<p>White Male Freshman at UT-Austin
Major: Plan II/Economics/Mathematics
GPA: 4.0
Classes Taken:
. World Literature (Honors): A
. Logic & Scientific Reasoning (Honors): A
. Sequences, Series, and Multivariable Calculus: A
. Intro to Media Studies: A
Classes Currently Taking:
. World Literature (Honors; Year-long course)
. Freshman Seminar on 20th Century Popular Music
. Matrices and Matrix Calculations
. Probability I
. Intro to Microeconomics</p>
<p>EC's:
. LAUNCH (Liberal Arts Undergraduate Chapter for Research)
. Texas Economics Association
. Gamma Beta Phi Honor Society (Top 10% of undergraduates)</p>
<p>High School Stats:
. GPA: 108 w/multipliers of 1.15 for Pre-AP and 1.29 for AP
. Rank: 21/658
. SAT: 740 Math 720 Verbal 680 Writing (1460/2140)
. ACT: 33 Composite
. AP's: National AP Scholar
--Soph: World History=3
--Junior: English Language=3, US History=4, Calculus AB=5
--Senior: English Literature=4, Psychology=4, Statistics=4, Macroeconomics=4, US Govt=5, Calculus BC=5, Physics C: Mech=5
. EC's: Cross Country, PALs, National Honor Society, Winner's Circle (Anti-Drug/Alcohol Society)</p>
<p>Letters of Recommendation will likely come from my World Literature professor (knows me the best, in a class of 15, former English dept. head, well-esteemed, etc) and my Multivar. Calculus professor (larger class, but I performed well and scored the best tests in the class on a few occasions)</p>
<p>Places to Transfer: Still up in the air, but the Ivies (Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, etc.) are appealing, as are Stanford, Duke, UChicago, and other private schools with financial aid available. My intended major is Economics.</p>
<p>I appreciate it; I’d just like to get some feedback from people “in-the-know” as I’m not even sure if I’m going to apply to transfer yet, it’s just going to be done if I have a convincing reason to.</p>
<p>Your stats are virtually identical to mine, except your high school GPA is a bit higher and you aren’t a URM. I’ve spent a lot of time assessing my chances at the schools you’re considering, so I might have some advice to offer.</p>
<p>Among the Ivies, UPenn and Cornell are your best chances. I think you’ll get into ILR, HumanEC, or CALS at Cornell. Definitely avoid CAS. At UPenn, you probably have a decent chance at SAS but virtually no chance at Wharton, so don’t bother applying to Wharton. Brown would be a good school for you to consider, but since you’re applying for financial aid, you probably won’t get in (the acceptance rate is 8% and Brown is need-aware). </p>
<p>To be frank, I don’t think you have a chance at Harvard and Yale and would discourage you from applying to those schools. Ditto for Stanford and MIT.</p>
<p>Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, and UChicago will be huge reaches for you. Dartmouth is worth an app because it requires no essay, but you’ll have to think long and hard about spending the time and money to apply to the others. </p>
<p>If you’re desperate to transfer, you should probably consider some lower-ranked but still respectable schools, such as Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Rice, because there is a very good chance that you won’t get into any of the schools you’ve mentioned.</p>
<p>Rice would definitely be a possibility and I’ll look into that. I would have a pretty good shot there? UPenn also sounds appealing.</p>
<p>As an Economics major, I plan on pursuing a PhD. following my undergraduate work…would Rice be a valuable place to do that? I know much of the graduate admissions process depends on “who you know,” and I’m not sure how well-known Rice’s Econ staff is, as they seem to work mainly with undergrads. Maybe this is far from the truth, I don’t know.</p>
<p>you should check out Emory U too (: (in ATL)</p>
<p>if you’re an econ major and you’re considering upenn…obviously you’d probably prefer wharton but they also offer econ at CAS too and you can take some classes at wharton but the econ at CAS is more liberal arts-ish and i heard it’s theoretical. so idk…</p>
<p>Well, my intent is to eventually pursue a PhD in Economics, so I’m looking for a school with a good theoretical department (I’d actually PREFER Arts & Sciences at Penn to Wharton). Obviously, the better the Econ dept. at the school, the more likely I’ll want to go. </p>
<p>Would I have a shot at Penn? Also, would Rice be worth an application?</p>
<p>And transfers2010, I’m curious…why are Columbia, Penn, Cornell CAS, Brown, etc. such large reaches? I feel like the 4.0 from UT’s honors college and the National AP Scholar ranking would improve greatly on the chances I had with high school applications.</p>
<p>Columbia, Wharton, Cornell CAS, Brown, and Dartmouth all have sub-10% acceptance rates. Even for qualified applicants, these schools are reaches. A 4.0 for one semester at an honors college is undoubtedly impressive, but for schools that take fewer than one in ten students, you really need more to stand out.</p>
<p>I understand. Penn and Rice are probably the main two I’m looking at, then. More realistic? I may still drop an app at Columbia for the hell of it.</p>
<p>either way your stats are really solid! maybe you could work on trying to make yourself stand out & joining more interesting ECs…write a really good essay on top of that too (: good luck!</p>
<p>btw do you mind if you could explain to me the difference between theoretical econ & applied econ?</p>