Chance me: co 2024 Business/Finance Major

Chance Me / Match Me!
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note: i didnt add any description for ecs bc i am lazy lol
Demographics

  • US domestic *(US citizen or permanent resident)
  • State/Location of residency: CA/East Bay Area
  • Type of high school: Public
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Female, Asian/Chinese
  • Other special factors: First gen, low-income (if that means anything)

Intended Major(s): Finance, Business

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.9
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.16/(max possible: 4.44)
  • Class Rank: no rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Composite SAT: 1560 (800 Math, 760 Reading/Writing)

Coursework

AP Classes: AP Physics 1, APUSH
AP Tests: AP Chinese, AP Micro, AP Macro, AP Biology
Will take in 2023: APUSH, AP Physics 1, AP Psychology, AP Statistics, AP Lang
Math Level: Precalculus Honors this year, AP Calc BC next year

Highest foreign language level in school: Spanish III
Special Electives: Entrepreneurship/Marketing, Leadership II, Journalism (school newspaper)

Awards
DECA Internationals: 4th Place out of 230 (top 2%)
AP Scholar w/ Honor
National Merit Commended Student
National Dance Competition Top 10 out of 180
PVSA: Gold

Extracurriculars
Leadership:
Class Treasurer for 3 years
ASB Treasurer for 1 year
Run school store with 4 other students
Part of Leadership II Class (application-based class, plan school events)
School DECA Chapter VP of Finance
School Lion’s Club Director of Publicity
School Newspaper Centerspread (main page of newspaper) Editor
City Youth Advisory Commission (Government affiliated)
GENup (California-based social justice organization reaching over 20,000 members) Director of Finance

Summer Activities:
UPenn Wharton Essentials of Entrepreneurship Program
National Dance Competition
Accepted into Wharton LBW for summer of 2023, but waiting on M&TSI decisions first

Competitions:
DECA
Regionals: 2nd place
States: 5th place & 6th place (same event, different years)
Internationals: 4th place (top 2%)
Showstopper National Dance Competition: 8th Place/180

Volunteering
Math & Reading Tutor for Special Needs Children
Food Bank

Work Experience:
Job at Local Bakery: General Manager & Social Media Manager
Account Intern at Tax Service & Bookkeeping company

Miscellaneous:
Started own baking business making custom cakes:

  • Established LLC
  • Over $6,000 in revenue
  • Reached over 2k followers on business Instagram page
  • Partnerships with 2 local boba shops (sold my desserts in store)
  • Online orders & popup shops

Created app with 4 other students for school athletics:

  • streamline school athletics communication
  • being used by the school coaches currently and looking to expand to other schools

Essays/LORs/Other
STEM: Physics teacher
Humanities: Math teacher

I think they will be normal LORs, relationship with teachers is fine but nothing special

If there is a space with an extra LOR of my choice, LOR will be very strong. Either school accountant (whom I work with a lot for treasury and finance) or class advisor (works with class officers for class events and happens to be my sophomore chemistry teacher and the teacher I will TA for next year)

Cost Constraints / Budget
No budget/cost constraints

Schools
Also might apply for Questbridge but not sure yet, lmk if i should!

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability)
    UC Irvine RD
    UC Riverside RD
    UC Santa Cruz RD
    Cal Poly Pomona RD
    San Diego State RD
    ASU RD
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    UC Santa Barbara RD
    UC San Diego RD
    UC Davis RD
    Pepperdine RD
  • Match
    UMichigan (Ross) (EA if have time)
    UT Austin RD
    WashU RD
    UNC Chapel Hill RD
    Northeastern RD
    UIUC RD
    Boston U RD
  • Reach
    UPenn Wharton (most likely ED)
    Northwestern RD
    IU Kelley RD
    UC Berkeley RD
    UCLA RD
    Cornell RD
    USC RD
    Rice RD
    Vanderbilt RD
    Columbia RD
    Brown RD
    MIT RD
    Dartmouth RD
    Duke RD
    NYU Stern (ED 2)
    Stanford (EA if have time)

my college list is not set bc i’m still a junior, so if you have any suggestions pls lmk!!

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These two statements contradict each other. Which one is correct?

