Chance a Rising Senior: CA Resident, 4.0/1570, Unsure of Major (Finance/Econ/Sociology), Full Pay

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • California Resident (LA Area)
  • Type of high school: Public
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Asian Female
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): None

Intended Major(s)
Finance/Econ/Sociology

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.6
  • Class Rank: School doesn’t rank but I would assume 5/580
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1570 Superscore, (770, 800)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

  • 9th: APCSP (4)
  • 10th APWH (5), AP AB (5) Honors Spanish 4, Honors Physics
  • 11th APUSH, AP Lang, AP Stats, AP Physics 2, AP BC, AP Macro (Self Study) [All predicted 5s for those, I’m very confident]
  • 12th (Courseload for next year): AP Spanish Lang, AP Econ (Both Tests), AP Gov (Both Tests), AP Lit, AP Psych

Dual Enrollment: Honors PreCalc (9-10th grade summer, won’t affect GPA but will go in additional info), Multi Variable (This summer, will boost GPA), Chemistry (This summer, will affect GPA)

Awards

  • Religious Award (Quite prestigious, kept private for privacy issues)
  • 2 PVSA Gold, 1 PVSA Silver
  • National Merit Semifinalist/Finalist
  • 4th place at Regional Science Fair, 1st place in engineering, CSEF Qualifier
  • Winner of Stock Trading Competition ($500)
  • AP Scholar
  • Econ Team State Finalist

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  • President of Large Nonprofit Tutoring Organization (2 yrs)
    600+ tutors and students, 5 branches, 15+ programs, outreach to 10 countries globally, raised 20k+ in fundraising
  • Athlete (not revealing which sport) ranked top 70 in US, Captain for multiple teams throughout high school
  • English Tutor (3.5 yrs)
    Tutored students across the globe, garnered 300+ volunteer hours
  • Church Student Leader (5.5 yrs)
    Organized curriculums, helped with leading lesson and game time
  • Barista (9 months)
  • Accepted to two prestigious Business Summer programs (Wharton and Econ based) (9th and 10th grade summer)
  • School Jazz 1 Lead Saxophonist, Regional Jazz Band Saxophonist
  • VP of FBLA Club,
    Treasurer/VP of other assorted clubs
  • Research with t10 professor (can’t elaborate)

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
LOR 1: 7/10
LOR 2: 6/10
LOR 3: 8/10
Counselor Rec Letter: 9/10
Essays: 9.5/10

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
Will pay in full

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability)
    UCM
    UCR
    UCSC

  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    UCI
    UCD
    UCSD
    UCSB

  • Match
    UCB
    UCLA
    USC
    NYU
    UMich

  • Reach
    UPenn (ED)
    Stanford
    Columbia
    Yale
    Northwestern
    Duke
    Dartmouth
    Cornell
    Brown
    UChicago
    Harvard
    MIT

1 Like
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Congrats - very impressive.

Obviously your tests won’t matter at the UCs. I know different majors have different admission rates so not sure how that will go. Also, not sure of your UC GPA, etc. but not sure that self studying for AP will help.

I’m guessing that you’re good on your safeties - but if you end up at one, will you be ok? If not, they’re not worth applying to. Not sure if your likelies are likelies or matches are matches - but again if your safeties are ok to you, doesn’t matter. U Michigan might be a reach.

How/why did you choose Penn as an ED? And why MIT if you don’t know your major. It just seems like you chose a top 20 list, etc. + some UCs.

Since you’re NMF, that gives you other options - and USC has a half scholarship (edited per @lkg4answers ). But you could also go for free or close to at other places. You are full pay but you might ask your parents if they want to spend which will be over $90K a year - so $400K - or say free or worst case less than $40K - especially if you don’t know your major. Just throwing that out there because some don’t realize about the cost or others don’t realize how little they can spend.

Without understanding the dynamics of the UCs I’d assume you’d have a chance at least at your likely UCs but I do surmise that your match list is more reach…but you’re an outstanding candidate and I hope things work out.

Best of luck.

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I would move your Likelies to Matches and your Matches to Reaches. The other concern is that this is A LOT of schools. Sure, the UCs are easy to apply to all since it’s just checking a box for additional campuses, but the others will have supplementary essays and I am concerned that you will not be able to do your very best job if you stretch yourself so thin. I would reduce the number of reaches, personally. Otherwise, if you would be happy attending Merced or Riverside as your safeties, you’re good to go. You will likely have guaranteed admission for Merced with top 9% ELC, and Riverside is also a true safety (assuming you can afford both of these options). So that’s great!

