Chance me (a junior) and I'll chance back!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Asian-American female, small public school.
Intended major: English with a minor in International Affairs

Weighted GPA: 3.9
Unweighted GPA: I calculated this myself to be about 3.7.
(I predict my GPA will go up after this year, but not by much. I’ve always consistently earned Bs in higher-level math/science courses, and my school offered 1 AP freshman and sophomore year).

APs: World History (4), Psychology (5), Lang (predicted score of 5), US History (predicted score of 5)
*I plan to take AP European history, US government, environmental science, and English literature next year.

SAT: 1580

Rank: school doesn’t rank

Course rigor: freshman year 10/10; sophomore year I would rate 8/10; junior year 8/10

Subject tests: I plan to take English Literature, US history, and Math level 2. I predict a score of 750+ on all three. Aiming for a 780-800 in Math.

Extracurriculars:

  1. Basic stuff like National Honor Society vice pres, student council treasurer
  2. Founded a cinema club at school
  3. Model UN--received a varsity letter, attended DC conferences and going to the Harvard conference this year; treasurer of the club
  4. Political internship with a local campaign for a woman running for Congress
  5. My poems have been published in a few publications (nothing too prestigious or crazy, but still moderately selective); also won a few gold keys/silver keys/honorable mentions from the Scholastic Awards throughout high school, and am hoping to win a national medal this year.
  6. Prose editor of my school's literary arts magazine since sophomore year; member since freshman year
  7. Girl's tennis team since freshman year (2 years JV, soon to be 2 years V)
  8. Attended the Kenyon Young Writers summer program this summer, and plan to apply to the Iowa Young Writers studio for this summer. I also plan to apply for an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer.

Volunteer Work

  1. hours with Relay for Life (event w/ the American Cancer Society) and am the ‘student liaison’ of the club at school
  1. I spent summer 2018 volunteering at a summer camp for children/teens with disabilities as a counselor

Letters of rec:

  1. English 8/10, teacher has honestly been the only one at school to encourage my interest in creative writing, has known me since freshman year, is very familiar with my work. Has written me recs before for Kenyon, and now for Iowa/the Met.
  1. French 7/10, love her as a teacher and love talking to her. Have always done well in her class

Here are some colleges I’m interested in from order of safety to reach (I sort of categorized them according to Big Future):
American university
University of Massachusetts Amherst
George Washington university
Bennington College
NYU (new york campus)
Boston college
Villanova
University of Virginia
Emory
Tufts
Upenn
Columbia

Assuming an optimistic view (I achieve my predicted AP/SAT II scores, get the Met internship, maybe even win a national Scholastic medal), what are my chances? I also obviously can’t rate my common app essay because I haven’t written it yet, but since I’m a pretty strong writer, I would (hopefully) predict it to be memorable. Thank you to anyone who comments!

2

“Assuming the optimistic” often doesn’t works out, so I’m going to veer negative.
I think your common app essay needs to be absolutely stellar for Upenn, NYU, and Columbia. Talk about what inspires you, what keeps you going in spite of the criticism:

Your ECs are in line with your interests (make sure you reorder and put MUN at the top of the list and such, if you list NHS as #1 you’ll turn some adcoms off). I’m pretty sure the discrepancy between your GPA and SAT will be explained easily by the overall rigor of your school and your clear focus on non-STEM stuff.

Good luck and feel free to chance me for MIT or UCB!

3

infinitesimal chance at upenn/columbia

4

@reddington I agree my chances for Columbia are basically nonexistent. However for Upenn I am hoping to get admissions advocacy through their creative writing recruitment program, depending on how favorably the officer views my portfolio, hoping that’ll give me some sort of boost

5

@daunt18 thank you for the advice! I appeciate it.

6

you should submit your writing to the scholastic contests

7

@reddington I have but I’ve only been able to win regional awards. This year I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a national medal.

8

I would also like to add that I am currently working on a novel. I’m unsure if I should include that on my college apps later if I don’t actually get it published through a publisher (since the chances of that are very slim).