Chance me: Cornell ED (CA resident, IB diploma, top 10 in school, 4.36 (w) GPA...) [3.96 GPA, 1400 SAT superscore]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Starting off with a quick question because I screwed up big time and listed my activities on common app not in order of importance (I don’t know what was wrong with me that was so obvious…), would that have a big impact? I’ll list my extracurricular in the way I did on common app below, any feedback would be much appreciated!

Demographics

  • US citizen from CA (from an area where people usually don’t apply to Cornell)
  • Korean-American female
  • Public school - 2500 people (around 570 in my year)

Applying undeclared for College of Human Ecology (CHE)

  • Gonna be real, idk what I want to do in life but I liked a couple majors in this college (was planning on applying to AAP first but… indecisive…)

  • 4.36 (w) GPA, 3.96 (uw)

  • Class Rank: 8 out of 576

  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1400 (superscore…) SAT :')

Coursework

  • 6 APS (Calc AB (4), Physics 1 (3), Lang (4), Human Geo (5), Calc BC, Drawing, )
  • 6 IBS (Math analysis (5), History HL, Psych HL, English HL, Spanish SL, Sports Sci SL)
  • Dual Enrollment: (all As) Intro to Business, History of Dance, Intro to American Gov. (poly sci), Sociology

Awards

  • Nominated for award for digital comic (part of top 20 most read series launched in 2021) - international level
  • received highest distinction for art students in California ( for being in a state ran summer program )- state level
  • 1st place for commercial, Virtual Enterprise (program where students run a fake business and compete), at Trade Show - state level
    *3rd place art award - state level
    *Robotics tournament awards - state level

Extracurriculars
Digital comic, 2.4million+ views, 46k+ subscribers (9/10/11/12)
Director for Virtual Enterprise class (11)
Animation student at art summer program (summer before 12)
Worked at father’s small convenience store (9/10/11/12)
Worked at small family restaurant (summer before 12)
Assistant coach for fencing, 250+ hours of community service (10/11/12)
Founder/President of fencing club at school (11/12)

Other stuff on my resume

  • unsure of how important this was?? I couldn’t find much info about this, but I made mine look like the usual resume for a job
  • misc. art awards (7)
  • school awards (3)
  • more Virtual Enterprise awards (2)
  • hackathon award
  • CSF/NHS tutor (40 hrs)
  • volunteer for local middle school (40 hrs)

LORs/Other

  • Counselor 10/10
  • English teacher for 10th/12th - 9/10
  • English teacher for 11th (11) - 8/10
    Optional ones:
  • Fencing coach, known him for 6+ years - 9/10
  • Art teacher - 7/10
  • Teacher who helped me with my clubs, known him for 3 years - 8/10

Essays

  • PS - trauma dumped, but in a good way - 8.75/10
  • Supplementals:
  • talked about LGBTQ community - 8/10
  • CHE specified I was interested in Design and Environment Analysis / Human Dev - 9/10

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • My family’s income is below 40k, so aiming for a school that can pay most if not all of my tuition

Schools

  • Cornell ED
  • My top choices if it doesn’t work out:
  • UCLA, UCB, Cal Poly Slo, USC, Brandeis, Haverford, Wesleyan, Northeastern, Barnard, Stanford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, UPenn, Wellesley, and a solid amount of safeties (CSUs mostly)

Thanks in advance! Also because I don’t know what to do with my life I was planning to go into animation, if anyone needs any advice and tips for art school and all those shenanigans feel free to reach out to me! :sob:

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What is your safety sure thing for admission, and affordability that you like.

Your ECs are listed just fine. It’s your awards that are upside down. You listed things that you were nominated for first. That probably should have been last since you don’t know the outcome (or didn’t receive the award).

You are a strong applicant. But what is your sure thing for admission? Maybe Cal Poly? I think the rest of these schools are top heavy. Hoping you have others!

@Gumbymom can post the acceptance stats for the CA publics.

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ooh… the awards thing makes sense I just put that one as my top one since it was an international one… thanks for pointing it out

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I don’t think the order of your awards listing is a big deal. It’s fine, really.

But what colleges are you considering that are a little less competitive? see you added about your safety schools….which is good!

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CSU Fullerton, Long Beach, UCR, Scripps College, UCSB are my safeties

I’ve been doing some research about urban planning / things in the architecture realm, so my best option is most likely Cal Poly :slight_smile:

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Did you apply test optional to any of these schools?

