Chance me for American University, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Lafayette, Pomona, Yale, UCs (Berkeley, Davis, LA, San Diego), UMich, UNC Chapel Hill, UVA!
GPA: 94.6; converts to 4.0 unweighted
ACT: 36 Composite
SAT IIs: Bio (720 as a freshman); taking Lit, Math II, and USH next week (not confident about USH, likely 750+ for Lit and Math II)
APs: Spanish, Gov, USH this year (likely 4/5s) and taking BC next year (school doesn’t offer a lot of APs, you can only start taking them junior year)
Senior Year Course Load: U.S. Constitutional Law, Advanced Essay Writing, Bible as Literature, AP Calc BC, Physics, African American Studies (likely a teaching internship with the social studies department)
Major Awards: Scholastic National Gold Medalist (likely National Merit Semifinalist or Finalist, AP Scholar)
Extracurriculars:
- XC and track for 5 years, captain all three seasons this year and next year. Consistent district level scorer, but nowhere near good enough to run competitively, hopeful county/state qualifier next year.
- Cultural club for 6 years, secretary this year, hopeful president next year.
- Yearbook for 3 years, assistant 10th grade, layout editor this year, head layout editor next year.
- Official school newspaper for 3 years, staff writer all years, layout editor this year, head layout editor next year.
- Opinion magazine for 3 years, staff writer all years, content manager this year and next year.
- Literary magazine for 4 years, staff writer all years, art and layout editor this year and next year.
- Selective mentorship program (<20% chosen) for 2 years.
- I founded and organize an Asian American student conference (3 years next year!), and we have 100+ registered attendees per year and some really prominent APIA leaders and organizations at our conference. Completely student run.
Work/Volunteer Experience:
- Interned at a non profit that serves the APIA community; worked in Social Services (emphasis on Immigration) and Communications. Sophomore year summer.
- Interned at a District Attorney’s office; worked in their victim advocacy program. Freshman year summer.
- This summer, I will be interning at either at either the same non profit as I did sophomore year, a food justice non profit, or a local politician’s office.
- This fall, I was offered an internship at a local Assemblymember’s office and likely will be interning there if applying to college doesn’t kill me first.
- Total ~300 hours volunteering:
— Volunteered at a Chinese American non profit; created artwork for projects, managed week long fundraiser with 30+ workers and 300+ customers, provided services to immigrant/low income families. Sophomore year summer.
— Volunteered at a summer day camp; helped teachers and took care of kindergarten aged children. Eighth grade summer lol.
Other:
- Asian, female, from NYC. I attend a very competitive, small public school (<200 per grade from 7 to 12) that regularly sends 30+ to Ivies.
- My family makes less than $40,000 per year, so I’m definitely applying for financial aid.
- Majoring in Poli Sci probably? I love Yale and am very interested in their Ethics, Politics, & Economics and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration majors at Yale.
- First gen high school and college.
I would love any and all advice!
You do have a fair chance at UMich even from OOS. More important, they are now providing very generous financial aids to students from low income family even from OOS. For UCs, you would not get much if any financial aids and they would be likely not affordable even with merit scholarships.
@shrugemoji Son graduated from that small, public, CUNY affiliated, public school a couple of years ago, so my comments are based on my experience as a parent of a student at the school. First, second, and third: trust naviance. The number of applicants to most of the competitive schools in the country from your HS is more than sufficient to paint a pretty good picture on the scattergrams of what your chances are. If your stats land you in a field of green, feel fairly confident. If they put you in a pile of red x’s, look elsewhere. The one caveat to the accuracy of naviance would be that it somewhat overstates the odds of acceptance at HY as significant number of the acceptances at HY over the years have been legacies, with the unhooked students accepted being among the highest achieving. Very large number of kids from your school at Y, so can see why you like it.
Again, in the context of applying to extremely competitive schools from your HS, don’t think about converting GPA to a 4.0 scale, there are clear differences in admissions results between a 94.60 and a 96.40 that would be obscured by considering both to be a 4.0. It has been a while since I looked, but even with a 36 or 1600/2400, anything under a 96 cut your odds (in the context of your HS) at HY, also keep in mind that the vast majority of the acceptances at both were EA, not RD. Princeton was a bit harder to predict, with acceptances and rejections scattered randomly all over the upper right corner of the scattergram, so that might be something to consider. Also, the acceptances started coming in somewhat lower down the GPA scale at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Barnard, etc.
UC’s are very stingy with out-of-state fin aid, so you might want to look more closely at the affordability issue and make sure the schools you apply to offer to meet full demonstrated need. If they still limit you to 8 private school applications, you really have to develop a careful strategy on where to apply. Every year there are some very disappointed kids at your school who discover they can’t afford to attend the schools they were accepted to.
Start working on your essays. They are extremely important. Also, start thinking about which teachers you want to ask to write your recommendations ASAP. For HY you want teachers who are going to describe you as one of their best students. Visit your guidance councilor regularly, you are going to need him/her to write an outstanding report on you. Best of Luck!
@tdy123 gave you some great advice. Naviance gives you a pretty good estimate of your chances just baed off of stats alone, although your stats are practically perfect. Demonstrate that you have a passion for a specific major or interest in your application.
Do you have a common passion or focus in life that you can show through your ECs? If not, I don’t think you’ll be getting into places like Harvard. If you can describe your love of service or something elegantly in your essays and weave your experiences into your application, I think you’ll have a good chance at Harvard and Yale since your ECs are good. However, if what you want to do is completely unrelated to the things you did in high school and you only did them to pad your application, don’t get your hopes up.
Also, the UCs give F*** all for financial aid, so you might want to reconsider going to a place like Cal, unless you want 60-70k a year in student loans.
@beepybeetle nailed it for Cal. I think (not 100% sure) that UC schools give absolutely zero need based aid to out of state students, meaning you will more than likely be paying more than your family’s annual income to go there. No need to waste the application fee just to maybe get an acceptance but then not have any chance of affording it anyway.
@tdy123 Haha, I didn’t think I was being that obvious!
To give some context, I don’t think my GPA reflects my transcript, especially because my school has a strange way of calculating GPA. My grades have been in the A range for almost all of high school (aside from one B+ in sophomore year math), and my grades have been the best they’ve ever been this year. I got all As except for one A- in USH, but I really love that class and have a great relationship with the teacher, who I’ve asked for a rec. Also, I’m not sure if/how much it matters, but I took the ACT once.
If you have one B+, your uwGPA is not 4.0, Anyway, it would not be too far off.
@billcsho According to college board, a 93+ is a 4.0 http://www.collegeboard.com/html/academicTracker-howtoconvert.html b+=87-89. You can still have a 4.0 with an 89 considering its the only grade below a 93 on your transcript
first gen high school and college hmmmm
not sure, but in my experience, first gen Asians don’t get the bounce that other first gen applicants get.
Asian female, although your stats and ECs are great, I worry that the bar is higher for you. Good Luck. Please let us all know how you make out. Make sure you have reaches, matches and safeties in schools you would be happy to attend,