And to make sure you’re using “first gen” accurately: neither of your parents has a college degree from any country?

You cannot apply ED to Wharton and REA to Stanford. You’ll need to pick.

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i am low-income, but i still have no money constraints bc my parents are willing to pay however much for college

i would ed to penn over rea to stanford

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I suggest you and your parents run the net price calculator for some of these schools. That’ll give you an idea of your expected family contribution. If that’s comfortably affordable, then you’re fine because many of your reach schools will meet full need*. But do not let your parents take on large loans and jeopardize their financial well being.

You might also qualify for the Questbridge program. Check it out.

(* - be careful with NYU. They are very expensive - over $90k/year now, and their financial aid package tends to include large loans)

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Obviously way too many schools, I assume this is your preliminary list?

I think you could move these to the Match bucket. And unless you really love NYU, I wouldn’t waste your ED2 currency there. I don’t think you’ll have trouble getting admitted RD.

Because you’re OOS, Chapel Hill should be considered a reach. They have a state mandate that 86% of students come from NC.

These are not the strongest choices for business. Have you considered Georgetown McDonough and CMU Tepper? Good luck to you. You’re an accomplished student with a shot at all these places but be realistic as you pair them down and do discuss the $ with your parents.

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Congratulations on all your accomplishments and being a competitive applicant. I will only address the UC’s and CSU’s on your list.

First of all, the UC’s and CSU’s are test blind so your SAT score will not be considered during the admission process or for any merit scholarships. GPA is king with the UC’s along with HS course rigor and your personal insight essays.

The UC’s and CSU’s have been extremely competitive especially since going test blind so you need to rethink your categorization.

You need to calculate your UC and CSU GPA’s. CSU’s use only the capped weighted GPA while the UC’s will consider all 3 UC GPA’s from this calculator. You can look up which HS courses will get the extra Honors point bump in the calculator:

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Once you have your GPA calculated you can see how you compare to the overall admit rates for the UC’s in the table below. Competitive majors will have lower admit rates than the overall posted.

2022 Admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA.

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%

If you are low income, make sure you run the Net Price calculators on all schools of interest. The UC’s and CSU’s can offer good need-based aid, but the do not meet need and will expect a family contribution to fill the gap. CSU’s expect you to commute so many times housing costs are not included in their FA package.

Only 3 UC’s actually have Business schools: UCR, UCI and UCB. The rest of the UC’s have business related majors and none specifically in finance so you need to figure out which majors you plan to apply at the other UC’s. Econ, Business Econ, Managerial Econ, Econ/Accounting etc


Here is how I would categorize the CSU’s and UC’s:
Safety:
Cal Poly Pomona
ASU (assuming affordable and you have NM status)

Likely:
UC Riverside (Pre-Business Admin admit rate 67%)

Target/Match:
UC Santa Cruz (Business Manage Econ admit rate 39.3%)
San Diego State

High Target/Match due to both being selective majors:
UC Davis (Managerial Econ? Admit rate 39.8% Econ admit rate 37.9%) based on the Colleges overall admit rate

Low Reach:
UC Santa Barbara (College of L&S admit rate of 27%)
UC San Diego

Reach:
UCLA (Business Econ overall College of L&S admit rate 10%)
UC Berkeley (Business Admin admit rate of 9.2%) will be direct admit for Fall 2024.
UC Irvine (Business Admin admit rate 2022 was 8.8%)

You really only need 2 safety schools on your list as long as you are happy to attend and they are affordable.

I would make a point to visit as many schools as possible to help eliminate some of the Reachier schools on the list.

Best of luck and you will succeed where ever you land.

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Congratulations on all of your hard work and accomplishments while you’ve been in high school!

A few clarifying points:

  • Are you the General Manager of the local bakery or of your own banking business making custom cakes?

  • Math is considered a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), thus a math teacher would not qualify for your humanities LOR. For humanities think an English or social studies teacher. Reach out to your teachers this spring to write your LORs, as many will only write a certain number, and there is likely to be lots of requests come the fall.

  • You definitely should look into Questbridge. I think you would be a very attractive candidate.

