personal info
im a asian female with a high-middle class income bracket (so no finaid ): ) in socal, preferred major is comparative literature but i want to do something good for law school in the future
Basic stats
GPA: W 4.2 UW 3.92 (however my school’s grades aren’t inflated and it’s lowk hard to get an A)
ACT: 33
Extracurriculars:
self-published my own book (and a lot of writing in my free time)
started a tedx chapter at my school (i’m co-president and founder)
a tutor for my hs writing tutor club (it’s pretty selective and one of the top tutoring clubs at my school)
TA at my local chinese school (but it’s a p big chinese school)
editor for a decently known online magazine/blog
started my own blog for fun (so founder and editor-in-chief if I spice it up)
varsity swim on my hs team and club swim for 7 years
there’s a ‘dear asian youth’ chapter in my region and i’m a publishing director
member of a cool club that does cool things
published in some literary journals
achievements/honors
scholastic writing (2 regional golds and a few regional silvers)
presidential bronze volunteer award (adult bracket)
ap scholar
biliteracy certificate (if this counts for anything?)
national merit commended (not official but my scores high enough for this)
schools im considering as of right now are columbia, yale, stanford,vanderbily, emory, upitt, washu, georgetown, umich, rice, princeton, neu, ucla, ucsd, uci, ucb, usc, upenn huntsman program, and sdsu
everything i’ve listed (besides national merit commended) is stuff ive actually achieved so none of that projected bs
oh i was hoping to see my chances at the schools i mentioned bc although im a writer im hoping to go into law and t20s usually have better law schools. i already have some schools in mind, i just wanted to see my chance of getting into those schools from someone else’s perspective
APs: chinese (5), euro history (5), stats (5)
currently taking all APs which are apush, ap calc ab, ap spanish, ap lang, and ap bio
im planning to take 4 more ap’s next year (ikik its gonna be death but theyre classes i wanted to take)
You will be doing your law degree after you do your undergraduate and usually in a different school.
You are a strong candidate for any college, but a reach is a reach.
The reaches are reaches, Emory is possibly a match, UPitt is a safety, as is SDSU. The rest of the privates are all reaches.
@Gumbymom is the best person to tell you your chances for the UCs, but yo will need to provide your UC GPAs.
I would recommend that you look at Liberal Arts Colleges, as well. Many of the ranking systems tend to ignore them, since the numbers that they send to law schools are often low, but the percentages are often very high, and LACs really like seeing writing skills in their students.
PS. An English major is a pretty good pre-law major.
I’d concur that, with respect to private colleges, you might roughly match at, say, Emory, which you will see in the link below at #41. Colleges more selective than that will likely represent high matches and reaches (as they would for most qualified applicants).
Congrats on your accomplishments - your ECs are through the roof. Your ACT is solid. If you are a junior, I assume you will take again. Maybe your superscore goes up. Your GPA may be a bit low (weighted) but that’s ok. It’s still strong.
I concur that SDSU and Pitt are locks. Maybe NEU a match. Maybe even UCSD but why go there if you aren’t science oriented. I can see you getting into a reach.
Seems like you can do a lot better with your targets. Pitt is known for sciences. SDSU is beneath you. It’s not bad - but it’s beneath your credentials. You show a wide swath of schools geographically and size wise.
Since I don’t know if you want small or large, I’d say, looking at strong literature programs that I can see being good for you - Kenyon (slight reach), Reed (slight reach), W&L (slight reach), Skidmore (target), Grinnell (target), Oberlin (target), Florida State (safety, great program, dirt cheap tuition), UCI (you’ll get in), Rochester (target), Florida, and Georgia (target).
If you have safeties, you don’t need to apply to 20.
You really need to figure out the basics - geography, size, and sports/social scene. Then narrow. Your list is all over the place.
For writing, I haven’t looked into every school on your list but Yale, Emory, and Penn often come up on those “best colleges for writers” lists. Penn also has Kelly Writers House (there is a competitive summer writing workshop at Kelly that you might apply to for this coming summer - check deadlines, may be coming soon).
I would also look to LACs, where Asian students tend to be underrepresented and may enjoy a slight admissions boost. There are many that are excellent for writing, some already mentioned. A few off the top of my head are Kenyon, Oberlin, Bard, and Sarah Lawrence (the last two are probably in safety/match range for you). If you are receptive to women’s colleges, check out Bryn Mawr (can submit an optional creative writing portfolio with your application) and Smith. There are many other great writing programs at LACs, these are just the first that ame to mind.