Chance and Match me, average student

Chance Me / Match Me!
,
1

Demographics

  • White/Asian male from California, slightly competitive Catholic High School (175 in class), family income ~100k.

Intended Major(s)

  • Kinesiology/Sports Medicine/Physiology/Human Bio/Physical Therapy

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.93/4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.34/5.0
  • Class Rank: 20/ 175 (top 11% in class)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: not taking it (going test optional)

Coursework

  • will take 11 APs and 1 IB by the end of my senior year

  • AP/ IB classes I have taken or will be taking:

  • Sophomore Year
    AP Psych- 5
    AP Euro- 3

  • Junior Year
    AP Calc AB- ?
    AP Microecon- ? (most likely won’t pass)
    APUSH- ?
    AP English Lang- ?

  • Senior Year
    AP Stats
    AP Bio
    AP Gov
    AP Macro
    AP Lit
    IB Business

Awards

  • Academic Excellence in German 1
  • Theology 1 award (runner up)
  • German 2 award (runner up)
  • Cinematic Arts 1 award (runner up)
  • Talented Sophomore Award (one award given per year based on school attributes)
  • (waiting for 2020-2021 school year awards)

Extracurriculars

  • Sports Medicine Club: 2x captain during my junior and senior year, member for 3 years (10-present)
    Utilize basic first aid training skills to help athletes, watch over practices/games and set up medical equipment before and after them, ensure the safety of student-athletes, assist Head Athletic Trainer w/ anything else necessary

  • ASB/ Student Government: Freshmen Class Vice President, Sophomore Class
    President, Junior Class President, ASB Executive Vice President (9-present)
    held meetings on how to benefit the school, helped/planned school activities (ex: fundraisers, dances), enrich the lives of the student body, enhance school pride and spirit, and help improve the identity of the school within the local community.

  • Sports Arena Coach (11-present)
    coach the youth on how to play soccer, help with social development, engage kids, and help maintain their enthusiasm by challenging and encouraging them to learn and accomplish new things – preparing them for school, playdates, team sports, and beyond.

  • KIWINS Publicity/ Representative/ Vice President (11-present)
    Attend quarterly divisional meetings and aid the president with anything else necessary (help create fundraisers, organize club meetings, help reach club goals, inform other club members of information given by the president)

  • Business Club: Vice President (10-present)
    Helped grow the club to 60 members sophomore year/ 33 members junior year, helped outreach club, helped president organize meetings, assist teaching business structures such as e-commerce

  • High School Ambassador (11-present)
    visit middle schools and present on and answer questions to collectively ~ 300 kids, worked at open houses for my high school to promote it, used various technologies to better engage audiences which led to more interactive presentations

  • Link Crew Leader (11-12)
    help ~15 new students at high school get acclimated to high school, acted as a resource through their first year (informed them of any school events or other news)

  • National Honors Society/ California Scholarship Federation (10-present)
    aided at blood drives and tutored prospective incoming freshmen

  • Investing Club: Vice President (11- present)
    Taught 45+ members about investing and stocks by making the club participate in a six month long investing game; however, I was not as active in this club

  • Athletics (9-10)
    Freshmen Basketball and Volleyball teams
    JV Track and Field

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Essays
    have not started them but I have started the brainstorming process
  • LORS
    AP Bio teacher: really close since she was my freshmen bio teacher, will participate a lot, stayed after school during tutoring and office hours, helped with other small tasks such as filing papers
    AP Micro: would always talk to her, participated a good amount
    Might do my Intro to Sports Medicine teacher since I loved that class and was the only one that participated; however, she left in the middle of the school year.

Schools

  • Stanford (REA), USC, UCLA, Pepperdine, UCSB, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, San Diego State, Saint Mary’s College of California, Cal Baptist
2

Not average. Not even close. Avrage is 3.0-3.2 GPA…

Do you mean the AP test? It’s not generally important, since there is no need for you to report AP test scores, and, for American colleges, they are not considered for admissions.

If you may fail the class, that may be an issue.

Stanford: Lottery ticket, but unless another colleges appeals to you a lot more, apply.

Reaches: USC, UCLA, Berkeley, Cal Poly (low reach)

However, if your UC weighted capped GPA is over 4.2, Berkeley and UCLA move to low reaches.

Target: Pepperdine (high target), SDSU, UCSB

However, if your UC weighted capped GPA is over 4.2 UCSB moves to Likely (most likely to be accepted, but there is a chance that you will not).

Safety: Saint Mary’s College of California, Cal Baptist

Those are, however, your academic chances. At an income of around $100,000 a year, some may be unaffordable. Although both USC and Stanford are full need met colleges, their idea of full need may not match what your parents can actually pay.

