Chance me for Northwestern ED and I can also chance back

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

Hey all,
so I applied ED to Northwestern and want to see if I can get in. I am interested in majoring in economics / enrolling the MMSS program (Mathematical Methods in Social Sciences).

SAT I (breakdown): 1500/1600 (790M 710V) 2250/2400 (800M 670R 780W)
SAT II: 790 Math II, 630 US History
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.75; However my school reports 92/100
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): My school doesn’t rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Statistics (5) AP English Lang (4) AP Calc AB (5) (my school doesn’t recommend taking APs until Junior year)

Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Computer Science, AP Chinese Lang Radical Empathy(English Elective), Anatomy and Physiology, Africa(History elective), Post AP Statistics (Intro to R), Intro to Photography

Subjective
Clubs (place leadership in parenthesis): Math Club (Co-President), Chess Club (Co- President), Political Discussion Club(Co-President), Model UN Club
Sports: two years of JV basketball, four years of high school baseball (3 varsity letters), four years of Club/Travel/Select Baseball during the summer in the most competitive leagues in the Northwest U.S. (including a state championship)
Job/Work Experience: Little League Umpire, Month long paid internship at MTime, a movie portal company in Beijing, China
Volunteer/Community service: 60hrs at Boys&Girls Club, 30hrs at Eastside Baby Corner, 10hrs teaching schoolchildren in rural India

Common App Essay: Pretty Good, gets deep about my heritage and bad kindergarten experiences
Why Northwestern: talk about my interest in MMSS program and the application of statistics in baseball (Go Cubs and Theo Epstein!)
Teacher Recommendation: had both teachers for two separate years in high school so pretty strong
Counselor Rec: we have a great relationship so its good

Other:
Completed a statistical study with a University of Washington professor
Have taken and completed four online courses in statistics and business
avid non-fiction reader
world traveler (31 states and 10 countries)

Applying for Financial Aid?: Yes
State (if domestic applicant): Washington State
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Asian-American, but its complicated (half-Chinese, half-Indian, I write about it in common app)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: upper middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Lived on my own and worked in a foreign country (China) for an entire month, my heritage b/c its not mixed race but I feel mixed race (i.e. people never think my parents are together or think I am not with my parents, face racism for other races than my own, never met anyone else with same ethnic heritage)

2

IMHO, I think you have a great chance of getting in. Your scores are well within the range of Northwestern, I can see lots of leadership in your extracurriculars. Most of all, I really like your topics for your essays… if you wrote them well, I think getting in shouldn’t be too big of a problem. Good luck!

Chance me back?

3

TBH, you seem like a great candidate for NU. Scores are in ball park, and ECs are great. Great job intertwining your math interests and baseball interests. I’m confidant that will bode well for you. Good luck!

Chance me?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1939524-unique-applicant-chances-desperate-for-honesty.html#latest

4

Hi,
I’ve also applied ED Northwestern, but to McCormick.
By quickly looking at your stats, it looks like we are not from the same school, though I am also from Bellevue, WA.

SAT I (breakdown): Didn’t Take
SAT II: Didn’t Take
ACT: 34 C (35E 34M 31 R 36 S)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.96 UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): My school also doesn’t rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Calc AB (5), AP Chinese Lang (5), AP Physics 1 (4), AP Lang (4), AP World (3), AP Comp Sci (1) lol, am self-studying to retake this May.

Senior Year Course Load: Adv Calc, AP Micro/Macro Econ, Cisco Networking Academy (2 periods, 3 credits), Senior English, AP Physics 2, AP Gov

Extracurriculars:
CHESS CLUB (Prez 11,12 VP 10) (I display a lot of passion with chess and don’t waste my time with other clubs just to appear “well-rounded.”
Sports: Nothing competitive. A lot of pick-up basketball in my summers. And also Chess! And Competitive Marching Band for 3 years if that counts.
Job/Work Experience: McDonald’s Crew Worker.
Volunteer/Community service: Nothing special, have about 70 hours and school requires 40. Volunteered at Seattle Jingle Bell Run, Bellevue Strawberry Festival, all that good stuff.
Extras: I run my own Chess Coaching Business! (Self-taught chess player and chess coach. Taught 11 students (Age ranged 5yrs-retired adult), 5 reg. students currently (weekly). One student increased rating 900-1400 in 3 months. Created a personal training curriculum for rapid improvement. Received praise from parents about child’s improvement/interest.)
Created extremely detailed model airplanes from scratch and have created a website (kinda but shhh!) to display and they are really my talent.
Awards?: Outstanding soloist in Eastshore Wmea Jazz festival, HS state chess champs 2014 in WA, 1st place chess individual premier 2015

Common App Essay: Pretty s***. I read it again a few weeks after submitting and am rewriting it for UW! (Before I could have used the same essay for both schools)
Why Northwestern: Much, much better. Talked about a lame childhood expereince and made it sound dramatic and life-changing. Mentioned specifics such as a specific student and a former professor.
Teacher Recommendation: Not very good. 4 of my 7 junior year teachers left my school and I didn’t have a lot to choose from and never spent time giving a good impression in class so I can’t expect any better. I’d say 7/10, maybe higher if I’m lucky. Also had 2 recs but only asked one to send since 2 bad reports look worse than just one.
Counselor Rec: An ok relationship, should be really good nonetheless, maybe 9/10
Other:
Revisiting The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Writing a book summarizing key points and personal thoughts/experiences about each habit plus ideas for implementation. Condensed format ideal for busy people. Habit One done so far, plan to publish as an EBook.

