Chance Me: Asian Male, CA resident, 3.97 GPA (UW), 35 ACT, liberal arts/humanities major

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

College Kickstart gave my child’s college list a C- grade (too many reaches) – what do people think??

Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State: CA
  • Type of high school: Public, large
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Asian

Intended Major(s) Undecided Humanities/Social Sciences (possibly English, American Studies, Media Studies, or Communication)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.97
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.24
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 35

Coursework

Taken (grades 10/11):
Honors Math (not AP)
AP Chem (5)
AP Spanish (5)
AP US History (4)
AP Language (5)

Senior classes:
AP Calc AB
AP Govt/Econ
AP Env Sci
AP Lit

Has taken two college-level courses during summer program at major university (alongside other university students) – public speaking and media studies

Awards

Various elimination rounds at national/regional/state level competitions for debate (quarterfinalist, semifinalist, champion etc.)

Qualifier for state, national and regional championships for debate

Extracurriculars

Debate - 4 years; current President (Gr 12), Varsity Captain (Gr 11)
Middle school debate coach - leads afterschool program at local middle school
School newspaper - staff writer (bi-weekly columns)
Consent education student group (producing education materials/content)
Poll worker for local elections
Math tutor
Started social media account that posts daily trivia about a kids tv show/series that now has several thousand followers

Essays/LORs/Other
Strong writer and somewhat unusual/quirky interests for Asian male (writing, film, etc.) so essays will likely be solid/above average

Schools

Safety/Likely
Oregon
U Washington
UCSC
UC Riverside
UC Merced

Match
UC Davis

Reach
UCSD
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC Berkeley
U Michigan
USC
NYU
Tufts

High reach
Brown
Georgetown

2

What is the weighted rating scale because a 3.97 to 4.24 isn’t far.

In other words, is it +.5 for Honors and 1 for AP or something else?

It’s hard to grade a list - because if you have a safety that your student would love to attend, then nothing else matters.

If you apply to 10 schools and one is U Oregon and he’d love to be there, then the other 9 could be Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

I can’t grade your UCs but I think your safeties are all safe. I’ll let someone else grade UCSC.

Your reaches are reaches and high reach are high reach although I’d likely move Gtown to the same level as Tufts, NYU, USC.

Tufts is need aware - so assuming you can afford all these and you are full pay? That would help.

I think major matters. For example, if you are interested in communications, maybe you add an ASU or Indiana or another school with a great communications/journalism program.

But if you can tell me - he’d be satisfied at UCM or UCR or if he were a Duck or a Huskie, then your list is fine.

Again, I’m not sure about the UCs - and both they and UW won’t see your 35 - but you are likely lacking target schools.

Good luck.

PS - what is the favorite and why Brown vs. Gtown? Brown is open curriculum…so a Rochester, Wake Forest (need aware so full pay is good) might be more in line curriculum wise - and a bunch of LACs.

3

Thanks for your thoughts! The favorite/shoot for the moon choice is Brown but we know it’s a long shot. Think he’d be happy at most of the other schools except maybe Riverside/Merced so those would be last choices. We feel pretty good about the other UC’s being options and they are more affordable than LAC’s so that’s why our list currently doesn’t have any schools along the lines the ones you mentioned (Wake Forest etc.) as well as there’s a strong preference to be in or near a city/urban environment. We expect not to qualify for fin aid so your point about need aware schools is a good one.

4

If he wouldn’t be happy at Riverside or Merced, then why apply to them?

With a 3.97, he’s getting $30K off $40K tuition at U of Arizona - not really much different than a UC.

You already have Oregon on the list and given the major, I think UW happens. There’s many other fine schools out there that are a UC substitute. If you were willing to go South, there’s lots of schools with crazy merit. There’s a reason U of Alabama has over 1000 kids from California and more national merit scholars than any school in America. They “buy” them in.

Having any school on your list that you’d be unhappy attending - means they shouldn’t be applying to begin with.

But let me ask you this - are they unhappy with UCM/UCR because of perception or they’ve been and don’t like the school?

I ask because the truth is, both are fines schools but there are many fine schools in substitute.

So are you full pay? Have you run the NPC for Brown?

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5

Can you calculate his UC GPAs (capped and uncapped)? The instructions for how to do that are here: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub Make sure you check his particular HS to see which of his honors courses are weighted by the UC system.

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The UC GPA (for grades 10/11 and capped) is not that different - 4.27 weighted/3.96 unweighted. His school doesn’t have many AP options before grade 11 anyway.

