Chance/Match Me for Virginia (and Non- Virginia) Colleges! [OH resident, 4.0, 33, 2/28 rank, <$50k, music + business analytics with international focus]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities) Ohio
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): small, private highschool (<100 students 9-12)
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Caucasian male

Intended Major(s) Double major in Music and Business Analytics with an International focus

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.37
  • Class Rank: 2/28
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 33 ACT

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))
Bible: Bible I, II, III, IV
English: English I, H English II, College Credit English 1111, 1112, AP Lit
Foreign Language: Spanish I, II, III, IV
Math: Algebra I, H Geometry, H Algebra II, H Precalc, AP Calculus
Science: Physical Science, H Biology, H Chemistry, AP Physics, Health
Social Studies: College Credit US History, World History, American Government, Geography, Economics
Fine Arts: Band (1 yr), H Band (3 yrs), Art, Music Theory
Other: TA for math teacher 3 yrs, one year for band director, one year for choir director

*School only offers two AP classes and I’m taking both

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Principal Tubist - college band
Principal Tubist - regional youth orchestra
Member of School band (various superior ratings at solo competitions)
Founder of Pep band
Weekly tuba, piano, composition lessons
Head Special Event Coordinator at 2000 person church with three campuses (I plan and create teams to help put on all the special services, trainings, camps, community events, etc) - 25-30 hours/week over summer, and 5-10 hours/week during school year
Student Worship Leader at school
Worship team member at church
Class president (9-11)
Student body chaplain (12)
NHS treasurer (11), president (12)
Small group leader
Chess Club founder
Theater - student director and/or crew manager multiple shows, pit orchestra for one so far

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
I was told my essays are really good (personal statement focuses on my upbringing as a quadruplet, so it should be unique). LORs are a bit of a toss-up.

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.)
Budget: ~50k after aid, but could possibly do more

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 (certain admission and affordability)
    University of Dayton
    Wheaton College (IL)
    Indiana Bloomington
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    Miami University of Ohio
    Southern Methodist
  • Match
    William and Mary
    University of Richmond
    Bucknell
  • Reach
    University of Virginia
    Georgetown University
    University of Pennsylvania
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I will be submitting a pretty high level arts supplement everywhere I apply.

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You have a very interesting profile and I look forward to following your college search journey.

Why do you think that?

Have you run the Net Price Calculators at the schools on your list to see if they are $50k or less? If not, you need to do so. For instance, IU was about $52k this past year for out-of-state students, Wheaton was about $54k, and Dayton over $60k, all over your budget. Unless the NPC came in under $50k, they can’t be safeties, because they are not certain to be affordable, even if they would be likely to give you merit aid.

My personal guesses as to what your chances for admission might be are:

Extremely Likely 80-99+%

  • Miami (OH)
  • U. of Dayton (OH)
  • Wheaton (IL)
  • IU (IN)

Likely (60-79%)

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Bucknell (PA )
  • Southern Methodist (TX)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • U. of RIchmond (VA)
  • William & Mary (but it’s highly unlikely to be affordable as they only offer extremely limit numbers of merit scholarships)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Georgetown (D.C.)
  • U. of Pennsylvania (PA )
  • U. of Virginia

Out of curiosity, how did you select the schools for your list?

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As @AustenNut asks, make sure you can afford the schools. A Gtown doesn’t give merit so what does the NPC say ? Some, like Dayton, will give you merit I believe.

Since you have IU and UVA, you might consider U of SC. I say this because it almost certainly will make budget with merit and it’s the #1 international b school in America.

Also, you may check schools for direct admit. As an example, UVA is not direct admit - so you apply when you’re there for junior year. And they don’t have an analytics concentration in the commerce school although they have a data science minor (not major). Does the curriculum work for you.

Also, UVA meets need but if it’s determined you have no need, it’s not close to budget.

If you do have financial concerns, I think your list can be ‘optimized’. But running those NPCs is key to knowing this.

Get with your folks to get this done.

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Blockquote You have a very interesting profile

Hopefully this is a good thing.

My LORs are a toss up because one is by a band director (it’ll be pretty good), but the other is by an English teacher who knows me well and I do well in her class, but can sometimes be a bit critical, so I can’t guarantee what she’ll say

When creating this list, it’s a pretty good mix of schools I visited and liked,schools that have good business programs, and schools that are in good locations (easy to alleviate stress, things to do, etc.)

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For your reach schools (who often require 2 recommendations) it would be best to get a LOR from one of your STEM teachers. I don’t think a recommendation from your band director will suffice. They want LOR from core subject teachers, ideally one humanities and one STEM. Apart from that, I think your list looks good with many schools where I think you have a very good chance of being admitted. I will echo other posters regarding affordability - you need to run the NPC for any school whose sticker price is >$50k to see if they will come in at budget (either via need-based or merit aid). You should also confirm your budget with your parents.

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In the case I decide to double major in music and business, would it be good to get an LOR from my music teacher?

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I think it is fine to have your music teacher write you a recommendation - and if you are thinking of a music major it would be helpful. Generally speaking schools look for one STEM and one humanities but if you are going for music maybe that won’t matter - maybe someone who knows more about that could weigh in.

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A similar question to this came up at a recent information session we attended (I am actually not entirely sure which, they blur together a bit, but I think it was William & Mary). The answer was basically that this might be a good case for a supplemental recommendation. As you related, the framing seemed to be the normal reviewers do typically want to see recommendations from what they consider to be core classes (Science, Math, English, Social Studies/History, and Language). But they understand they are not really in a position to evaluate creative things like art and music.

