Chance for UChicago?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a white female from Connecticut, and a junior in high school. My GPA is 3.7 unweighted (they don't weight GPAs at my school) and I'm in the top 10%, almost top 5% of my class (I think my rank is 18/350)
I took the SAT yesterday for the first time (I know that doesn't exactly make chancing me easy), but I got a 210 on my PSAT and a 31 on the ACT, which I might retake.
I'm in only one AP class (there are only two open to juniors at my school) and the rest are honors. Next year I'll be in 5 APs and one honors.</p>

<p>ECs:
Literary magazine (editor-in-chief)
Link Crew Freshman Orientation (Link leader)
French club
Major volunteer organization (President of my school's chapter)
Performance poetry club (president)
Annual city arts festival participant
Tutoring (private tutor)
Chinese classes outside of school
Volunteer at a center for the mentally handicapped
Annual AIDS Walk volunteer
Library writing workshop participant
Annual leadership conference (facilitator)
3 day leadership retreat
Students Against Drunk Driving
Various service projects - environmental clean-ups, soup kitchen/food pantry work
Library clerical work</p>

<p>Summer Activities:
Before junior year: 3 week college experience program
after junior year: job at a law firm (filing and such)</p>

<p>I want to apply Early Action to UChicago, but I have no idea if my grades, scores or extracirriculars are strong enough to even grant me a shot. I've also always worried that my (rather scattered) extracirriculars make it seem as if I only do volunteer work for college apps, since they're so general/varied. That's not so: the service organization I'm a part of supplies the volunteers to those projects, and as president I always try to get to them all (plus, I really do just enjoy doing that stuff). Yeah, I really need help :(</p>

2

<p>My school college counselor as well as some other counselors at my school were able to meet with the admissions committee at UChicago (including the Dean Jim Nondorf). At this meeting, three essays were presented that had been the deciding factor in the applications of three admitted students. So when you apply, spend a lot of time on your essays so that they reveal a lot about your unique personality. Have fun with them. Be confident and try new things. Good luck!</p>

3

<p>I agree with the above poster. UChicago puts a huge emphasis on the essay. Focus on that, and you look okay for UChicago assuming you get 2200+ on your SAT.</p>

4

<p>Though the essays are important, I’d argue their weight is decreasing as the number of applicants shoots up (40% increase this year!) so your scores should still be outstanding. This isn’t to say that essay don’t matter, but rather that they’ll probably be the deciding factor between two statistically impressive candidates rather than something that can make or break a 3.0/sub-2000 applicant.</p>