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Thank you for the kind words! My UC GPA is currently 4.72 but I have not calculated capped and weighted yet, I assume it is high 4.2 ish. I am quite happy with my safeties, I really like living in California. For Penn, I assumed wharton but I am also content to apply as a sociology major to UPenn. MIT was kind of a shot in the dark, no real purpose behind that one. Thank you again!

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Thank you for the advice!

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Really good profile. If you apply to a non high demand major then Cal could be a match. But if you end up applying for Haas or Econ, then it would be a reach.

I think UCLA will also be a reach. Also, UCI is not a likely for anyone instate. If you were OOS, I would have said UCI would have been likely.

Similarly UMich OOS is a reach.

I think your safeties are good and I think perhaps you can add CalPoly as a target.

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Sounds good! Why would UCI be less likely for california residents?

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Admit rates are far lower compared to OOS applicants.

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Have you been to see Upenn? And there’s a big difference between business and sociology.

I feel like you put up a list of UCs and the top schools that you found in a magazine but that you’ve not really thought about what you actually want in a campus - environment, size, location (you say California) and more.

Is that a correct assumption?

If so, given your incredible profile, I’d find schools that are right for you - and not just big names.

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Congratulations being a competitive applicant. I will only comment on the UC’s.

UCLA and UCB are both Reach schools based on their overall admit rates even for a stellar applicant such as yourself.

UCSC would be a Likely, not a Safety. UCI, UCSB, UCD and UCSD should go in the Match to High Match Category.

2022 Admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific:

Campus 4.00+ 3.70-3.99 3.30-3.69 3.00-3.29
Berkeley 17% 3% 1% 0%
Davis 58% 20% 5% 2%
Irvine 35% 10% 3% 0%
Los Angeles 13% 2% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 97% 95% 85%
Riverside 95% 83% 42% 17%
San Diego 37% 8% 1% 0%
Santa Barbara 41% 8% 3% 0%
Santa Cruz 69% 45% 16% 4%

2022 overall admit rates by Residency:

Campus CA RESIDENT
Berkeley 14.5%
Davis 32.3%
Irvine 18.2%
Los Angeles 9.2%
Merced 100%
Riverside 66%
San Diego 23.8%
Santa Barbara 26.7%
Santa Cruz 43.2%

The UC’s tend to be unpredictable and I am sure you will have several in-state options but realize that 6 of the 9 UC campuses are in the top 10 most received applications. Competition is tough for all qualified applicants for the coveted UC spots. Since they do not consider test scores or LOR’s (exception UCB which is invitation only), you are one of many excellent students applying.

Best of luck.

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I actually have, around 3 times so far. I really liked the campus and their team for my sport is quite strong. I’ve talked to my school counselor and they say my profile is moreso tailored to sociology than business but I like business more. I’m still unsure on the final verdict major wise yet. I’ve lived in california since 8 so I’m very attached to it, thus explaining my UC addiction (lol). Generally I dislike smaller schools since I really like bigger student bodies, and if I were to go to the east coast, I definitely am more drawn to bigger cities like NYC and Chicago (kinda refutes my choice of cornell and brown and others tho lol). Thank you for the advice and kind words, do you have any ideas for schools that might also work?

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Thank you!

Ok, I’ll admit I’m a little bit ignorant here since I see that UCSC is around the same ranking as UCM and UCR on USNews. I know that USNews is pretty unreliable but could you help explain why it’s less likely that I’m accepted there and why their acceptance rates are lower despite also being lower on the (arbitrary) rankings?

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Isn’t Spanish 4 considered Spanish language? After taking that course, shouldn’t you take AP Spanish Lit?

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USNews rankings no longer use admission rates to calculate rankings.

So admissions rates are based purely on how popular these universities are in California. For various reasons, UCR and USM do not get much love, while UCSC is more popular, perhaps because Santa Cruz is prettier than Riverside, and because of UCM’s reputation as being where you go if you’ve not been accepted to any other UC.

CA residents are increasingly applying to universities in the UC system, and, as being accepted to UCB and UCLA became more difficult, they turned first to UCSD and then to UCI and UCSB. As the number of applications to these increased, they started turning to to UCD and UCSC.