Applying for Financial Aid?: Yes, definently :slight_smile:
State (if domestic applicant): Washington State
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Asian-American
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Currently 0.
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I don’t understand what this means. Please help.

Also I will evaluate your application in a sec.

5

@Chicagodreams9

I’ll look over ur ap to give you some of my ideas. DO NOT TAKE TO HEART, THESE ARE MY IDEAS, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE

As for you, my friend, you demonstrate a lot of leadership in you extracurriculers. You’re test scores are very very good and your ush sat 2 may be a bit low, but NU will use it to help your application if needed.

Now lets steer clear of vagueness and get to specifics:
Math and chess club and want to major in economics? Doesn’t look that related.
How many AP classes total? a 3.75 gpa uw is definitely your weakness, I suppose you make that up with your hard classes…
Ok nice, JV bball but no Varsity? lol, at least it looks like you were involved to some extent physically
Played baseball in summer but not school year? Nonetheless you are very athletically talented, could be a plus but enough for recruitment?

How/why did you get to China to work? And teaching school children in India? Did your parents have a few bucks in their pocket to send you around the world to experience all these cultures or did you fund it yourself or work for it, etc. Hopefully not the former but still impressive nonetheless.

Other than that, assuming your essays are quite decent, you probably have good chance 75% of getting in ED.
Good luck and hopefully we can both get in!

6

@whatsamania first, I feel like we crossed paths at some point for chess so small world lol. Also, to clarify, the MMSS program, which is what I am interested in, focuses on using statistical and mathematical application to the social sciences, so I am not completely an economics person. Also, my school neither offers any economics courses nor any clubs (maybe I should have started one lol), though I am currently studying macroeconomics independently in hopes of taking the AP Macroeconomics exam in May. Nevertheless, I believe that my experience with statistical projects, online, courses, and reading has prepared me for the program. Alumni of the program have used their education in consulting, casino games, crime prediction, third world infrastructure, and advertising so its not necessarily an economics themed course though many members of the program are economics majors. And for my Chinese and Indian experiences, I often visit relatives in those countries, and my parents do provide the airfare, but I have established the connections that got those moving. And also, the company I worked for actually owned apartments where trainees stayed so I was very fortunate to have a place to stay for free. Also, I was on pace to have two varsity bball letters for my junior and senior year, but I quit because of injuries and to focus on baseball.

As for your application, I think that your scores are definitely in the ballpark. Since you are applying to the school of engineering, your math/science scores are most important, and you certainly show a focus with AP Calc and AP Physics and 34M ACT (hopefully get better at Comp Sci). As a fellow chess player, I think that running your own chess business is cool and I know how much a chess coach can do to stem interest and teach kids so I appreciate your efforts. I also think that publishing an e-book is cool and creative. You should highlight those two in your application.

As a statistics guy, I don’t want to put a percentage on it, but as long as you highlighted your niches, and with the ed boost, I definitely think you can get in.
Good luck and hopefully we both get in so Bellevue can rep at least two 'Cats.

7

@Chicagodreams9
Just realized your username might be hinting something…
Yeah thanks for your clarifying information! That helped a lot. Yeah definently working in another country is invaluable, think about all the life expereines you will take away from that. And I know parents, you needed to work hard to show them that going to these countries was not a waste of time so you needed to show them that you built good relationships. Also, may I ask how you decided to major in economics? This is because I wanted to major in economics/business up until about half a year ago. We seem to both be on opposite sides of our majors, I see you hurridely studying macroeconomics while I, want to major in Comp Sci and I am hurridely studying it for a retake. Also thanks for the math/science encouragement but a 34m act is actually really weak. I took the act twice and that was the only section score that didn’t improve, just stayed the same. And the chess business thing, it started from a craigslist ad and honestly, I have to say a lot of luck helped me build it up. I posted it in Feb 2016. Crossed $1k july 26th. trying to cross $2k before christmas. Since I’m a terrible writer, the ebook thing is difficult but I like getting my ideas across. Unfortunately, I did not mention either of those two things very clearly in my essays or what not. I decided that the admissions can figure out what they were and I decided to use my essays to focus on other parts of me.

What other schools are you applying to?

8

@whatsamania
I am just a huge reader, and I love and am fascinated by interdisciplinary application such as economics in education, economics in health care, economics in sports. I am kind of going for the three headed monster of statistics, economics, and psychology at Northwestern (MMSS program has classes in all three) because I believe in addition to pure talent, those three are the biggest factors in making anything successful i.e. sports, education, health care, film, etc. I just like that application. I am not necessarily a complete fan of theoretical economics. I am also applying to UChicago, SMU, Emory, UW, USC, UCSD, Penn, and Georgetown but none of them ED because I really love every part of the Northwestern experience. Also nice work with the chess business.

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@jkim853 thanks for the support. I can chance you back but I need a link.

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http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20074152#Comment_20074152

Thanks!

11

@Chicagodreams9
I like how you have a passion that you want to fulfill. Driven people are always the successful ones!
You have a good choice of colleges, I like all of them. I was driven to apply Emory ED before when I wanted to major in business/economics. I dropped my USC application because it is too much of a reach for me. No UCs for me since too expensive lol. UPenn is beyond my reach, my sister did apply ED there and was dissapointed. Are you applying honors for UW?
As for me, I have applied early action ga tech, umich and unc chapel hill. I’ve done ED NU and aiming for regular decision UW and U of Rochester.