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I haven’t applied to any yet besides Cornell, but most likely I’ll be submitting my scores for all besides USC (still need to do more research though)

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CSU Fullerton and Long Beach are both impacted, so admission thresholds are uncertain.

However, if you are in CSU Long Beach’s local area, it looks like you will be admitted undeclared if not admitted to your major, according to https://www.csulb.edu/admissions/first-time-first-year-student-admission-eligibility . The local area is shown at https://www.csulb.edu/admissions/local-preference-admission-consideration .

CSU Fullerton describes its criteria at First Year Student Eligibility Requirements - Office of Admissions | CSUF but does not show point values or past thresholds.

For UCs, see below:

Recalculate your HS GPA with GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub . Use the weighted capped version for the table below.

Fall 2022 admission rates by campus and HS GPA range from https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary :

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%

These are for the whole campus. Different divisions or majors may have different levels selectivity (usually, engineering and computer science majors are more selective).

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Have you checked the net price calculator on the web site of each college you want to apply to?

UCs and CSUs do not use SAT or ACT scores for admission (but may use them for some placement purposes if you are admitted and matriculate).

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Thanks for the helpful links! My GPA is above 4.0 luckily.
I applied for Industrial Design at CSULB and Animation for CSUF (I think I would get in for the latter, not sure about CSULB though)

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Yes, all the colleges I’ve picked are due to costs because I don’t want to go into a lot of debt and I’m not sure what I want to do in life yet

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I agree that you are very qualified applicants. UCSB is not a safety. The College of Letters and Sciences had a 32% admit rate with a mean UC capped weighted GPA of 4.25.

What are your intended majors at the UC’s and the Cal states? I do have some major specific admit data I can post if you list your intended majors.

For Cal Poly SLO, they use 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation with an 8 semester Honors point cap for eligible courses taken 10-11th grades so the CSU GPA calculation + 9th grades.

@ucbalumnus posted the admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA which is used by all the campuses as part of the application review however, UCLA and UCB emphasize the Unweighted and Uncapped weighted UC GPA for their Freshman selection so it would helpful to calculate all 3 of your UC GPA’s.

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Here are my intended majors:
Cal poly slo - City and regional planning, construction management (alternate)

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I might remove UCSB altogether because it doesn’t have the exact majors and fields I’ve been leaning towards… I might just make undeclared my major instead of my alternate

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Just checked my unweighted and it’s 3.95, is that in the range for UCLA/UCB?

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UCLA unweighted is 3.95-4.00 and UCB is 3.90-4.00.

Uncapped weighted UC GPA for UCLA is 4.40-4.73 and UCB is 4.31-4.62.

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Cornell - you need to go TO.

You needn’t know what you want to do in life.

I assume, cost wise, based on your comment, you qualify for enough aid at Cornell to meet your cost ?

I think Brandeis can happen but you will struggle at the rest.

At Cornell, the 25th percentile for SAY is 1470 and you’re not close.

Swat 1455

You need to go to each school and google common data set + school name.

Go to section C9 and you can see each school’s range.

USC is 1460 btw

Those are 25th percentiles. Some say don’t submit unless you’re at 50th.

Good luck.

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I think he means you don’t have a high chance of acceptance at the other schools.

I don’t think you will struggle as a student. My opinion.

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CSU Fullerton definitely a Safety. CSULB is a Likely with a 44% admit rate for your major and average admitted CSU GPA of 3.97.

UCSB’s College of Letters and Sciences does not admit by major so the overall admit rate was 32%.
Cal Poly SLO’s admit rate for both majors listed is projected around 60%.
UC Berkeley’s admit rate for the College of Environmental Design was 9%.
UCLA does not admit by major into the College of Letters and Sciences and the admit rate was 11%.
UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Science does not admit by major and the admit rate was 39.8%.
UC Irvine’s admit rate for Urban Studies was 57% and Social Ecology/Undeclared was 42%
UC San Diego has little data for their Social Science majors but based on enrollment and yield, admit rate is around 40%.
UC Riverside’s admit rate for Public Policy is 85%.

Both UCLA and UCB should be considered Reach schools but definitely obtainable. You have a very good chance with the rest of the UC’s and CSU’s.

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Thank you so much for the info, I really appreciate it!

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After running NPCs, could you consider a meet-need school for ED2?
What is your school’s average test score (or used to be) and does it appear in the school profile your GC sent Cornell ?