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So in my school Spanish 4 is just an honors class (albeit one that’s ridiculously hard), and I think my school only offers one AP Spanish, I believe its Lang but not 100% sure, it’s just called “AP Spanish”

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So - stop talking to your counselor.

This is your life and you’re only in high school. If you want to study business, then you go for business - period, end of story. No one should be telling you that you don’t look like business - which has few requirements to major in, btw. So I’m not sure what business as a major looks like from a high schooler.

Is there a discipline in business that you’d like - such as accounting, finance, Information Systems, Real Estate, Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, etc.?

Both Arizona State (WP Carey) and Arizona (Eller) have solid b schools, would be safeties, are large, close to California, and have strong Honors Colleges - with ASU being amongst the most reputed in the country. And both are leaders in certain disciplines - Arizona in IS and ASU in Supply Chain, amongst others.

You know who doesn’t have business schools? The UCs - short of I believe Irvine and Riverside - and UCB has a Global Management Program.

So if you want to study business, then the UCs aren’t for you. Nor is Northwestern - who doesn’t have an undergrad business major (it does have a minor).

In general, the “safety” elite b-school for a student like yourself is Indiana University - beautiful school, cool little town. But - it’s not big city. ASU is big city and to a lesser extent U of A is. Then again, you have Michigan - also not in a big city - but IU would be an alternate to U Michigan which is a hard admit. Again, IU is the high ranked b school that a student like yourself would earn auto admit.

Other thoughts would be (factoring in big city but not west coast):

Reaches

NYU - already on your list- Stern

UT Austin

USC - but maybe a better chance with NMF

Georgetown

WUSTL - a few miles from the urbanness of downtown

Boston University very urban

Northeastern

Likely / Safety

U of South Carolina - safety and a likely for the top ranked Honors College - not a huge city but in the downtown of a medium sized city with urban environment. #1 in International Business.

UMD - likely - on the outskirts of Washington DC

Fordham - and you’d get NMF money.

If you love California, then to me, I’d assume you’d prefer to stay out West so I’d say ASU with Barrett Honors.

U of Washington may be another - I’d say match as they are test blind.

Hope that helps.

PS - check with your folks on budget. You say full pay but are they aware that can be $400K at some of the schools on your list where you can go for maybe 90% less?

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USC NM scholarship is a half-tuition Presidential scholarship. They award some full-tuition Trustee scholarships, but those are not related to National Merit status.

@tsbna44 Since I know you often consider budget in your advice, a half-tuition scholarship at USC is still 2.5x higher than tuition at a UC. ($33,320 vs $13,752)

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Ah I see, thank you for clarifying!

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As noted by @MWolf that US News does not consider admission rates in their rankings but you can also see that UCSC gets more overall applicants than UC Riverside and Merced. If you are UC ELC eligible (top 9% in your HS class or Statewide) you are guaranteed admission to the default campus UC Merced if you are not admitted to any other UC campus. Also some ELC applicants were referred to UC Riverside this year which had not been the case for several years now.

Below are the UC applications numbers for the last 3 years just to show that the UC campuses are very popular with all types of applicants (in-state, OOS and International).

Also as noted by @tsbna44 that there are only 3 UC campuses which have Undergraduate Business schools: UCR, UCI and UCB. UCB’s HAAS Business school will be accepting for Fall 2024, direct Freshman admission into their school while previously you had to apply after completing your Sophomore year.

The rest of the UC’s have Business adjacent/related majors such as Business Economics, Economics, Managerial Economics and Business Management Economics. If you are interested in Business, then you need to check which campuses will offer the focus you want.

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In addition to UCI and UCR, UCB has a regular business major in addition to special versions like GMP and MET: Business Administration < University of California, Berkeley . The regular business major is competitive admission in one’s second year, but will offer direct admission for fall 2024 frosh, like the special versions currently do.

At colleges without a true (AACSB-accredited) business major, business-like courses can often be found in other departments (usually economics). This may be particularly true for finance (the business area mentioned in the thread title). You can check course catalog listings for such business-like courses in the economics department at colleges without a true business major. Sociology departments may also have relevant courses like sociology of work. But note that it is possible that such courses taught in traditionally liberal arts departments may have a more theoretical approach than those taught in a business department.