Chance Me for 8 schools - Current Junior, Southeast Asian Female

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Hello everyone, I am new on here and have a daughter who is currently a high school junior. We are trying to compile a list of schools that she’s interested in applying to and would love it if someone/anyone could chance her to the following:

Schools she is looking to apply to:

Columbia (ED), NYU ED2 (if she doesn’t make it into Columbia ED), UVA EA (Legacy), UCLA, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Northwestern, UT Austin (likely/match)

US Citizen

TX Resident

Highly Ranked private school- current 11th grader

Southeast Asian Female (arguably from an under represented minority group)

Immigrant parents

Journalism / English major

3.96 GPA, school doesn’t rank and grades are not weighted. There is little curricular acceleration available in grades 9-10 and AP classes are mainly limited to 11th and 12th grade students with a max of 3 per year. 1410 SAT composite (760 EBRW, 650 math). Plan to take again and also plan to take the ACTs in February.

Wherever possible, she has taken honors math courses but math is not her strong suit or passion. She is currently taking Honors Precalculus and plans to take AP Calculus next year (not sure whether it will be AB or BC yet as math is the only subject responsible for a non A grade (They are the only B+ on her transcript).

She took Physics in 9th (no honors available for any student), Honors Chemistry in 10th and is currently taking AP Biology in 11th.

She took Latin 3 in 9th, Latin 4 in 10th, and is currently taking AP Latin in 11th, which is arguably the most advanced in the Latin curriculum (her school offers Advanced Latin literature and Honors Latin seminar (post AP)). She is also taking Arabic online.

She has been in debate since middle school and has been doing Lincoln-Douglas style debate throughout high school (went to debate camps summer of 9th and 10th). She is also a senior editor on her high school’s award winning newspaper (took a Columbia writing course summer before 11th) and is actively involved in her school’s theatre productions. She is involved in a fair amount of volunteer work in the areas of DEIQ activism and food insecurities/ food bank.

She is a member of her high school swim team but has been swimming since the age of seven with local recreational clubs/teams. She has taken piano since the age of four and has won many piano festivals and theory tests.

She wants to be a writer. She is currently working on her novel and has several chapters written. The genre is fantasy. The goal is to have a finished manuscript before she graduates high school.

She participated in model UN at Georgetown University the summer before 8th grade and started her school’s middle school model UN chapter.

Thank you! Would appreciate any advice/thoughts/insights.

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Your “highly ranked private school” is going to be able to do a much better job of ‘chancing’ your daughter than anybody on CC. They will know where other students with profiles similar to your daughter have been successful in college admissions- and where they haven’t.

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Without a top 6% class rank, UT Austin should be considered a reach.

If the highly ranked private school has dedicated college counselors who are well connected to the private colleges on your list, they should be better able to assess your chances.

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I am by no means an expert but your student seems to have a fair shot at most of these schools. Berkely and UCLA might be issues because of the insane amount of qualified in-state applicants applying to those schools. Only thing-maybe consider applying to Barnard ED, you will have a better shot (if the Barnard philosophy is what you like, I know many students there who really enjoy it). Also, working on standardized test scores is probably good. I would shoot for a 1450 but anything above 1400 is likely competitive if grades can make up for it.

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Have you discussed budget with her?

The UCs are public universities funded by state tax dollars. As a non-resident, you would be paying full fees of $67K per year. There is no State funding for non-resident students. Scholarships are very small in amounts and are still competitive.

Also, the A-G requirements for the UC’s stipulate that prospective students complete a full year, of a graded course, in visual/performing arts.

Agree with @collegemom3717. Your high school will do a better job of chancing your daughter.

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We haven’t had our official meeting with them yet and are just trying to get a jump start on the process. Based on past years data, she has a decent chance at NYU and UCLA and a very good chance at UT Austin. The other schools are reach schools.

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@EED88

Budget? Can you pay the full cost of attendance at UCLA or CAL?

