Chance me for PolSci- T20s

Chance Me / Match Me!
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1

Wasian Male
Around 130-150k income
US Citizen
Florida
Semi-competitive high school
No hooks
Intended Major(s)
PolSci/IR/Econ

3.89 unweighted

5.1 Weighted

1550 SAT (770 RW, 780 M)

19/493
class rank

Coursework
Completed 22 AP/IB/AICE/Dual enrollment classes including senior year

IB diploma program- hopeful

Taken Dual Enrollments in Pol Sci

2 5’s on my AP tests, the rest 4’s and 2 3’s both in physics (non major)

Awards
AP distginusehd Scholar

State Finalist FBLA

Perfect on the history EOC and given certificate

Extracirrciulars

Congressional internship on campaign with my local house representative. Attended in person events and did busy work like filing reports and the like.Got a recommendation letter from my internship boss. Promoted to a paid role after about 3 months.

Attended a program called Democracy Summer which was a youth program for Democrats. Did activities related to activism and listened to zoom calls from prominent politicians/academia

Not sure if worth stating but I moderate/assist with a prominent platform of political debate which has like 80k members.

FBLA - state finalist.

Founded DECA and am Vice President.

Model UN but never went to conference

NHS + Social Studies Honor Society
Essays/LORs/Other

Supplementals/Essays ok and related to politics/desire to act

No cost constraints

Schools

T20s/Ivies
Reaches

Columbia, Dartmouth, UChicago, Vanderiblt, NYU, Cornell, Berkely, UCLA

Target
UF/UVA
safety
UCF

2

Also Georgetown as well

3

Based on your multiple interests, you may want to consider colleges that offer a major in public policy, which relies on the fields of political science and economics, as well as philosophy, for its foundation.

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4

For OOS, I would put UVA as a reach also. Of those reaches, I think Dartmouth ED might be your most plausible chance - it’s still around 20% admit and strong for Econ, which fits well with your ECs and interests. But you’d have to be comfortable with committing to a rural school in a cold climate. Financially, are you comfortable with affording all of these, even the ones like UCB/UCLA that offer essentially no aid to OOS students?

5

Congratulations on your accomplishments to date. As you know, the T20 can be unpredictable due to the limited number of available spots.

I would consider UVA OOS a reach. Due to your major, I also suggest adding GW and American as target/safety.

Good luck!

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You are a competitive applicant but you need to calculate your 3 UC GPA’s for UCLA and UC Berkeley. UC’s only use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Note: Only AP/IB or DE UC transferable courses get the Honors point bump in the calculation. OOS Honors courses are not weighted.

Have you taken at least 1 year of a Visual/Performing arts course which is a UC requirement?

7

what is your goal in PS/IR/Econ- law school? public policy? International affairs (governmental/political/business?)

8

Still unsure. Want to pursue a major with some opportunities in banking/finance hence econ.

But I am looking towards law school

9

Thanks for the advice.

Now that I think of it the UCs might be out of the picture when I can attend (hopefully) UF for free.

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10

Does Dartmouth ED differ significantly more than the other ivies?

11

Thanks. Never really considered this before. Will read into it

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12

Thank you so much for the comment.

Yes UVA/UNC are pretty tough OOS. I looked for schools in the D.C area but I am not sure if I would pay the tuition when UF exists.

13

If you want a California option, consider the Claremont Consortium, especially Claremont McKenna for your interests.

16

Yes, not an enormous difference, but a difference. Dartmouth is over 20% - perhaps 21%, I’ve seen conflicting numbers and they haven’t published the updated CDS for 22-23 - and the next closest ED percentages among Ivies are Penn (15%) and Brown (14%). Cornell no longer reports this statistic, but back in 2024 they had the 2nd highest ED rate among Ivies, and I would guess they might be in the 16%-18% range now.

But with that said, I would discourage you from simply picking an Ivy (or any school) at random and submitting an ED app based on perceived chances at admission. First of all, these ED percentages are inflated by ED apps from recruited athletes, kids of donors/faculty/staff, etc. and other hooked applicants very likely to be admitted, so the actual chances for an unhooked student like yourself are significantly lower than the published rate at all selective schools. Second, they will all have plenty of highly qualified unhooked ED applicants, so to have any chance, you will need to convince them that School X is truly the ideal place for you. So give a lot of thought to why Dartmouth or Cornell or UVA or UChicago or wherever is the place you really want to be, and make sure that comes through in the supplemental essays.

17

If you are looking at law school seriously, and your family can’t/won’t pay for all of UG + Grad, then your plan to do UF free is excellent.

The great thing about all of your prospective schools is that they are just fine for PS & Econ.

Your list is…confusing. Columbia & UChic track one way, Dartmouth and Vandy another, NYU & UC-B/UCLA yet another and Cornell still another. Besides being famous names, what draws you to them? What about UC-B or UCLA is $300,000 better for you than UF? How much of that would you have to borrow? Have you run all the NPCs for these schools?

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Yeah. I was just looking at these schools for name value and not really seeing what they have to offer me or if I would even enjoy them.

Going to spend the next couples of weeks shortening the list and working on the essays to just a couple schools.

I don’t think the UCs are really for me so I am going to be removing them.

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19

Thanks for the response.

Probably just going to try and ED for Columbia because it’s the school I feel as if I would enjoy the most and be the most accommodating towards my field of study. Hard to pass up on even a chance of living and studying in NYC and at such a good school.

So far spent most of my energy on writing Columbias supplementals and (hoping) they come off as pretty strong.

20

Have you read up on the Core at Columbia? ngl, it’s my favorite thing about Columbia, but it’s not everybody’s cup of tea!

Take a careful look at the required classes, and be sure that that’s what you want to sign up for - links to them are here: Core Curriculum < Columbia College | Columbia University

Note that at UG level, Columbia is not particularly better than many of your other options for PS/IR or Econ.