Chance Me: Asian (Indian) Male from Pennsylvania - Top 3%, 4.0/1520, with hopes in Business

Chance Me / Match Me!
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1

Asian Male
(US citizen)
State of Residency: Pennsylvania
School: Large Public High School
First Gen in the U.S. but parents studied in India

Intended Major: Finance/Economics/Business Administration

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.7 Translated from 105.2
  • College GPA (Dual Enrollment): 4.0
  • Class Rank: 19/661
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1520 (770 Math/750 English)

Coursework
Dual Enrollment: College Business 101, College Marketing 201, College Accounting 201, English 101, Fitness/Wellness
APs: Calc AB, Calc BC, Stats, Physics 1, Physics C, Gov, Micro, US History, Human Geo, Psych (5s on all but 2)
Honors: World History, Biology, Chemistry, Algebra II, Precalculus W/ trig, Geometry, Intro to Engineering Design, Spanish 4
Additional Relevant Courses: Intro to Business, Business Law 1, Business Law 2

Awards
20+ Science Olympiad Awards
FBLA BAA (Contributor, Advocate, Leader) - national recognition
FBLA - 2x 1st at states, 1 4th,8th,&9th at states. 3x regional winnner.
AP Scholar with Distinction
Soccer Awards (state level max)

Extracurriculars
Family Responsiblity - I have a younger brother that i spend a lot of time taking care of.
Soccer - 14+ years (Premier Travel Club Team) (Team Captain) (State Cup Champions) (Multiple other awars)
I am a certified soccer referee from USSF, and I work in local leagues by officiating youth matches/tournaments.
Book - I wrote and self-published a childrens book as a reflection on my journey to state cup.
FBLA - 4 year member. Chapter/Regional President, chapter communications officer, national competitor, national recognition. Fundraised near 6k+. I’ve created a website for my chapter and I’ve been a mentor to the underclassmen for two years now.
National Business Honor Society Inductee
Fundamentals of Ethics Advanced Certification
DECA - Chapter founder/president
Engineering Club - 4 year member, on the board and currently serving as president
Science Olympiad - 1st and 3rd place at states, 20th nationally. Team Secretary.
Mock Trial - Captain, 2nd & 4th at states. Best attorney in some trials.
Non-Profit Competitive Esports Organization - I started a competitive esports organization focused on Rocket League with over 1000+ members at the beginning of 9th grade. It hosts an in-house league, competitive ranking system, and top tier teams. The organization has raised money for charity (My Passion Project)
Volunteer - I volunteer most fridays at the local library for 2 hours. Assisting librarians with various tasks.
Key Club - Member 4 years. 80+ service hours
NHS - 30+ service hours
I am a student ambassador for my school, PFEW, NSHSS
PFEW - I attended an application based business camp over a week at a college where I was elected the CFO of a company and led my team to two awards in the stock and finance simulation.

Essays/LORs/Other
Solid LORs, always had a good experience in school and had well teachers. I have my business and ap teachers writing them.
Common App Essay: Not sure exactly, but I was in a car crash accident some time ago and it affected my life, so maybe planning to use that. Or another option would be my Esport Organization.

No cost restraint

Schools
Safeties: Penn State Main Campus (Honors will likely be much harder), IUP, & LIU
Likely: Babson, UT Austin, Indiana Univesity
Reach: NYU(EDII), CMU, UPenn(EDI), UMich(EA)(Ross BBA), GTech(EA), UVA(EA), UNC(EA), Cornell (Hotel School), UCB

Please recommend if I should maybe apply to any other colleges and/or reduce some colleges from my list. And please help me with ranking my top ten ECs.

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Will you be NM S/F/Commended?
I’d say UT Austin will be a Reach, certainly for McCombs/Business. Economics (Liberal Arts) isn’t as competitive, but OOS will be tough for either.

You have great stats and extracurriculars!

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No, unfortunately, I was not prepared enough when it came to the PSAT, so I did not qualify for NM.

Yes, UT Austin seems as possibly a reach.

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If you are open to schools in California, you might consider USC.

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You may want to consider changing your username for confidentiality purposes. Here’s how:

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Good news is, for schools that accept test scores, yours is great!
UT Austin, especially McCombs Business School, will be a hard Reach.

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Wow - how is it you are only 19th ranked.

You are amazing.

Yes to Penn State. Are you saying Indiana U of Pa? Why ? Since no cost constraint - how about Indiana U Kelley School - one of the top.I see you have IU which is a safety given your scores. I don’t think you need the other two safeties or any others you wouldn’t attend over IU.

Babson is likely but if you like that kind of program add Bentley.

You know that - at least UNC and UVA getting in is half the challenge. Then you need to get into B school Junior year. So if that doesn’t work for you or you’d go to IU vs taking on that risk, you can remove them.

Finally - why hotel at Cornell ? Is this an interest ? If so, I might redo the entire list depending on what you want the end result to be.

