Chance/help a rising junior out with college list

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • northeast usa (oos for every school listed)
  • sorta competitive public
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): white female
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): big upward gpa trend

Intended Major(s) political science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.81 (a+ is 4.33 → 3.6ish on a 4.0 scale)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.83 (gpa x 1.05)
  • UC GPA: 4.0/4.14
  • Class Rank: n/a
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1210 psat, score mid 1400s on practice sats (:crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers: for a higher score)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

  • 9th: honors english, civics, bio
  • 10th: honors english, world history, chem, ap human geo (5)
  • 11th honors physics, ap calc ab, apush, ap psychology, ap lang
  • accelerated track for math & spanish, school doesn’t have honors classes

Awards

  • selected for national mock gov conference
  • best delegate @ local mun
  • conference sportsmanship award - 9th grade bball team
  • honor roll 10th grade lol

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  • mock government - 10th: small statewide & clubwide leadership positions, co-sponsored a bill that got signed, selected for national conference
  • model un - 10th: award at local conference, helped plan a few meetings, elected as vp for 11th grade
  • job - 9th&10th: work at a food stand, manage cash register, run dishes, prepare food, have helped manage a food truck seperate from the rest of the stand
  • national mock government - 10th: proposal i wrote & debated on placed in top 25%ish
  • camp counselor - 10th: work with elementary age girls (esp ones who have been bullied/are bullies) mentor them & teach better friendship skills & help them get ready for middle school, currently helping to make a new program revolving around social media
  • key club&spanish club - 10th: basic club member stuff
  • basketball manger - 9th: recorded games, brought equipment to away games, cleaned balls, etc
  • jv golf - 9th: played in 1 match and coach told me to leave halfway thru bc i was so bad :sob:

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)

  • my fin aid situation is lowk wack but either way i can afford sticker price @ all schools & parents can & are willing to pay :blush:

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety - 2 in-state schools, asu, u delaware
  • Match - fordham, gw, umn, uw seattle
  • Reach - ucsd, sb, berkeley (lol), umiami, georgetown, umich, boston college, stanford (lol)

feel free to ask any qs !!! ty for reading mwah

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If you would like to develop your list further, this site may serve as a source for ideas:

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Usually when there is an unweighted GPA, no grade receives higher than a 4.0 (even for an A+). Can you recalculate your GPA using 4 points for an A, 3 for a B, 2 for a C, and 1 for a D and then divide by the number of classes? Also, when you say your GPA is on an upward trend, what did it start at and how has it progressed each year?

If you are truly a rising junior, you’re quite early in terms of preparing a list of reach, match, and safety schools. Junior year is often one of the most challenging, as academic work becomes more rigorous and extracurricular involvement and leadership heightens as well. This is often a time when even students with a 4.0 GPA start experiencing a drop in grades.

There definitely seems to be a good sized jump between your PSAT and your practice SATs. If your SAT score ends up aligning with your practice tests, then I would say: your safeties are safeties, your matches are probably matches (UW because I don’t think poli sci is one of their super in-demand majors). U. of Miami might be a high match/low reach. Boston College & U. of Michigan would be definite reaches and Stanford and Georgetown would be super reaches. I tend to avoid chancing on the UC publics, so I won’t go there, though I strongly suspect that Berkeley will be a super reach as well.

Best of luck to you!

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2021 UC admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA, not major specific or broken out by residency. The UC’s consider all 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted. UC’s are test blind so GPA will be a large factor in their admission review.

If applying for Political Science at the UC’s, you should include UC Davis which is in close proximity of the state capital which offers some great internship opportunities.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 72% 25% 2% 0%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%
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thank you so much!!! on a 4.0 scale uw, freshman year was a 3.29, sophomore year was a 3.96 (2 a-s in math lolll)

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thank you sm!!! i’ll check out davis too :blush::blush::blush:

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Looks like a nice balanced list. I notice you are considering U of Minnesota. I think that is a good choice as it has good access to internships at the state capitol in St. Paul. If you are open to LACs, Macalester is also nearby and excellent for poly sci.

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