So, it is almost like that is a whole separate mini-application (art and music supplements and such), and they actually said they typically send them to people in that area to evaluate. I’m not sure every school goes that far, but anyway they also seemed to suggest if you wanted a separate recommendation from someone you worked with in a creative field (could be in or out of school), that might actually be helpful to them. But it wouldn’t really be a substitute for one of the core academic recommendations, which again they see as their sort of thing to evaluate.

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My two cents is it seems to me like your academic qualifications and ECs are enough to keep you competitive pretty much anywhere.

At holistic review schools, they then have to cut the many other applicants about whom the same could be said down to a much smaller actual admit list using their personal/fit criteria (and also anything else involving institutional goals, but other things could take the form of a “hook” of some sort).

That’s inherently impossible to predict, but to maximize your chances of clicking with some school, you want your essays and recommendations to paint a strong, specific picture of you as the kind of person other students would want to meet and would value as a roommate, in a course, in activities, and so on.

It sounds like your essay is on track, but you might want to take one last pass to make sure it is not only making you sound unique as an interesting individual, but also likely to be valued in a college community in that way.

And ideally you want your recommendations to do the same for you. Obviously you cannot completely control that, but I think it is never too late to practice some good social and self-advocacy skills when seeking recommendations. Like, meaningfully discussing with potential recommenders who you are, what you think would make you a valued member of a college community, and how you have demonstrated that in the contexts in which that recommender knew you, could help them understand how to shape their recommendation with specific details and themes that will help you the most.

And then you have done what you can to help admissions officers know you well.

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This is from Yale - you’re not applying there - but I would look up each school. Some might not require LORs, some one, some might allow a third, etc.

But because you’ll have them in Common App, you’ll want to get them once so that they work for all schools. Kids hate nothing more than having to ask for LORs and the least amount of asking you have to do, the better (for most anyway). Do I think a school will reject you just because you get the music teacher? No. Do they want that as a primary LOR? Likely not, at least at many.

"The best recommendations are not always from the teachers in whose class you earned the highest grades, but rather from those teachers who know you best and can discuss the substance of your intellect and character. We are as interested in your intellectual curiosity and resilience as in your innate ability and work ethic. A string of generic superlatives is not as useful as a specific, thoughtful discussion of your strengths.

All applicants for first-year admission should request two letters of recommendation from teachers who have taught the student in core academic subjects: usually Math, English, Foreign Language, Social Studies, or Science. Teachers who have taught you in your junior and/or senior years often write the most insightful letters. These teachers will best speak to your recent progress, your preparation for rigorous collegiate coursework, and your potential contributions beyond the classroom."

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In order to get a broad estimate of your chances for admission, you might want to look at the Common Data Set for each school your are interested in; and specifically at Section C7 and Sections C9-C11. Section C7 tells you what academic and non-academic factors are considered by each school, and the weight that each school places on them (for example, some schools may give more weight to test scores, and vice versa); Sections C9-C11 give objective criteria – test scores, GPA, etc. – for students who have matriculated at each school. Comparing your stats to these may give you a sense of your admission chances.

Also, as I recall, UVa has a policy – and I’m not sure whether William & Mary does – of capping OOS first-year admits at 27% of the entering freshman class. (That may have changed since I was really doing research into the admissions policies of various schools, a few years ago.)

Georgetown and Penn are going to be tough nuts to crack, irrespective of your academic prowess and extracurriculars; I think I saw another thread here on CC that during the last admission cycle, Penn had an admit rate of 5.7% for entering freshmen.

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I saw the cap for UVA. I’m not sure if William and Mary is the same, but there population is roughly one third OOS. As of now, I’m gonna apply ED to William and Mary I think.

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Penn is tough and today almost seems like ED is required. 18% first gen, 55% students of color (including 23% of kids from underrpresented races), 19% pell eligible, and I don’t see it here but last year over half their class was ED - which seems to be something happening more and more at top schools.

While I don’t know about Wheaton and have heard good things about Dayton, I’ll just say from IU on down on the list - really not a bad name on there including in-state Miami which has a fabulous b-school.

To me, UVA doesn’t belong - as it doesn’t have analytics in the b school and the data science minor (doesn’t have a major) doesn’t seem analytical. Maybe stats.

UNC doesn’t either - I looked at their concentrations as it’s a similar school - also not direct admit.

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Good to know about UVA! I was sort of hesitant about it because I don’t like the area/campus and it seemed a bit big for my tastes.

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You mentioned “international focus”; I think that W&M has an agreement with St. Andrew’s University for study there.

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They do! They also have a nice internship in DC which is something I’m also interested in.

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It is. :slight_smile:

Are there any other schools like this, where you don’t really care for the area/campus or don’t otherwise seem a good fit? If so, I would remove them.

Have you run the NPC at William & Mary? I believe they only give 8 merit scholarships
which are a full ride
but the odds of getting one of them is extremely, extremely small. If the NPC doesn’t come back as within budget, the school is going to be way out of budget.

I don’t know about Wheaton’s business program, but I have heard it viewed as one of the top religiously-affiliated schools (and by religiously-affiliated, I mean not just affiliated in name, but also in practice).

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FYI - many schools have DC programs. That’s not unique to W&M. My daughter will be attending the South Carolina one this Fall (it’s all public SC schools, she’s at Charleston).

They take 2 classes and work full-time. One is about political issues and the other is about theater (they go to plays and write about them).

You might look at each school on your list to see about their program if that’s an interest to you.

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Charleston is a nice school! I discovered it the other day and I think I’m gonna look into it.

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