Chance me (Applying to UPENN, Georgetown, Cornell, JHU, NYU, Rice, UMD, Dartmouth, and Brown)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Race: Mixed Race
Gender:Male
Income: $40,000 (Not sure if I could qualify for financial aid if I have a high net worth)
State: MD
School type: Public (top 20 in state)
GPA unweighted: 4.0 all years except freshman year (3.89)
Weighted GPA: 4.9
SAT: 2350
ACT: 35
SAT subjects: US History, World History, Math lvl 1, Math lvl 2, (All near perfect); Thinking of taking (Chem, Bio, and Physics)
AP: All APs are 5 (Micro, Macro, World, US, NSL, CAL AB, CAL BC, Environmental Science, Euro, Bio) Might be taking Psyc, Chem, and Physics)
Rank: County doesn’t rank
PSAT: Semifinalist
Parents: Have P.H.Ds from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Extracurriculars:
SGA for 6 years
Founder and president of Model UN 3 years and 3 years more in middle school
Track 3 years
National Honors Society
Debate Team
Leo’s Club
Environmental Club

Not much volunteering yet, but I will be getting to that in my senior year. Expecting 500+ hours. One outstanding volunteering activity that I did was teaching English at an orphanage in China. Not sure if that will help, but that is all I have so far. I will also be doing summer internship at various research facilities.

Going to get in some awards and contests this summer as well as next year.

Intended Major: Finance

I am basically applying to the top 20 universities according to USWNR as well as NYU, UMD, UVA, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Georgetown, Emory, and Carnegie Mellon.

Please answer, as this will help me tremendously!

Thanks!

2

I can tell from the fact that you are planning to get 500+ hours of volunteering and planning to get awards shows that you are constructing your college app just to appeal to colleges. You are not being genuine nor real just doing things for the sake of making your app look better. Get out of that mindset.

3

I like helping out around the community. So what are my chances?

4

You look like you have great chances already. Just keep doing what you’re doing.
I know I already answered on your other forum, but most of these contests you were referring to occur in the spring, so colleges won’t even see it if you participate.
I don’t see the need to do such a ridiculous amount of volunteering in a short period of time. It won’t really help your app much. You’d have to do about 20 hours a week to actually get 500 before you apply, so it could kill your GPA too.
Also, you already have 4 subject tests… why would you take 3 more?
Finally, do you really have time to apply to 27 colleges?

5

Yes, because it means that I have more of a choice when deciding. As you can see I am particularly strong in math and history courses. I don’t want colleges to see that I am weak in any spot. By the way will more subject tests help me?

Also please be more specific when you say I have a great chance of getting in. Which school are you talking about?

6

Your stats are strong. You have a good SAT and GPA.

Don’t focus on volunteering. 500 hours isn’t necessary and is a waste of time if you’re doing it just to appeal to colleges.

If you intend to be a finance major, try to do something related in that field. Try to show proficiency in something in that field so colleges know you’re dedicated and skilled (for a high schooler) in finance. Specifically, I don’t know what a good EC should be, but try and do something related to your potential major.

7

@UndergradNot absolutely not. None of the schools you listed require more than 2, and sending more won’t really help you much. Since you have good grades and high AP scores, colleges won’t assume you’re weak in a subject area if you don’t take a subject test in it.
Well, the top 20 schools are a crapshoot for everyone, so I wouldn’t expect acceptances from all of them. But with your high levels of achievement, you’re bound to get into at least a few.
UMD and UVA will be a shoo in for you, and the other 5 you listed would probably be matches (carnegie may be a low reach/high match)

8

By the way, USNWR has been debunked many times, so I wouldn’t just apply to a school because it’s top 20. Do some research and see which schools are appealing to you. USNWR bases rankings primarily on acceptance rate, average SAT, and average HS GPA- just because a school rejects a lot of people doesn’t mean it’s good. I know kids graduating from top 20 schools get good jobs, but that’s because they have a tendency to work hard and acheive, not because they go to a top 20 school.

