Chance Me for CA Colleges and Ivies?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m currently a senior in the process of applying to colleges and scholarships…such fun. These are the colleges I’m considering thus far before I state my stats: Stanford (EA, definitely a reach but I’d really love to go here), Yale, Harvard, UC Berkeley, MIT, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, and Caltech. I’m also looking at more colleges, so if you have any suggestions I’ll gladly research them! Also, the major I’d like to get into is Computer Science.

Class Rank: 2 out of 698
-Unweighted GPA: 4.00
-Weighted GPA: 4.93
-UC GPA: 4.3 (I’m not sure if I calculated this correctly, as so far I’ve completed 27 semesters of As and most of them Honors-approved)
-SAT: 2340 (800 M, 800 CR, 740 W)
-SATII: Math II - 790; will take Chemistry in October
-AP: Human Geography (5), European History (5), US History (5), Psychology (5), Physics C: Mechanics (5), Calculus AB (5), Spanish Language (4)
-IB: Math SL (7), Spanish SL (5)

ECs/Volunteerwork/Academic:
-President of our high school chapter of California Scholarship Federation (3 years involvement)
-Secretary General of our Model United Nations program (4 years, 6 including middle school), through which I’ve helped organize a county-wide conference for middle school students two years now, soon to be three as an introduction to MUN
-Tech Editor for Key Club (4 years)
-Involved in National Honors Society (2 years), Spanish Honors Society (2 years), Make-A-Wish (4 years), and American Red Cross (3 years)
-600+ hours of community service
-Volunteer weekly at a local hospital, donating over 200 hours of service
-National Merit Semi Finalist
-QuestBridge College Prep Scholar

Recommendations:
-I chose my AP Calculus teacher for one recommendation because she’s such a fun teacher and she likes me a lot as a student (she’s also the advisor for CSF); I’m deciding between my AP Euro and English HL1 teacher for the other one.

Demographics:
-Male, Asian (Filipino), Straight, 17 (my birthday is in the summer), CA
-First generation in family to go to college in the U.S., having been born in Saudi Arabia
-Will qualify for financial aid

Hobbies:
-Writing: I participate in NaNoWriMo as much as I can, starting in the 7th grade; I’ve won local writing contests and published in their yearly anthologies and won a national writing contest for which I won a Nook (probably not relevant, but it was fun nonetheless haha)
-Graphic Design: Love to design stuff in my free time, I’m always responsible for collateral in our MUN conference, and I design shirts all the time for the various clubs I’m involved in

Thank you for reading, and if you have any advice for me please don’t hesitate to say it!

2

Bump. I’ll chance back if you’d like me to!

3

Are you a U.S. citizen? Your stats are in line, but not sure your ECs have that special something that helps at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. Your ECs don’t seem to have much tech focus for a proposed CS major, which might affect your chances at MIT and Caltech. But I would say you at least will get a good look from all the schools on your list. Have you looked at Harvey Mudd? Another reach due to low admission rates, but you clearly have interests beyond CS, and Mudd likes that.

4

@intparent I’m not a U.S. citizen yet, I’m a permanent resident for now. I understand I don’t have much of a tech focus, though I suppose I could mention something about having written a research paper concerning viral videos and their view trends and designing websites for all of my extracurriculars? I understand they don’t quite fall into CS more than it is web design, but would that show a greater interest in the major than what I have objectively?

I’ve looked at Harvey Mudd, and I really like everything about their academics, but I’m still very unsure whether I’d like to apply because I don’t think I could fit into such a small school.

5

I think you get into a lot of schools. Somehow Stanford has taken in a lot of Filipino students that I know.

6

Mudd is small, intense, but also very collaborative. Students also have the whole 5Cs community for class selection and social opportunities. Caltech isn’t much bigger, and you are competing there with grad students for prof attention and research opportunities.

7

@DrGoogle Thank you for replying! Do you have any advice for me on how to improve my profile as it stands now?

@intparent That’s definitely true, I guess I didn’t really appreciate the Claremont system beyond Harvey Mudd! I’ll research it more and see if I think I could be successful there.

8

You are in CA, you should visit if you are interested.

