Chance me for Harvard, Stanford, UVa

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Colleges I’m applying to:
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech
UVa
Duke
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Cornell
U of Southern California
UPenn

ACT: 35
SAT II: 800 Math II, 750 Physics
GPA: 4.32 weighted, 3.9 unweighted
Rank: 6th out of 456
Senior Year Course Load: DE English 12, DE Government 12, Honors Orchestra, Calculus I Part B/Calculus II, University Physics I/II, Computer Science I/II, Senior Mentorship, AP Chemistry
Major Awards: nothing major. 4x Solo and Ensemble Violin awards, 3x orchestra varsity letter, 3x lacrosse varsity letter, Outstanding Algebra II student

Extracurriculars:
School Orchestra (8 years) - I plan on submitting an arts portfolio.
City Volunteer Orchestra - I play for an orchestra composed of various artists from around my area (teachers, conductors, etc.) who perform at a professional level
Lacrosse (4 years) - 3 years Varsity 1 year JV. I want to play for colleges, without a Division I team (I’m not good enough lol),
such as Stanford who only has a club men’s lacrosse team (plus their roster is small so hopefully they need players). I’ve also played in some showcases and tourneys.
Indoor Winter Box Lacrosse (3 years)
Engineering Club (2 years) - Co-Founder and VP
Math Honor Society (2 years) - VP this year
Science Honor Society (2 years)
National Honor Society (2 years)

Volunteer/Community service:
Stuff from all my honor societies like tutoring kids after school and during weekends
City Volunteer Orchestra
My orchestra director and I started an after school tutoring program at elementary schools for orchestra students
I help kids around the city play lacrosse (nothing official)

Work Experience:
I’m a private tutor who helps kids in Spanish, math, science, etc.
I play for a Mariachi Band. Even though I’m not Mexican, I love the culture.
I’m a private violin instructor

Summer Activities:
Took econ online to fulfill graduation requirements lol
enjoyed summer

Other unique stuff:
A few friends and I are conducting research with a mentor at George Mason University. Last year we found an inhibitor for HIV that seemed to work better than other inhibitors on the market. This year we have a new mentor and are doing a fungus based experiment. I can’t go into too much detail (it’s top secret).

Essays (rating 1-10, details): Haven’t started yet (ugh blame procrastination), but should be good.
Common App: plan on writing on my latino background (sorry for the vagueness)
Supplementals: plan on writing on my love for latin culture and STEM and how I wish to expand my love for the culture to others. Also plan on talking about DACA and how it has affected me personally and how it has shaped my appreciation and love for my culture.

Teacher Rec #1: Algebra II teacher from tenth grade. She loves me and I even got the outstanding algebra II student out of all the students taking it at the school. Should be a 9/10
Teacher Rec #2: Physics teacher. Probably decent. He likes me but he’s getting a bunch of letter of rec requests so I hope he doesn’t lose fuel. Should be 7/10
Counselor Rec: Should be fine. She has a questionnaire so I will make sure to give her as much information about me as I can.
Additional Rec: Orchestra director. He’s been my private teacher for the past 6 years and knows me well. I’ve also started an after school program with him so it should be great. I say 10/10

Intended Major: Latin American Studies with a minor in comp sci
State: somewhere in the United States
School Type: public school with high minority level
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Gender: M
Income Bracket: not rich not poor
Hooks: URM, first gen, undocumented, arts supplement?

2

You have a strong profile, and URM will help. The only thing standing between you and one or more of the top schools are essays. Good luck!

3

Thank you :slight_smile:

4

What does URM mean?

5

@Abdulmalik142 “UnderRepresented Minority”

6

I think you could get into a couple Ivies. Your ECs are not amazing but your stats and URM status will help. Make sure you get all your RD essays done soon so you are not up against the deadline

7

Thanks for the advice :slight_smile:

8

Excellent stats and urm will help. good luck!

9

Thank you! Best of luck to you as well!

10

wow you really sound amazing lol i wish my sat 2 scores were as good as yours lmaooo but yeah the essays and the rec letters will be the ones that matter so make sure ur essays are absolutely amazing and u’ll probably get into every school u listed! ur research sounds amazing and i’m sure that everyone will be impressed!! you have a bright future ahead regardless of if u get into an ivy league or not and good luck with admissions hell <333

11

Wow, thank you for such kind and thoughtful words! Best of luck to you in the admissions process. I’m sure you’ll go far :slight_smile:

12

I disagree with adeityy, I don’t think you’ll get into EVERY school you listed. I would not be surprised if you were accepted to every school after the first four. Those first four, however, are unpredictable for even the most qualified students. I think you are a veeerrryyy strong candidate for most schools, but it will be difficult to get into those top schools. My high school class was fairly large (just over 700 if I remember correctly), but only the number one student got in to Stanford. That being said, your SAT score is very strong and I think that will be a big factor in your admissions anywhere you go. You are a strong candidate for any school, but luck does play a role in admissions and so I say, in a pretty uninformed opinion lol, that you’ll get in to two of your first four (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton) and all but one of the remaining (because luck plays a role at this level too). Honestly, you’re a match for any school and are a much stronger candidate than I was when I graduated high school. The only way I think you’d be rejected from any of them is just based off of chance. But, chance plays a role in the rejections of thousands of students every year. It could go your way for all of the schools, who knows. I would be interested in seeing where you do end up, mostly for the sake of seeing how accurate my gut is, which btw, was the singular source of my predictions, so don’t take them too seriously haha.

13

Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it. I’ll definitely post my college decision results.

14

bump

15

@JVentur5

HYPS - lottery schools for most qualified kids (unless you have major awards + perfect stats). Still if I had to bet i would say you have good aches of getting into at least one of them.

Penn, Duke, Cornell - still reaches, but you have very good chances there.

GTech, UVa, Berkeley, UCLA: low matches

VTech, USC: safeties