9

I don’t understand this:
“Income: $40,000 (Not sure if I could qualify for financial aid if I have a high net worth)” = Can you explain? Have you run a few NPC’s?

If teaching English to English Learners is your thing, start doing it NOW, not in China, but in your current town, and do it consistently a couple hours a week from now until you graduate. That will matter much more than anything else you could do. Adcoms don’t like it when students need far-away locales to volunteer. Commitment to helping others must include those in your community.

You need to find matches and safeties. For someone with your profile, it means a school hat shares some characteristics with your favorite schools, that’s affordable, and admits 30+% and40+% applicants.
DO you have a shot? Sure.
Is it a sure thing? Absolutely not.
Applying to many reaches doesn’t guarantee you won’t be shut out. And applying to a bunch of reaches plus one safety you haven’t thought much about is also a very bad idea. (Read the thread “Admissions are not independent events”).
Start from the ground up. Find two schools that admit about 40% applicants of more (in your category: ie., if you’re instate, your odds are higher than OOS in most cases. Some universities admit by school - typically, engineering and business are harder to get into, sometimes MUCH harder to get into. So, applying to engineering at an OOS flagship is going to be much harder than applying for Comparative Literature in-state). Apply to your “safeties” (I’m guessing UMD?) EA or rolling admissions.
As for matches, add some LACs ranked 20-40 and start expressing interest.

10

I already taught English at an orphanage in China. I was vacationing and I found some time to volunteer, I know that helping in the community is better than volunteering abroad. I am putting this out there because I was wondering if this will be a stand-out on my college app.

I could basically afford any school that I want to go to, financial troubles are not one of my concerns. My safety schools are UMD and UVA. Georgetown, Carnegie, UC Berkeley, etc. are not reaches, they are targets. Anything below the top 10 are reaches (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.). I personally think my academic achievements are enough to get into some of my reaches and definitely acceptances in my targets. This is my prediction, please correct me if I am wrong.

11

^ I know you do.
But once you reach a certain percentage of rejection -80%- it’s a reach for everyone, and below 30% You can’t consider the University anything but a reach regardless of stats ; therefore your list is very risky. Most students will have your stats, a compelling story.
Teaching in an orphanage in China will get adcoms to roll their eyes if you aren’t volunteering in your community in that field. You should try and write about it to explain why it matters to you, but you MUST be involved in teaching refugees or immigrants in your community if you want that to matter.
Uva - unless you’re instate - is NOT a safety for anyone.
Thinking schools such as CMU or Georgetown are targets isn’t wise - they’re reaches for everyone due to selectivity. Cmu has very few tracks that aren’t ‘reaches for everyone’.
If you had all rejections except for umd, how would you feel ?
Does your school have Naviance ?

12

Listen to @MYOS1634 , or next April, you will be one of those people posting “I didn’t get in anywhere.” Your ECs will be considered very mediocre for many of the colleges you are applying to. And there is no way you will get in 500 volunteer hours, unless you plan on being dishonest. Which, from your other thread, it seems that you are contemplating. Aren’t we all mixed race, frankly?

13

On financial aid:

On ethnicity and ethics:

14

@Lindgaf and @MYOS1634 are so right. While your stats are strong, they are not stronger than a high percentage of applicants to the kinds of schools you are considering. Your ECs are on the weak side, if anything. What will help you stand out is an authentic voice telling a story that makes you intriguing. But even kids with grades better than yours, scores better than yours, amazing extra-curricular involvement, stunning letters of recommendations, and beautiful essays can wind up getting rejected from all the super-selective schools.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t apply to a few of these selective schools. But I am suggesting that your chances (based only on what you say above, which I realize is not a complete application) are no higher than than they are for the average applicant–and might be lower.

Have you visited the schools on your list? Go and walk around. Sit in on a couple of classes. Stay in a dorm overnight. Look more deeply at each one and see what resonates. Once you can imagine yourself fitting in to a particular college’s culture, you might be able to be able to show the school why you belong on that campus. What will you contribute to the school’s culture? (When I was in college, the joke in the admissions office where I worked was, "Ask not what Harvard can do for you; ask what you can add to Harvard.)

