill. (also like most of my safeties!)

I don’t have any ED2 plans because my family is, while middle class, not capable of sending me to any school unless I get some form of moderate aid.

5

Unweighted GPA looks good. They can estimate your class rank based on Naviance. Basically they look at the GPA distribution of kids from your HS who have applied in the past. They will be able to estimate your class rank, even if your HS doesn’t report it.

I would suggest that you look into ED2 schools. There are plenty that offer good financial aid: UChicago, Occidental, Tufts, Pitzer, Vanderbilt all come to mind. RD acceptance rates for the unhooked at T20 schools are abysmally low.

6

I asked my counselor for my unofficial rank (this is w/ a weighted GPA btw) and I am 65/207. So top 30%. Also important to note that everyone in that upper echelon is within a .01 of eachother so it comes down to if you got a 96 or a 95 in your freshman year Bio class or something like that.

I am interested in Tufts and thought about both UChicago and Vandy. Chicago is too far away for me. I’ll consider Tufts and learn more on Vandy. The binding financial nature makes me nervous though. I personally will probably base my decision off of scholarship/honors/etc offers and ED doesn’t allow that.

Also I already applied to Georgetown’s EA program so I’d have to change to ED at the last minute after that mid December decision. Georgetown is my #1 school so.

7

If you are needing aid, I hope you applied to Rutgers. As an instate applicant, that is likely to be your most cost effective option.

Run the NPC on all the schools on your list to see if they are affordable.

8

That 30th percentile class rank is likely a deal breaker at the most selective schools where close to 90% are in the top 10% of their HS classes and pretty close to 98% are in the top 25%.

Even a bit further down the selectivity scale, Northeastern reports:
Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class 77%

Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 95%

9

Oh god. I find that very unfair because my scores and academic rigor is very high. Its just because my elite tiny high school has a weird GPA system that I sit at 65. I’m likely ro graduate around 40-50 since my grades this year are nearly perfect.

10

Yes I applied to

Yes I applied to Rutgers EA. Hoping to get into Honors program and dual degrees. We are in the top 10 NJ High schools and Top 5 NJ Public HS so my record will look good at Rutgers. Should I applied to Princeton then too, since my school tends to send 2-5 people there a year out of classes of 200.

11

I don’t think you need more reach schools.

12

You don’t need to be in the top 5% of a small private school known for academic rigor. The small private Hs in my neighborhood sometimes has 30% of the class being NMSF or commended.

13

My school is technically public (though it feels private due to the style, small size and academic rigor). Yeah we have about 90 kids in NHS per graduating class.

14

That is a common problem at “elite” public high schools, including schools that don’t give a class rank. Even without bothering to calculate a class rank, year in and year out, elite universities get a lot of applications from students at elite high schools and have a very, very, very clear idea where a student fits in their particular high school’s pecking order.

In an average year, a school you might be familiar with in the NY/NJ Metro Area - HCHS - has around 60 National merit Semifinalist or finalist and another 60 commended out of a graduating class of about 180. They do get a significant number into T20 schools every year, usually 50-65, but even there, the chances at the most selective of the most selective schools like Yale, Harvard and Princeton are virtually nil for kids out of the top 10%.

If your school is somewhat comparable (BA, High Tech and one or two others) you might still have a shot at some highly competitive schools that would be completely out of reach with a 30th percentile rank at a more run-of-the-mill public HS.

Take a look at your Naviance scattergrams to get a better idea of your chances at the schools you are applying to based on your GPA/SAT.

It will give an idea of chances, but no guarantees. Lots of legacies end up at elite public high schools.