Chance Me for my Schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Profile:
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Asian
Income Bracket: About $200,000
Intended Major: Undecided
State: Michigan
Applying to: SCEA to Yale, EA to University of Michigan, Rolling to Michigan State, RD to Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. As of for now, this is where I’m applying to. I do plan to apply to more schools if I do not get into Yale SCEA, maybe Brown, UPenn, Columbia, Northwestern, UChicago, Duke, but undecided and only if I do not get into Yale SCEA.
Hooks: None

Stats:
School: Public, pretty high ranked in state, about 20th in my state
Size: About 350 in Graduating Class
GPA: 3.99 Unweighted, school does not weigh
Class Rank: School does not do class rank
ACT: 33C (33E, 36M, 32R, 31S, 10 Essay, 32 Combined English and Essay), 34 Superscore (33E, 36M, 32R, 34S, 10 Essay)
SAT II: Taking Math II and US History in the fall
Took 3 AP Classes (each one 3 terms as my school is on trimesters) and 6 AC two trimester (Accelerated) class so far to my Junior year, will be adding 4 more AP Classes my Senior Year (2 are one trimester long and 2 are three trimester long)

Awards:
Coaches Award on my Lacrosse Team for my outstanding attitude and determination and for motivating the team. My coach told the entire team that everyone on the team could learn something valuable from me.

ECs and Volunteering:
Crew: Freshman Year and Fall my Sophomore year
Lacrosse: Spring my Sophomore year and all my Junior and Senior years
Red Cross: 10th, 11th, and 12th Grade
Student Action Senate: 10th, 11th, and 12th Grade
Interact Club: 11th and 12th Grade
Tutoring after school in school library: 11th and 12th Grade
Link Crew: 11th Grade
Skywell Health Club: 11th and 12th Grade
Rising Scholars: 9th Grade
National Honor Society: 11th and 12th Grade

Essays and Supplements:
Common App: I believe the essay is very strong as I wrote about a topic very few people my age talk about, so I believe the topic is very unique. The writing is very well written, but a bit skeptical about the content.
Supplements: Very strong reviews, so probably just as well written as my common app essay. Much more confident about the content than the content in my common app essay.
Counselor: Just knew her my Junior year. But she and I get along very well, so I think the letter will be very good. Probably a ~9/10.
Teacher #1: My physics, chemistry teacher for 10th grade. Astronomy for 11th grade. Get along very well and one of the strongest students in his class. I occasionally have lunch with him. Probably a ~9/10.
Teacher #2: My Algebra II AC (Accelerated) teacher for 10th grade. Very good relationship, one of the strongest students in his class. I occasionally had lunch in his class. Probably can get me a ~9/10.

2

No offense, but I think you need to lower your standards a bit. Most of those are extremely competitive schools, and there will be more qualified applicants than you applying. Since you do not have any outstanding accomplishments that differentiate you from other applicants, nor are you a URM or from a low income bracket, I’d say every school except UM and Michigan State is a reach. I would highly recommend you look around a bit more, you really need more matches/safeties. For your stats and EC’s, I’d recommend looking into Emory, Wake Forest, Boston College, etc. Best of luck to you! Congratulations on all your accomplishments thus far; you’re almost to the high school finish line!

3

@JPhilly99
Would you suggest that I should even apply to Yale and those other reach schools? And thanks for wishing me luck.

4

@Join20 If you are truly passionate about Yale and your other reach schools, then yes, definitely apply! It’s better to go for it and get a definite answer from the admissions department rather than think, years down the line, “Would I have gotten into Yale?” My analysis is only based on what I know of the admissions processes of those incredibly selective universities and how unpredictable they can be, so I just don’t want you to put all your eggs in the metaphorical basket of crazy selective schools.

5

@JPhilly99
Thank you for your advice! I really appreciate your feedback and yes the ivy league and other very selective schools are very random. I know people from my area who totally did not expect to get admission but got admission while other students who thought they had a very strong chance of admission be rejected.
Based on your current knowledge, do you think you might be able to give me a reasonable prediction on what is my chance I will get accepted into those schools I listed, especially for Yale SCEA, Michigan EA, MSU Rolling, and Stanford RD?
Just in case you don’t know, sorry if you do, the SCEA admit rate for Yale is 16.0% and the RD rate is 4.3%, while the RD admit rate for Stanford is 3.9%. Michigan’s acceptance rate for class of 2018 was 32.2% and MSU’s was about 65%.

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@JPhilly99 Yale and Stanford are my dream schools by the way. I’m not so sure I’ll do the other schools, other than Harvard and Princeton which I know I will do RD. I put Michigan and MSU as my backup safety schools. I believe I shall just wait and see where else I will apply to. From my area, however, I know a lot of students who got into U Mich with much lower credentials than what my credentials are. Also, by the way Michigan and MSU are not allowed to use race based affirmative action.