7

I def hear you on Riverside/Merced - i.e., why apply if not really interested? They may not stay on the list due to their location (both are not particularly desirable geographies), but it’s also easy enough to “check the box” for them on the UC application (one app for all schools, you just check the box for each school you want to apply to) and we’d still want to be sure there is an option in case Oregon or UW don’t work out. We have done the NPC for Brown and have a sense of cost for other privates - it’d be a stretch but we could do it. But that’s also why we’re not really considering privates/LAC’s outside of preferred geographies.

8

But would you like, say an Arizona over UCM/UCR or another through WUE? It’s still $70 to apply so UC app or common app - the work is done.

I mean there’s zero chance that UO is not an in.

Anyway ba k to your list, you’re good. I keep bringing up AZ because vs an Oregon, it’s dirt cheap. But don’t forget to look at WUE though for savings at OOS schools.

Good luck.

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9

Could you please tell us what is in this link?

10

The UC’s consider all 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted. In particular, UCLA/UCB consider the UW UC GPA and the Fully Weighted UC GPA.

Below is the admit rate based on the Capped Weighted UC GPA and not major specific:

Campus 4.00+ 3.70-3.99 3.30-3.69 3.00-3.29
Berkeley 17% 3% 1% 0%
Davis 58% 20% 5% 2%
Irvine 35% 10% 3% 0%
Los Angeles 13% 2% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 97% 95% 85%
Riverside 95% 83% 42% 17%
San Diego 37% 8% 1% 0%
Santa Barbara 41% 8% 3% 0%
Santa Cruz 69% 45% 16% 4%

For Humanities/Social Science majors, most are housed in the College of Letters and Sciences which does not admit by major. Some admit by Division within the College like UCD with an 37.9% L&S admit rate.

Some UC campuses admit into the University first and then into the major like UCI and UCSD.

I agree that if the student is not willing to attend any of the Likely/Safety schools on the list, why apply in the first place.

If your student will be ELC eligible (Local or Statewide), then they are guaranteed admission to the default campus of UC Merced so it does not require an extra application fee since they will be referred automatically to UCM if they are not admitted into their choice campus.

Best of luck to your student and I would look for more target schools.

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11

I don’t know why it lists like it does. It’s the western undergraduate exchange. Every time it looks like a scam. Not sure why but I just clicked on it. It’s the link.

You put in your major and it tells you all the schools where you can pay 150% of in state tuition.

This is the ‘words’ of the link but note in order to show it I added a space in between the / and tuition. You’d have to remove it but then it shows like above but it’s the right link best I can tell.

https://www.wiche.edu/ tuition-savings/wue/

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12

Thank you…it sure is odd.

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13

Had you bookmarked the WUE website? If so, look at the url. Is there something midway through that says fbclid? If so, everything after that indicates that the link came from FB. You might want to delete that bookmark and add one directly from the WUE site instead.

14

Ok. Will see. But I listed the link which doesn’t show Facebook. But will try and find a better one for future. And bookmark. Thx

15

Don’t add the “/wue” at the end. I removed it so it does not look like a spam link. I also have no idea why it’s so.

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16

Kickstart probably doesn’t like all those UC reaches, but if it is easy enough to apply to them, I don’t see it being a big deal.

But I do wonder at the lack of other Brown-like schools on that list, if Brown is the favorite. I get the cost concern but there are schools I would consider in the general family of Brown, that are in or near cities, and that would potentially offer an applicant with those numbers significant merit aid, so why not take a run at one or two of those?

Of course there is nothing wrong with preferring the UCs, I just don’t think of them as very Brown-like schools. And Michigan, Tufts, USC, NYU, and Georgetown also do not strike me as particularly Brown-like, at least given all the many other options.

17

If he likes cold weathe, University of Rochester and Macalester could give merit aid.

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18

Seems like Wesleyan would be a good fit, as it has a vibe similar to Brown (no merit aid, though – also like Brown). Sarah Lawrence is a safety that would seem to check the open curriculum/humanities boxes and is generous with merit aid – definitely a school where fit matters, though.

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19

Thanks all for the suggestions (Rochester, Macalester, Wesleyan, etc.), they all sound so cold haha. We are so soft here in CA. But I know Brown would also be cold (and so is Michigan!) so maybe we should consider a couple other schools along the lines of those that have been suggested.

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A little. But people get used to it:

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