Your ECs are great but you can only have 10. Eliminate those that don’t have quantifiable impact.

You’re a wonderful candidate anywhere. I can see your list trimming. But no need to add unless and only unless IU isn’t a place you’d like to end up.

Schools like a Michigan or iU can be Wisconsin, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio State but you have PSU so they’re more really needed.

Also - you have urban, suburban, and boonies. Is there a preference for one ?

Congrats to you.

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I would be open to schools in California, although I’m not sure if it is worth applying there as they would also most likely be reach schools. I do plan on applying to Berkeley, however.

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First off, thank you!

Yes, I was applying to IU of PA as a safety, but I am also applying to IU Kelley.

Bentley can be a good idea, not sure if Bentley’s undergrad program would be better to attend than the other schools.

Yes, UVA and UNC are very unlikely, so that could maybe be a removal.

I feel that Cornell’s Dyson school may be tougher to get into than the Hotel school, however, the hotel school also has a specialization in corporate finance which I’m very highly interested in.

Yes, outside Michigan and IU, I think I may just remain with PSU as my fallback.

Not necessarily a preference for location, as education is more important to me.

Thanks once again.

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Are there any thoughts on my essay choice or would it be good to have it?

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@Gumbymom may have admission stats for Berkeley’s Haas School of Business vs L&S Econ.

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No reason to apply IUP unless you need to be home. PSU and IU are locks but Pitt, Ohio State, Minnesota etc would give you a much better experience than IUP.

IU has a great rep but is not a difficult admit. So for you a pure safety.

I’m saying you can drop others if and only if you’d rate it above others.

Bentley you ask - is strong and a less difficult admit than Babson. Both are unique.

Ps - for IU they don’t need common app essay or didn’t a couple years back. . Your topic could be good but you’d have to expand upon what you put in the first message. How did it impact, change you ? What will it say about you ??

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There’s an essay review forum on CC where you can ask to have someone read your essay fyi.

No thought of pursuing soccer recruiting?

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Congratulations on your impressive achievements @2024HSSenior.

I think you have a good shot at most of these schools.

Not a hook / doesn’t make a difference.

As others have mentioned, UT Austin is not a likely. And since you have a lot of reaches you should add some target/match schools.

I’d suggest Rutgers Business School, Ohio State and UMD Smith. The latter two are considered “top 25” undergraduate business programs but I think will be a match for you.

(Edit: I see Ohio was already recommended).

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@2024HSSenior

UCB’s College of L&S Economics admit rate for 2022 was 5.28%.

UCB’s HAAS School of Business starting Fall 2024 will be a direct admit for Freshman so this being a new admit policy there is no prior admit data. For 2022, the admit rate for Intended Business Admin Freshman was 9.12% (4431 applicants and 404 admits). No mention that they plan to increase the # of spots with the new policy but for continuing students, less spots will be available as they transition.

Students may still apply to the business major as sophomores, but as the program transitions to a four-year model, fewer spots will be available for continuing students in the Spring 2024 admissions cycle. Prepared first-year students are encouraged to apply to Haas in Spring 2023 rather than wait until the Spring 2024 admissions cycle, when there will be fewer continuing pool spots. The deadline for completing minimum eligibility requirements will be extended to Summer 2023 for first-year applicants only.

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I don’t think I’d be able to play soccer at the Division 1 level, so I’m leaning more toward a stronger education.

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Okay great, thank you! I will look into both, Bentley and the Kelley direct admit.

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Okay, thanks for the feedback. I will look into those schools.

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Make no mistake - you can get a strong finance education most anywhere -an Utah vs a PSU VS UVA vs Cornell for example.

One might have better contacts but in the era of the internet that likely matters less.

So find the school where you fit - where you arrive on campus and feel like you are home.

That does matter as you’ll be there four years.

Just assume at any of these short of the IUP which you shouldn’t be applying to - that the education is top notch.

In other words - don’t, in the area you are pursuing, conflate reputation with a stronger education.

When I was in grad school, my roommate was from Cornell and his bff at Wharton and their curriculum appeared far less rigorous than my state school. But their top focus was job search, not academics best I could tell.

I’m not saying 25 years later Wharton won’t be rigorous. But what I’m saying is fimd the right place for you to spend four years. That educational strength will be there, especially if you seek it out

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Look also at Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. And, while money may not necessarily be an object, it appears that you would qualify for some good merit aid there: Scholarships | Costs and Financial Aid | Miami University.

Generally, if you look at the Common Data Sets for the schools that you are interested in, Section C7 tells you how each school weighs different academic and non-academic admissions factors; and Sections C9-C11 give objective criteria for recently matriculating classes – so you can compare your stats to those of entering freshmen.

Have you had the opportunity to visit any schools of interest while they are in session, to get a feel for the campus and the student body at each one?

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