7

Your numerical stats are really great, but I’m not sure if Yale is achievable. I’m sorry, and I dont mean to be a downer, but maybe try Caltech and UC’s and Uni Michigan

Again, I’m sorry, and I dont mean to be a downer, but JPhilly is right, you do need to lower your standards.

Please Chance Me honestly as well : http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1793272-chance-into-lmu.html#latest

8

It is not that you cannot get into those schools, but there is a bit of luck and uncertainty involved. I’ve seen top candidates miss out those schools, and vise versa. Keep these schools as reach schools, but also apply to other top 25 schools. Everybody applying will have stats like yours or better, so you also have to realize that they will look at a lot more other than your numbers, and that you need to make yourself standout with other aspects (passions, projects, etc…) You can try using schoolinks.com to network with people from the schools you want to go to.
Good Luck

9

@Salutation
I do agree that I need to lower my ambitions on my reach schools a bit. I did say that I am applying to University of Michigan and MSU. Do you think that they are safe enough that I can be confident that I will be admitted?

10

Yale: Reach
University of Michigan: Match
Michigan State University: Safety
Harvard: Reach
Stanford: Reach
Princeton: Reach

11

Your scores and everything else are impressive but you don’t really have anything that makes you stick out. You have a small chance at getting into those schools but I wouldn’t count on it because there’s a ton of other people like you trying to get in. Even if you don’t get in to one of those schools, there are a ton of other great schools that you can get in to. I’m pretty much in the same boat as you on this one.

Chance me back?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1793536-what-are-my-chances-at-the-top-schools-what-is-realistic.html#latest

12

@Metraux I have a quick question. What is the difference between a match and a safety?

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@Join20
MSU is a safety for you, but UM Ann Arbor is on the tough side.
Try Colgate University, Dartmouth and Cornell

14

A safety is a school where you could get in without a doubt (average gpa is .5 or so lower than yours). Match is when your scores and your grades line up with the school. So for a match, I’d say you’d have a very good chance at being accepted. For a safety, I’d be shocked if a person is not accepted.

15

@Salutation
For Colgate, Cornell, and Dartmouth, obviously if I apply to them I will do RD. What would you say those schools are for me. Safety? Match? Reach?

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@Join20
Cornell and Dartmouth are slight reach almost high match.
Colgate on the other hand is a match.

By the way, I have an average ACT Score and you have a GREAT score. Can you please give me tips for the science and reading sections, as I am taking the ACT in about 6 weeks or so. I really need help. Any help on those two sections are GREATLY appreciated. Did you take any classes? How many practice tests did you take?

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@Salutation
I did not take any classes, but I did have a private tutor.
The Science section is kind of like the reading. For the science section, I first looked at the questions before proceeding to the graphs/tables/reading. Do not waste your time reading the tables/graphs/reading before the questions because a lot of the stuff there is not asked in the questions. For the fighting scientists section, lets say that there are two scientists. I first would answer the questions that relate to scientist 1, then answer the questions related to scientist 2, before finishing the questions that combine the viewpoints of all the scientists.
For the reading section, I first would skim through the passage. For the questions without specific line/paragraph citations, I would quickly look through the passage, and if I can’t find the answer, I would just go with my instinct because I found out that I would usually get the questions right. For the questions with line/paragraph references, I would read the entire paragraph the lines are in because there you can understand what the passage is talking about.
The main enemy on the ACT is time, so you have to be very careful with time management.
I took ~8 practice tests in the Math/Science, but ~12 in the English and Reading sections because those are my weaker sections.

18

@Join20
Thank you sooooo much for the tips and advice.
You don’t know how much this actually helped me.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time and helping me.
You will succeed in all your endeavors with this great character.
Good Luck in life ahead!

My weaker sections are reading and science. Math is my strong and English is so-so.
I will try your advice in science, but for reading, my instincts are usually wrong lol.
Where did you find this private tutor, was it like Kaplan or something?

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@Salutation
Well, the thing is is that my tutor lives near my house, not through Kaplan or any other test prep company.
If you can’t find a good tutor/class, a good book I recommend is the “ACT Prep Black Book.” This book, a private tutor named Mike formally talks about his secrets on how to score well on all four sections of the ACT. Mike talks about how most people have the wrong techniques, for example in the reading section he talks about how most people try to interpret what the text is trying to say, but he says that he key to doing well on the reading section is just read and go with what the text says, not like how most student interpret and end up having different viewpoints, like what goes on in English class. If you buy this book, make sure you have red TheRealACT Prep book published by ACT. Mike goes through many problems in detail people mess up in the red ACT book and why people mess up on those problems. He talks about what he people did wrong on those problems and what they could and should have done instead which would almost certainly have led to the right answer. Through this book and my private tutor, I was able to understand the secrets to improving my ACT scores in all the sections. I think I started my reading score during late 10th grade around a 22, and then got it up to a 32.

20

Wow that is a BIG jump. I have the Real ACT Prep Book, and I completed all the tests in it, so would the Black book still help?

My composite at the moment is 26, which is horrible. Do you think I have a chance to bump that to a 29-30 in 2 months with hardcore prep?