Chance me / California + East Coast schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

State: CA
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Religion: Nonobservant Christian
School Type: Large Public
Parents can do full pay.
Currently a junior, just finishing up second semester (most of my finals were the week before APs).

UW GPA 3.7 (very strong upward trend; 3.1 frosh, 3.8 soph, 4.0 jr). Freshman year involved some serious extenuating circumstances which will be mentioned on my transcript. 10-11 UW GPA ~3.88. 10-11 WGPA ~4.3

Capped UC GPA 4.15ish
Rank: School does not rank
ACT: 34 Writing: 11
SAT: Did not take
PSAT: Definitely commended, definitely not good enough for CA Semifinalist
APs: Jr: Chem / USH / Statistics, Sr: Phys C / Eng / Econ Macro / Econ Micro / Calc AB
Probable prospective majors: ChemE, Chem, IR*
Prospective minors: Econ, IR*
ECs / Work: MUN (officer), 2 sport varsity athlete (captain of one, not at D1 recruit level), biochem lab internship, play two instruments, one at a decently high level. Those are the main things; I have the usual volunteering and such that many applicants have going for them, and a few other small things that I’ll probably mention on my actual app, but will refrain from mentioning here for privacy’s sake.
Awards: ton of MUN stuff, natl. language exam medals (bronzes lol, not sure I’ll report this)

IR: I know I want to pursue something in international relations at some point in life, but due to the necessity of really good connections to enter the field, and because I love Chem and would want to at least minor in it, I’d only major in IR at a few of the schools I’m applying to. I’ll mark those with an asterisk ().

Schools:
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
USC
CSULB
SDSU
Dartmouth*
Georgetown* (Possibly EA? Depends whether I want another strong semester on my transcript)
Stanford (legacy + parent formerly employed here; not sure how much boost this would give me)

I know that the environments of a lot of these schools are pretty different; I’m a very flexible person, and a fan of all of them. I am probably not going to be applying to UCSC, UCI, Berkeley, or Davis, all of which I’ve visited on multiple occasions, and did not like very much. I also prefer SoCal to NorCal, so I might cross Stanford off the list (if I do apply there, it’ll probably be more because of pressure from my parents than anything else).

I’m also not opposed to applying to small liberal arts colleges, but I’m not really familiar with many of the ones outside of my immediate area, and I don’t really like the Claremont schools, and would prefer UCSD, UCLA, or UCSB over Pepperdine or Oxy. I also don’t think that I really fit the profile for Caltech-esque schools, so I don’t think I’m going to apply to any completely STEM oriented schools. I’d love to hear any suggestions for East or West Coast LACs though.

Roughly what do my chances look like with the schools I’ve selected + does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks!

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bump

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You have a good chance at all the schools on your list except for Stanford which is always a Reach. Not too familiar with Dartmouth or Georgetown so I will not comment. Good Luck.

4

Awesome, thanks! I probably won’t end up applying to Stanford; it’s just something that my parents kind of want me to consider in the next couple months.

5

Your stats and interests are eerily similar to my S1. Same ACT scores, even writing, same whiteness, same “religion”, little lower gpa and little better ECs.

If your school has Naviance, the scattergrams are a wealth of information. If you were at our school you would be a slam dunk for every UC other than B and LA. For those you would still be in the 75-80% range unless you want to go Engineering, then all bets are off. Very likely for USC and Gtown too especially if you show interest. The only kids we see get rejected from those schools with your stats are the ORM kids that are “overqualified” or more obviously headed to CalTech, UCB, etc…

Any of the Ivies or Stanford are a crapshoot/lottery but your application will definitely get read at least.

If you aren’t afraid of the cold, UM and NW would be good options, especially if you go ED or EA.

My son is slowly falling in love with UCSB and the thought of being one of the “smart” kids on campus. He’s in a big high school with a lot of UCB types already and wouldn’t mind a different type of crowd for college. UCSB has some pretty interesting dual degree programs and an honors program that look good. Doing Chem at UCLA or UCB would be frightening.

6

Bumping this back up a bit. I also think that I’ll probably apply to Northwestern and UMich, the latter EA.