If you don’t let your real personality and your real passions come across to admissions counselors, your chances will drop to near zero at uber-selective schools.

I’ve even known two students with stats and stories similar to yours who were rejected from UMD in-state. Even schools that accept 50% of their applicants (or schools that lack staff to do extensive holistic reviews) aren’t only looking at stats.

Talk to your school counselors and teachers about your list. They will be able to give you more insight than we can–about which schools on your list make sense for you, about some other schools you might add in order to have a more appropriate selection and balance of schools, etc.

You might also profit from skimming through the now-somewhat-dated book by Dunbar, What You Don’t Know Can Keep You Out of College.

If you have not seen @rejectedlion2016’s thoughtful (and frightening) posts about his experiences this year, you might want to check them out.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1876770-what-did-i-do-wrong-p1.html
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1891200-asian-rejected-from-everywhere-postmortem-p1.html

15

Again, please don’t consider me as “Asian”. I am proud of my multi-cultural heritage and I am tired of other people classifying as Asian.

16

I wasn’t classifying you as Asian. I was using ‘mixed race’.
And regardless your list is almost all reaches. You need to find at least one more safety and several matches.

17

You’re not mixed, you’re Asian. You haven’t experienced the oppression black people have faced. You want to reap the “benefits” of being black without having to experience what they deal with on a daily basis. Living in a black community doesn’t give you an excuse to write yourself off as mixed. If you get rejected from any of the colleges, it’s not because of your race. You know this is wrong, and it’s evident in your past posts. Top twenty is fair game for anyone, but being shallow and having no substance will certaintly decrease a person’s chances of getting in.

18

Is your comment directed to me, @UndergradNot? If so, you should know I was not calling you Asian–just telling you that a student with extremely high stats and very interesting ec’s did not get in to any of the selective schools to which he applied. Many of the people with a story similar to you (ie, fairly high stats, somewhat interesting extracurriculars but no obvious passions, and a serious interest in prestige) are NOT Asians (although the student who wrote the account linked to above does identify as Asian, and does see that as one of many factors in his story). The non-Asian applicants overwhelmingly get rejections letters, too–at least if they are not first-gen underrepresented minorities (which you will not be, regardless of your chosen racial identity). And if you go though the admissions results threads for various schools, you will see that even many of the first-gen UM students with your basic profile get rejections as well.

Here is a very serious idea which might actually separate you from the crowded field of applicants and make you look both interesting and introspective: how about cast yourself as a future history major whose fascination with issues of race as a construct inspired you to began exploring your own racial identification more deeply? Folks who want to go into finance are a dime a dozen and not especially interesting unless they’ve done some really impressive finance things all through high school. On the other hand, kids interested in major issues of academic history are showing serious intellectual vitality–and you’d be saying something about race that is kind of new as well. And both your academics and your extracurriculars pretty much support that admissions story.

Might not work for you. Just an idea.

19

“I’m very proud of my multi-cultural heritage”
This was funny at first, but it’s just getting annoying/sad at this point lol
Probably all of us would test as 2% african american. Humans originated in Africa anyway.
I live near the border aka predominantly hispanic, but am I saying I’m mexican? No

20

^but that’s not the issue. The issue is that this student, regardless of ethnic background, has a list consisting entirely of reaches, plus one safety (to which, it seems, he hasn’t devoted much thought - program, deadlines, costs, points they like), and this ALWAYS spells disaster. Right now, he needs to add 5-8 schools to his list, and he has about 2 months to do so. Since finding these schools will require real work, vs. picking dream schools (which is fun and not “work”), he needs to focus on that.
Being 2% AA is another issue, that can be dealt with by his counselor (if he checks “mixed race: Asian and AA” but the GC checks “Asian”, it’ll raise flags, so don’t worry about it).