In general, you need to run NPCs on every one of those colleges, and see whether your family can afford them. If not, you will need to look for colleges which will provide better financial aid, and, based on your GPA, look for colleges which will provide merit aid. Your GPA is very good and you likely will qualify for merit aid at any number of colleges.

3

Hello, thank you for your input. Yes, I meant I will not pass the AP test. The schools will be expensive, but I am applying for other scholarships. That is basically how I organized my college list. Hopefully, my senior year could help boost some stuff but there is not much left since I will be applying in the next couple of months.

4

Where do you get that you are average? Is average better than 98% of the country?? Does average take 11 APs.

Unless you are only applying to UCs, you are, in my opinion, foolish not to take a SAT or ACT. It can only help you. If you don’t do well, don’t send it in. Test optional doesn’t mean you have equal odds - it does mean they’ll review you without. Obviously, the UCs won’t use it so if that’s where you’ll end up.

I don’t see you getting into Stanford, USC, or UCLA. The last three are safeties.

If money is an issue, you might also apply to University of Arizona where you’ll get $30K out of $37K tuition in merit.

Good luck to you.

5

thank you, greatly appreciate your input. I guess since I’m always around smart people, I only see myself has average.

6

I think that if their UC GPA is closer to 4.0 they will be competitive for UCLA. My nephew was accepted last year with a GPA close to 4.0, but otherwise pretty mediocre ECs. He attended a good high school but not one of the top in the country. He was also waitlisted at Berkeley.

I also disagree with you somewhat regarding USC. I think that the OP is competitive, but it’s a reach. Their GPA stand at the top of the mid-50%, and they have a decent EC set. To me this would indicate that their chances are close to the average acceptance rate - around 1 in 10 applicants like the OP are accepted. Unlikely, but quite possible.

7

Do you want a college with a direct admit DPT program, or 4 years of a science based program and then apply to a 3 year DPT program? It takes 7 years, my daughter will be getting her undergrad in exercise science in May and is applying to programs right now. She only targeted universities who would give her merit, because it’s an expensive road. She had a 3.9 UGPA (4.2 W), 9 AP’s, 34 ACT, 8th out of 300+ in her class. She’s at the university of Delaware, they have a fantastic PT graduate program, she’s had a lot of hands on hours at their PT center. She applied to JHU, rejected.

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My UC gpa is 4.19

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I prefer the 4 years then applying to a DPT program.

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It will be key to minimize undergraduate debt, because you will likely have to pay for DPT school by taking out loans.

By all means apply for scholarships, but know that most of the money for school will come from the colleges themselves. Some of the private schools on your list do not stack outside scholarships, meaning they will adjust their financial aid package to account for any outside scholarships.

How much can your family contribute to college costs each year? Run each school’s net price calculator with your parents to get cost estimates and go from there.

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The UC’s will consider your UW UC GPA, Capped weighted UC GPA and Fully Weighted UC GPA. Assuming your capped weighted UC GPA is 4.19, here is the 25th - 75th percentiles of admitted students at all the UC’s. 2021 data should be available in August when the UC application opens.

2020 UC capped weighted GPA averages along with 25th-75th percentile range:

UCB: 4.22 (4.13-4.30)

UCLA: 4.25 (4.18-4.31)

UCSD: 4.16 (4.04-4.28)

UCSB: 4.15 (4.03-4.27)

UCI: 4.11 (3.96-4.26)

UCD: 4.11 (3.97-4.25)

UCSC: 3.94 (3.71-4.16)

UCR: 3.88 (3.65-4.11)

UCM: 3.68 (3.40-3.96)

Cal Poly SLO will use 9-11th grades with the 8 semester honors cap so you need to recalculate your GPA for that school.

I also agree for the private schools, you will be at a disadvantage if you do not take the SAT or ACT. You might want to add in CSU Long Beach since their PT grad program is also very well known and respected. It will give you a likely school for your list.

I think @MWolf gauged your chances well and best of luck.

12

I don’t understand - their rate this year was 12% - and you say 1/10 with his stats got in - I said I don’t see him getting in. You say you disagree but by your stats you agree.

If you don’t apply, you can’t get in. So i’m not saying don’t apply. I’m just saying, that me, as an amateur want to be admissions officer like all of us on CC, don’t see him getting in. I know people who got in Northwestern and Penn who were rejected at USC - so there’s honestly sometimes no logic to what may happen. Someone will get in - so you have to try - but don’t put your eggs in the one basket, etc.

13

I guess that it’s terminology. I wouldn’t use that type of terminology (“I don’t see it happening”) unless the chances were lower (<2%). But you’re right - we do agree on the actual chances.

14

I will definitely take that into consideration and talk to my parents about pricing.

15

Hello, thank you for your help. I believe I calculated my SLO gpa and it was around 4.19 as well unless I did something wrong.

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This is not average.

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