The question is, how would they get the money? You are eligible for about $27k in federal loans over the course of your undergrad career. The rest would have to come from your family, which would still need to qualify for the loans. I’m not as familiar with parent loans, but I’m pretty sure that the loan company is going to look at income and assets to see how likely it is that the loans can be successfully repaid. Additionally, those loans start to accrue interest from the day that they loan you the money and in 99.99% of circumstances, cannot be discharged via bankruptcy.

What can your family afford per year without taking out any loans? I would consider that the preferred budget and then consider the budget plus federal loans as the max budget (you are allowed about $5500 in loans your first year ). Then your family should run the Net Price Calculators (NPCs) at all of the schools that you’re seriously interested in to see whether the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is something your family is willing and able to afford. If so, it stays on the list. If not, and if it does not offer merit aid, then it should be eliminated.

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So money is an issue. You may not know your family finances. Let’s say USC or NYU is $90k. They have net price calculators. Do these show you are full pay or they will cover cost. If they are full pay, how will they afford the nearly $400k when with your stats you can go to a good school practically free?

It’s hard to tell where you’ll be - but that’s why you need to look at NPCs.

I’d be careful with safety and likely on the state schools. Just the other day a UCB admit posted they were rejected at SDSU. Probably doesn’t happen often but 


As a suggestion given your language skills, you might add U of South Carolina. You’ll get great merit! It’s the top Honors College (or one of) and it’s #1 for International Business and when I read your profile, I wonder if this is an interest.

I do think you can reduce your UC count if business is truly your desire - as I believe just Irvine and Riverside have an undergrad school. And if money does matter, you’ll get more merit out of Arizona than ASU for a lower cost of attendance but you need to keep that 3.9 unweighted for that to happen. Arizona would be a pure safety for you which would allow you to focus on more reaches. But if the 3.9 was a 3.89, it would hurt financially.

You might add some Hail Mary schools too. The Johnson Scholarship at W&L is worth a try and the Presidential at SMU. Both top notch b schools. Both 100% free!!

Get your finances to be understood. Do some NPCs with your parents. It will answer a lot of questions. When you are dealing with items that cost several hundred thousand dollars, you cannot say we are low income but will spend anything. It’s just not a reality. It may be that the schools will help you and best to find out now. And it will help you cull your list. You may have to cut, for example the elite OOS publics Mich and IU) or replace them with meets need UVA and UNC (already on your list but btw not direct entry to Keenan Flagler b school).

Are you, by chance a national merit scholar ?

Ps - I might sub in an English or Social Sciences rec instead of math. Math is not humanities. Likely not a huge deal but it would help in showing more well roundedness

Best of luck.

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I think you need to have a very direct discussion with your parents about finances. It feels like both you and your parents care about prestige (which is fine) based on your current list.

While some may suggest large state schools with auto merit like Alabama as an option the decision to pay up for prestige is a personal family decision and you shouldn’t feel pressured or shamed. Talk to your parents and make sure they are aware that lower cost options exist and sort out as a family what you are collectively comfortable with. As others suggest run the NPC at some of your non merit reaches to access costs per your family situation.

I also think fit matters, and fit is much more than a simple pursuit of the lowest cost option. You self describe as a west coast Asian. How do you feel about southern schools with few Asian students?

Lastly, you should narrow down your list as you refine the specifics of what you are looking for in a school so that your applications are tailored to fit the school.

Good luck!!

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My opinion
I think the following should be moved to the reach list: UNC, Michigan.

And as you know, your list of reach schools is WAYYYYY too long. I think 18 is too many
and if you add my 2, it’s 20. Too many.

Stanford has REA
if you choose to do that, you absolutely cannot apply ED anywhere else.

Restrictive Early Action Policy

It is Stanford policy that, if you apply to Stanford with a decision plan of Restrictive Early Action, you may not apply to any other private college/university under their Early Action, Restrictive Early Action, Early Decision, or Early Notification plan.

In addition, it is Stanford policy that you may not apply to any public university under an early binding plan, such as Early Decision.

If you apply to Stanford under Restrictive Early Action, you may apply to other colleges and universities under their Regular Decision plan.

If you apply to Stanford under Restrictive Early Action and your application is deferred, you may apply to another college’s Early Decision II plan.

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This is an interesting concept
but where exactly is the money going to come from if a school doesn’t provide you with significant need based aid?