9

you have exceptionally strong academic credentials and solid school level ECs. You are competing with many applicants that have won state, national or international level contests or participated in ECs at these levels. Phillipines to Saudi to California, there has to be a story of overcoming challenges there somewhere. Write killer essays and make sure your app has avommon theme

10

I’m so glad I went to college in the 80s or I’d not have gotten in anywhere. Good stats were enough back then and mine weren’t nearly as good as yours.

I don’t have any sage advice except to add some a couple of good quality safety schools for backup (you’d probably be merit scholarship worthy at USC, for example). And go for it - for the price of the application fees, you’ll find out how competitive you are.

If you were my kid, I’d be ridiculously proud of you. Congratulations on your achievements and best of luck!

11

@intparent Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll see if I can visit sometime next month. I think they’re also visiting our school’s college fair so I’m interested in asking them questions too.

@Wje9164be Thank you! That’s very true. I’ve been revising my essays since this past June, and I feel pretty confident in my writing style, but nonetheless I’ll definitely give my essay to a couple close people for their perusal.

@mamaedefamilia Thank you so much, you’re too kind! I do have USC in mind and I have it as one of the colleges in my Common App, but I am a bit partisan between the UCLA/USC feud, haha.

12

Bump, still hoping to get some constructive feedback with anything else I should improve on!

13

@IBscholar, Mudd has a long weekend from Oct 16-21, so try to avoid that if you can. The campus is fairly empty those days, so it isn’t the best time to visit.

14

Focus on your essays. There is nothing to improve. I think the odds are in your favor.

15

I agree with the above, academics look good

16

I agree with the others in that you probably have a pretty fair chance, though most of those schools it really is just a ■■■■ show and no one can be guaranteed. May I ask what type of classes you’ve taken to get a 4.93? I have a 4.45 and I’m not sure if my GPA is just really low or if my school does it differently.

I’m definitely in the top 5 or less % of my class, in AP Chem junior year (easily my school’s hardest science class) I was #2 out of all of the students. I don’t even know if getting a 4.93 weighted would be possible at my school. All regular classes are out of 4, and all advanced classes (Acc, AP, etc.) are out of 5. Even if you somehow managed to take 7 acc classes all 4 years (and gym) you would only have like a 4.8 or so. And I think there were like 2 acc classes even available my freshman year.

Oh chance me back too if ya could!

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1810259-chance-at-me-for-a-few-schools.html#latest

17

@intparent Thanks! I’ll see which of the remaining weekends I can visit the campus.

@DrGoogle @Walorus Thank you for the focus, it assures me a bit to know I’ve got a decent chance, haha.

@Surole Thank you! I totally understand that, haha. And as for my GPA, our school runs a bit different in that for every honors/AP/IB class you get to add .2 to your total GPA for that year. Below is my breakdown of all the academic class credits I took, not counting health or sports, which don’t count in the GPA:

Freshman: 5 classes (2 honors, 1 AP) - 4.6
Sophomore: 5 classes (3 honors, 1 AP) - 4.8
Junior: 7 classes (1 honors, 3 AP, 1 IB, 2 AP/IB) - 5.4
Senior Year: 8 classes (4 AP, 3 IB, 1 AP/IB) - predicted 5.6

So under our school system, I’ll probably end up with a 5.1 GPA. If our school did the traditional 5.0 system, my GPA would be a 4.8, as you correctly state.

18

Great quant. stats and such. Though, what are you planning to emphasize in regards to your EC’s?

19

@IBscholar ah okay that makes sense. But even a 4.8 is unheard of as at my school. gym, choir, even all those non academics are going into our GPA. So freshman year when only 3 advanced classes are available, even if you get As on everything you still only have a 4.35 :frowning:

20

@HarvardMaths Thank you! I’m hoping to emphasize my involvement in CSF for 4 years and MUN for 6 years in general, both in terms of awards as well as running large-scale conferences and such. I’m worried that my ECs are probably too regional in regards to other applicants, however.

@Surole Ah, that makes sense. I’m curious how you got that 4.35 number? With 7 classes, 3 of them honors, it’d be around 4.45-4.5, correct?