Chance Me Asian Male in Non-Competitive High School

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics: Gender, race/ethnicity, state, type of school, and hooks (URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.)
I’m an Asian Male from a public high school in Massachusetts with roughly 1,200 students.

Intended Major(s): biology/chemistry

ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1330 on my PSAT sophomore year, taking it again this week. I have been scoring 1550s on my practice SATs.

UW/W GPA and Rank: 4.2 UW 4.6 W and I’m top 10% of my class.

Coursework: AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores, etc
Self studied AP Art freshman year and all honors, no AP available freshman year.
Four APs sophomore year, APUSH, AP Lang, AP Seminar, AP Statistics
Five APs sophomore year, AP World, AP CSP, AP Lit, AP Research, AP Chemistry
Planning on taking 3 APs next yeat and dual enrolling for English
I’ve gotten a 3 on seminar and 4 in art, 5s on the rest.

Awards:
1st in State Mass DECA (10th)
State Finalist in Mass DECA (9th)
Regional Finalist in Debate (10th)
Received $1,000 Johnson and Wales Scholarship

*Extracurriculars:
Debate - 4 years president + regional finalist

DECA - 4 years president + international qualifier

Founded Stock Market Trading Club at HS

Tutored at Refinity -200 Hours

Freelance Photography business featured in local newspaper

Chapter of Anti-Sexual Violence Group President (10th)

NPO for Asian Americans Founder(11th)

Organized Climate Walkout (10th)

Essays/LORs/Other: My essays are strong I’d say. Lots of personal thought and growth on trauma, mental health, and my mother’s frequent medical events.

Schools: Chance me for the Ivies, Stanford, Georgia Tech, MIT, UMich, Northeastern, UCLA, UCSD

2

Have you run the net price calculator on each college’s web site?

Unweighted GPA is normally 4.0 maximum.

3

Yeah I have. My school does GPA as 4.3 uw and 5.3 w

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For the UCs, recalculate as shown at GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub . Most UC web sites refer to the weighted-capped version if not otherwise specified.

Assume that you would pay full non-resident costs at UCs. Large merit scholarships are rare.

5

4.0 UW and 4.5 W

6

“The Ivies” are not a category, moreover, the fact that a college is an Ivy just means that it belongs to a specific athletic conference. For almost any given field, there are non ivies which are better than some, most, or any Ivy.
If you are looking at engineering (as indicated by your choices), I would only recommend Cornell.

In any case: while you are competitive, all Ivies, MIT, and Stanford are reaches or high reaches for anybody. With acceptance rates mostly in the single digits, and often below 5%, non-hooked students, even competitive ones, are far more likely not to be accepted than to be accepted

Since you are OOS, both UMich and GTech are reaches, albeit lower reaches than the previous set of colleges. Northeastern is a low reach. Considering your weighted UC GPA, UCLA is a low reach, and UCSD is a low match

As @ucbalumnus mentioned - which of these can you afford?

Also - do you have other matches besides UCSD and do you have an academic and financial safety?

1 Like
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Given that you are in-state in Massachusetts, I do not understand why you would prefer UCSD (most likely at full pay out of state) versus U.Mass Amherst (most likely in-state with a merit scholarship).

Clearly you are competitive at MIT, Stanford, and the Ivy League schools although all are reaches. GT and UCLA out of state would also be reaches, although as said above perhaps not quite as high of a reach.

My guess is that your chances are pretty good at Northeastern. Are you okay with being full pay there?

As a potential biology major, are you thinking about premed or do you have a different idea regarding what you might do with a biology degree?

Does your school give a 4.3 for unweighted GPA for an A+? I know a couple of people who have pulled off better than a 4.0 at university due to A+'s, but to me this seems harder to do in high school because not as many of your classes will be in your strongest subjects.

8

Hey! My GPA out of 4.3 is listed above. Weighted is out of 5.3. I’m totally fine with paying full tuition at whichever uni I get into, and I’m hoping for national merit to help with Northeastern.

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Obvi u have the stats and grades. Only thing I would say is that your EC list and major is confusing. Ie why is debate and deca ur top ECs when u want to major in bio/chem. In the remaining time you have I would try to get involved in some STEm related ECs to make your story more cohesive.

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Point of confusion: How can you have an unweighted of 4.3/4.0 and yet be in top 10%. Shouldn’t that place you within the top 1%? Does this mean that 10% of your entire high school class has a perfect GPA? If so this raises concerns to admissions people that your HS is not that rigorous.

In general it is tough to get into Ivies as an Asian. You’d generally need to be valedictorian or salutatorian to have a decent chance. Plus some meaningful ECs and national/international recognition.

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Sorry! I haven’t gotten my rank yet from the school so I put the smallest percentile I was confident I was in

12

You are indeed a competitive candidate to the schools you listed. Your grades and course rigor are of top caliber.

Glancing at the list of your ECs, I get the impression that you are well-aware of the current social dynamics and politics in your community and beyond (debate; service; stewardship to the planet as well as to its inhibitants). You are at the age when one should be exploring the world and to discover their interests; therefore I would not be too concerned about the non-alignment of your ECs with your intended major(s), which actually demonstrates that you are not one-dimensional. Note with a few words on your applications, your specific contributions at these clubs and events.

Needless to say that your essays are of great importance; use them to tell the schools who you are as a person and your aspirations, that is, information that they cannot already learn from your stats listed in other parts of the applications.

Your applications will be treated fairly. Good luck.