These schools on your list do not guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students
and also don’t have guaranteed large merit aid awards.

UC Irvine RD
UC Riverside RD
UC Santa Cruz RD
Cal Poly Pomona RD
San Diego State RD
ASU RD
UC Santa Barbara RD
UC San Diego RD
UC Davis RD
Pepperdine RD

UMichigan (Ross) (EA if have time)
UT Austin RD
UIUC RD

IU Kelley RD
UC Berkeley RD
UCLA RD

Who exactly will be taking the loans you might need?

I think you might be a good candidate for Questbridge? So yes
this is absolutely something you should consider doing!

Please make sure you keep a close eye on deadlines
don’t miss any!

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It doesn’t matter how much your parents are willing to pay, it matters how much they are able to pay. Many colleges will cost upwards of $30,000 a year (or more), even if they are providing financial or merit aid.

From the QB website, describing finalists:

If your family is making less than $65,000 a year, your parents cannot afford half of those colleges. It does not matter how much they are willing to pay, it is simply impossible. They would not even be able to take out loans for those amounts.

You need to go back over every one of the colleges on your list, and look for one of two things:

A. Financial aid for CA students in amounts that make it affordable for your parents. Terms like “full need met” are important.

B. Merit scholarships which cover all or most of the full cost of attendance.

If your parents are able to cover tuition plus living costs for places like UIUC, you are not going to be eligible for Questbridge.

@thumper1 gives the list of colleges for which neither A nor B is true.

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if i get into a really good school, like an ivy or something on that level, my parents will sell our house and move back into our old house. I live in a relatively wealthy area since the school there is super competitive. i moved there when i started middle school, and my parents bought the house just for me to go to a good high school. this is what i mean by money isn’t a problem.

if i don’t get into a really good school, my parents are going to sell the house regardless since we don’t need to live in the area anymore once i graduate, and i will go to a uc for 15-30k a year.

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Perhaps your family may not be as low income as you think?

Homes in “relatively wealthy” Bay Area towns are very expensive. And it sounds like they still own the old home? If so, that’s an additional asset that would reduce your eligibility for financial aid.

I suggest you run the NPCs with your parents and see if the costs are comfortably affordable. Please share those numbers here as well so we can provide appropriate guidance.

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If your parents have a second home, the equity in that home IS included on both the FAFSA and the Profile. You might get less need based aid than you think you are going to get.

Unfortunately unless a net price calculator specifically asks for second home information, you are not going to likely get an accurate result.

It’s also very possible that this second home equity could affect your eligibility for Questbridge. @Gumbymom can perhaps tell what this does in terms of the CalGrants.

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I think most UCs cost more than that per year


@Gumbymom

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The direct UC’s cost just for tuition, campus fees, room and board are around $37K/year not including books, transportation, personal expenses etc


A second home as noted would have to be reported so yes it could affect you Cal grant asset eligibility so run the Net price calculators to confirm and see the table below:

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Are not UCs considered like an Ivy or something on that level ? They may differ in size but UCs and not just the first two, are filled with tons of Ivy caliber student. Most, if not all state flagships, have Ivy caliber students.

I hope you find the right school for you and not just one with a ‘prestigious’ name for sake of a name.

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If your family owns more than one house in the bay area, it is unlikely that 1) you will qualify for Questbridge (needs a family income below $65k/year), and 2) unlikely that you will receive much in the way of need-based aid as the equity from one of the bay area homes will count as an asset that could be used to pay tuition.

Thus, if those two assumptions are correct, then you are likely looking for merit-based aid to meet whatever the budget is for college. Make sure your family determines what the budget is and see what the NPCs say.

Some schools with more “prestige” than others that offer merit aid include:

  • Washington U. (MO)
  • Duke (NC)
  • Vanderbilt (TN)
  • U. of Miami (FL)
  • Washington & Lee (VA)
  • U. of Richmond (VA)
  • Wake Forest (NC)
  • Villanova (PA )

These schools are competitive to extremely competitive to get into, and the likelihood of getting merit aid at them is quite slim (this table offers merit aid data for many schools). But if having a Big Name is important to your family, these are some schools that you may want to give greater consideration.

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