Chance for Ivies and Other top schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a rising senior living in India and was wondering if you guys could chance me. I attend the top private school in the country and it is highly competitive

ACADEMICS:

SAT: 2190 (Composite), 780 M 710 R, 710 W
ACT: 32
Sat II:
-Bio: 800
-Chem: 800
-Maths II: 760

Rank: Top 10%

GPA: (unweighted, weighted)

Freshman: 3.8, 4.25
Sophomore: 3.85, 4.35

Classes taken for IBDP:

Economics HL
Biology HL
Chemistry HL

English A SL
French ab initio SL
Math SL

IB Predicted Grade: 41

EXTRACURRICULARS:

Founder and President of the Hippocratic Medical Club, a highly successful club which engages students of all grades in medical research, teaches advanced first aid, and invites the best doctors in the country to give speeches about their profession

Golf handicap of 7.2, competed in various state and national championships and have often finished top of the field.

Awards and accolades in state and inter-school MUNs such as ‘Best Delegate’, ‘High Commendment’

Captain of the chess team

Debate team

JOB AND VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE:

Shadowed the best liver and hepatobiliary surgeon in India, and got an invaluable insight into the medical industry
(200 hrs)
Host musical plays in the region in Hindi (local language) with a group of friends which raises awareness among the local about the dangers of cigarettes, alcohol, drug, tobacco etc.
Volunteered at a school for the underprivileged and taught them basic maths and science (150 hrs)

OTHERS:

Essay: pretty good, 8/10
Recs: excellent, 9/10

Major: Pre-med/Bio
Ethnicity: Indian
No financial aid

COLLEGES APPLYING TO:

Stanford ED (dream)
JHU
NYU arts and sciences
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Brandeis University
Columbia University
U Penn
Boston College
Colgate
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Emory
Dartmouth

Hooks:

Legacy at NYU and Brandeis

Thank You
CXan someone pls tell me the meaning of ‘bump’

2

Stanford has no ED. You stand a good chance at all the colleges that you listed and you might get into an Ivy league college. Please take the last sentence with a grain of salt as I too am an applicant just like you. Just focus on writing good essays now and hope for the best.

Indian schools don’t have a GPA system. Which school do you attend? I have a few friends who attend top schools in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and they don’t have a GPA system.

Bump means to to force upward or to raise. People here ‘bump’ their threads to the top of the forum from time to time so as to garner more visibility.

3

The schools you are applying to are of great prestige; add some safeties as a precaution. As an Indian international student (one of the most represented with China & Korea), your standardized test scores need to be much higher - I’d say SAT 2300+ and ACT 34+ to be considered “competitive”.

Bring
Up
My
Post

= BUMP

4

+Mumbai98
Our school converts ICSE 10 and internal assessment marks to GPA. I got 94.8% in my boards. Is that enough?

5

What safeties would you recommend? My counselor suggested Whitman College but I didn’t particularly like it.

6

It sounds like you’re a possible candidate for a college golf team, and that could be a factor in you getting accepted somewhere you might otherwise not be due to SAT/ACT scores. Have you considered playing golf in college, and contacted any coaches about it? Which colleges on your list have teams? It may be too late to be recruited to a team, but check out this advice anyway if you are interested: http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/international-student-counsel/2014/02/04/take-5-steps-to-play-a-sport-at-a-us-college and http://www.athleticscholarships.net/athletic-scholarships-foreign-overseas-athletes.htm

Another thing that can possibly get you admitted over others is your intended major – are you intending to major in something common and highly competitive like Biology, or are you applying for a niche major, where you could get a similar med-school foundation but in a department that lacks the same level of competition as Biology? Some universities, like the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, admit people based on their planned major, so results can vary. For example, at UMN, if you apply for Biology or Plant Biology within the College of Biology, then you face very difficult competition to get admitted. If you apply for a Plant Science or Environmental Science program in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, or Chemistry within the College of Liberal Arts, then the competition for entry is vastly different, and you can stand out more as an applicant. You might look at applying to some universities that have admissions by departments like this, and apply to a department where you can be the most competitive. See this to understand what I’m referring to: http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html

7

@fuzzyorange I don’t think that 94.8% will be a problem at all. I don’t really know much about colleges that are good for biology. I’m a prospective math major, and I think that UIUC, UCLA and NYU are safeties for me. Again, my stats are way too different than your’s. In general, UWash - Seattle, Purdue are safeties, but I don’t really know a lot about them.

Best of luck in your college search!

8

You’re well qualified to enter the lottery that is highly selective school admissions.

9

Thank you for your comment.

Yes, I have contacted golf coaches and most of the schools on my list have golf teams.

Also, I am seriously considering taking chemistry or biochemistry as my major.

How does one bump up his post?

10

which is this school of yours which you consider to be the best in India? Is it Vasant Valley of Delhi?

11

Your well qualified stat wise to make NYU a safety, maybe even UCLA but those are still so competitive, they can only be considered matches. Out of your list:
Stanford: Reach
Hopkins: low reach
NYU: Match
UNC: low reach
Brandeis: Match
Columbia: Reach
Boston College: Match
Brandeis: Match
Colgate: Match
Michigan: high Match
Emory: High match
Dartmouth: Reach

Your counselor is right. You do need atleast 1 safety school. Try to find it. It should have atleast a 50 percent acceptance rate. Don’t worry about it being “up to standards” that sounds incredibly pretentious and everyone applies to a safety school. By the way, for the ivies and Stanford, you would have a much better shot if you raised your SAT 50 points or atleast broken 2200. Good luck

12

For the top tier schools on your list (especially Stanford), a handicap of 7.2 is pretty far above the ballpark for consideration for recruitment to the golf team. I don’t know about the others but you can very easily look up their golf team and player stats to see how you compare.

13

@fuzzyorange I would leave Dartmouth on and remove the other Ivy League schools. I would also remove Michigan.

Colgate is the type of school that is your sweet spot, especially from a demographic standpoint. Boston College too.

Add more schools like Colgate and I would add Holy Cross, especially for a bio / premed student.

NESCAC is a great academic sports conference so poke around those schools and get in touch with coaches.

14

UMich would be a low reach for LSA and reach for CoE.

15

UCLA is not a safety; you will not get in with those scores. However because you are willing to pay $55K you may slide in as a full fee student for 4 years.

The negatives are:
your scores,
your ORM status,
your impacted major.

16

Thank you

I might be retaking the SAT this fall (I’m in the 12th) and will try to push my scores to 2300
I could not perform well as I had a cold the time of my first SAT

17

7.2 handicap is good enough for Division III and possibly II, but certainly not I. That handicap means you’re shooting low 80s on an average day. An average day needs to be close to par for Division I. On a bad day, you really can’t go more than five over par.
Golf recruiting works a bit differently than other sports, as the teams are not “set” long before the year begins. In fact, the team is usually mutable for most of the season. Coaches are especially concerned with mental game; for example, a triple bogey should not result in obscenities or thrown / slammed clubs.

18

Thank you

I infact play better than 7.2 on an average day, around 5ish. Also this high handicap is a result of me having a structurally weak tendon in my left wrist which is now getting better, and since my home course is tough (very tough)
the course index brings my handicap to 5.3

One would assume that on an average course on an average day I shoot around 3 or 4 over.

Also I am not looking for a golf scholarship but just an opportunity to be a part of a collegiate golf team.

19

Haha thank you :slight_smile:

20

bump