Chance me? Applying EA in the fall.

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>GPA (unweighted): 3.95
Weighted: About 4.6 I believe?
SAT: 2150 (i'm retaking in August for hopefully a higher score)
SAT IIs: Lit- 750, Math II-720
Class rank: Not given at our school</p>

<p>AP Classes already taken:
10th grade: AP European History- 5 on exam
11th grade: AP Art History, AP US History, AP Language & Composition- waiting for exam scores- I'm pretty sure I got 5s in US and Lang, 4 or low 5 in Art History.
Honors classes already taken:
9th grade: Biology, English I, Geometry
10th grade: Chemistry, English II, Algebra II
11th grade: Physics, Precalculus </p>

<p>Class schedule for senior year:
AP French
AP Calculus AB
AP Macroeconomics/ AP Gov (each a being semester course)
AP Drawing
AP Lit
World Religions Honors/Anthropology Honors (each a being semester course)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Art is a huge passion of mine. One of the reasons I fell in love with uChicago- its Gothic architecture. I could spend hours talking about the structure and form of a building, the colours and composition of a painting, the texture of a sculpture. Art is something I sincerely find fascinating. I study art history on my own time and in school and have taken art classes each year of high school so far. Next year I plan to AP in drawing/painting. My artwork has been published 7 times in a nationally-sold teenage magazine inspiring creativity in both visual arts and writing. You can see my artwork here if you are interested: Crewed's</a> Gallery
I also do a lot of writing- both prose and short stories. A lot of this writing is based around artwork- personal contemplations upon viewing certain paintings, or sometimes art galleries are just used as settings, etc.</p>

<p>Clubs/Leadership Positions:
Co. Vice-President of FBLA (2010-2011)- member for 3 years
Treasurer of FBLA (2009-2010)
Treasurer of Key Club (2010-2011) - member for 3 years
Editor of Key Club (2009-2010)
Webmaster/Historian of Model United Nations (2010-2011)- member for 2 years
Artistic Director of Prom Committee (2009-2010)- member for 1 year
French Honor Society (member for 3 years)
Social Studies Honor Society (member for 2 years)
National Honor Society (member for 2 years) / National Junior Honor Society (member for 1 year)
National Art Honor Society
History Fair</p>

<p>Awards/Recognition:
Art-
2x Scholastic Honorable Mention (9th grade)
1st place at the Black & White show (10th grade)
Scholastic Gold Key Regionals(11th grade)
Scholastic Silver Key Regionals(12th grade)
7x publication in Teen Ink Magazine</p>

<p>Academics-
English I Scholar
Drawing 1/Painting 1 Scholar
Chemistry Hon. Scholar
Art History Scholar
Acceptance into Stanford's EPGY program (last summer)
Acceptance into Brown's Pre-College program (this summer- in a week or so, so excited! :-) )</p>

<p>250 hours of community service at Science Museums, Art Exhibitions, and Tutoring.
Aiming to graduate with around 300.
I'm a permanent resident of the US- my family moved from England about 8 years ago... I don't know if that plays a part in the admissions decision, but I figured I should mention it anyway.
Also- will my SAT score pull me down? I've never been that great at standardized tests... hoping to excel in the essay portion of the application.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time :)</p>

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<p>You have a very impressive application. Looking great, excellent student, SAT scores are for sure high enough (you can retake if you want but I don’t feel it’s necessary), and a clear passion.
If you can demonstrate two things in your essays: a) Passion for art, b) Sincere desire to attend UChicago, I would have a hard time imagining them saying no.</p>

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<p>Thanks HonorsCentaur for your response. :slight_smile:
Haha, I really do hope so. I know that uChicago places less of an emphasis on standardized test scores yet with all the scores in the 2300’s around here, I feel a little inadequate.</p>

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<p>Don’t worry,
I went from 1960–>2100–>2190, with a 2220 superscore.
Your scores are good enough I promise. :)</p>

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<p>HonorsCentaur is the local optimist, so don’t get your hopes up too high… </p>

<p>The majority of students with your stats get rejected, so although you have a good application, make sure that everything’s in order and that your essays accurately reflect your personality and desires.</p>

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<p>:P Thanks, phuriku, for your advice. I’ll try to do just that.</p>

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<p>Also, just in case it came off that way, I didn’t mean to say that you don’t have good chances. It’s a fact that the majority of every statistical class (including 2300+s) get rejected, just because of the random nature of admission and test scores. It’s a good idea for any applicant with whatever kind of accomplishments to go into the admissions process being extremely pessimistic (which is why I try to be on the conservative side in the assessment of people’s chances). Not only is this useful in dealing with rejection from the increasingly arbitrary nature of admissions, but it will also help you put your very highest effort into your essays.</p>

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<p>"HonorsCentaur is the local optimist, so don’t get your hopes up too high… "
Dang man. I mean OP does indeed have an impressive application.</p>

<p>Anyway I got in with similar grades/scores but definitely less of a clear passion. Although I must say in my humble opinion my essays were great.</p>

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<p>Yes, but there were a lot of students with higher stats than yours who got rejected as well, and many of them seemed to display quite a high degree of passion for the university. (Check the admissions thread for examples.) The truth is that the admissions process nowadays has a great deal of arbitrariness, and as a result, even the ideal applicant doesn’t have a perfect chance of admission. We can only take the information we have, evaluate it in terms of what the applicant’s chances of admission would be if the admissions process were “perfect”, and then add in a degree of chance to optimize the chances of your evaluation being correct. This is why Harvard isn’t a safety for a 2400 IMO winner… due to the high degree of arbitrariness in Harvard’s admissions process, such person would be about a match even if he/she is the completely ideal applicant.</p>

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<p>^^ OP does have an impressive application. So does the rest of the applicant pool. ;)</p>