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Yes, but ideally we would prefer a school that offers scholarships

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Afaik, the schools on your list give little or nothing in the way of merit scholarships. Meaningful merit money will come from schools that want to woo your daughter, which will mean going down a level or 2 in selectivity.

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UCLA and UCB are Reach schools regardless of her qualifications. They are also test blind.

The UC’s also plan to reduce their OOS admission threshold to around 18% making it much harder for an admit.

Admission Rates for Out-of-State Applicants (Domestic):
UCLA: 13.9%
UC Berkeley: 14.1%

She will need to calculate all three UC GPA’s. Here is the calculator:
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UC’s offer little merit aid. Regents is the most prestigious merit awards and are $2500/year at UCB and $2000 at UCLA.

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Thank you for that link to calculate GPA!

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Then I think you need some schools on your list where this is a stronger possibility.

Columbia, Northwestern, Georgetown give need based aid only.

As @Gumbymom pointed out, the UCs offer teeny merit aid to OOS students.

UVA offers primarily need based aid. Unless you are selected as a Jefferson Scholar…very competitive.

Who knows what NYU will do now that they are guaranteeing to meet full need for all accepted students.

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Why that list for Journalism/English?

You should add U Missouri to the list it, remove the UCs, since they are as expensive as any private university, and no easier to be accepted to than any private university, and have less financial aid than any private university.

Look at USC as another reach.

Look at schools which have good creative writing programs, as well:

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She wants to be in a big city or as close to a big city as possible.

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Can you pay for every school on your list with no debt at all?

I do not see a safety on your list.

These two quotes just made me think of McGill. They admit largely based on stats, and do not discriminate against Asian students. These two put together plus excellent stats would make it a safety or a near safety, right in the middle of a very attractive city. A scholarship is unlikely but the cost will be less than the US schools. A real winter coat (plus boots and a bit of other winter stuff) would be needed.

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We have a few safety schools not mentioned above. We are trying to gauge her chances with these reach schools as we start to compile her list. We have family in Montreal and some have gone to McGill so we will definitely check out this option. Thanks for the suggestion. As for whether or not we can pay for the schools on the list without incurring debt - yes, but it would be nice if she were able to offset it with some aid or scholarships.

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Note that McGill charges significantly less for a BA than they do for a BS or engineering degree. Also, their webpage lists costs in Canadian dollars (seems obvious but easy to overlook) so be sure to calculate true costs based on the exchange rate. And they do give some merit scholarships to international students. One small one is based just on regular admission data and then there is another you can apply for.

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In addition to Georgetown, look at American and George Washington U.

In addition to Columbia and NYU, look at Fordham.

In addition to McGill, look at University of Toronto and University of British Columbia.

I’m not as familiar with Texas publics, but look at lower ranked in state publics.

University of Iowa is well-known for its writing program. https://english.uiowa.edu/undergraduate/majors/ba-english-and-creative-writing

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Given the disparity between your child’s GPA and her SAT score, look at the Common Data Set for the schools she is interested in; Section C7 will tell you the relative weights given to GPA, standardized test scores, and other academic and non-academic admissions factors. She may want to focus on schools that give more weight to GPA than standardized test scores.

Also, Sections C9-C11 give data about GPAs and test scores for matriculating students.

If your private school has Naviance or some other such software program, talk with your daughter’s guidance counselor about what that program may indicate about how her school places students in some of the schools that she is interested in.

Look at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN; it is a good LAC with lots of kids who are shut out of automatic admission to Texas public universities; and they can be generous with merit aid.

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So while Midd, Kenyon, Princeton, Davidson, and a few more are out, Emory, Emerson, and U Miami may be worth looking at. You have a couple of your list already, of course.

Emerson is definitely worth looking at. It is regularly on the top lists for journalism, and, as you see here, they are also a top school for creative writing. It is in a big city (Boston), and it has a good set of scholarships. Looking at their admission profile, I would also say that it would be a likely or at least a low match (acceptance rates around 40%, and your daughter would be in the top 25%). Looking at their ethnic profile, Asian student make up 5% of the student body, so your daughter would also not be an ORM.

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