Chance me for Scripps!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • Living in Massachusetts, highter income town
  • Competitive public school - I think top 15 in the state?
  • Female/Indian
  • I didn’t apply for financial aid b/c I knew that I wouldn’t qualify, so income is not an issue.

Intended Major(s): English, but I’m pretty interested in Neuroscience as well and would try to double major if I end up there!

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.55
  • Weighted HS GPA: My school doesn’t do weighted but I think maybe 4.4?? We have a weird system - CP=4.0, ACP=4.5, Honors/AP=5.0
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1480 (730 EBRW 750 Math)

Coursework
7ish (one was a two year program and the class got shut down for the second year) APs: AP Music Theory 1, APUSH, AP Chem, AP Lit, AP Physics C, AP Psych, AP Calc AB - this is nearly the max amount that we’re allowed to take at my school. I’m taking Lit, Physics, Psych, and Calc right now. Besides the APs I’ve taken mostly honors/higher levels except for French.

Awards
Girl Scout Gold Award
Royal Conservatory of Music in voice - High Honors

Extracurriculars
section editor for the features section of my school’s newspaper, heavily involved in my school’s theatre department (I’ve had multiple lead roles + do tech), PR manager for my school’s South Asian club, co-pres/founder of a zine club and a period equity/destigmatization club, I’ve been in Girl Scouts since 2nd grade, I do classical singing and test for the RCM, and I’ve had three jobs: camp counselor, math tutor, and I work at T.J. Maxx, but I’ll be starting at the art center in January (if I can even include this)

Essays/LORs/Other
LORs are pretty solid - one’s my AP Chem teacher and she loved me, the other is my honors English teacher, weird guy but I did well in his class. I feel great about my personal statement, wrote it about romance novels + my own happy ending. Why Scripps is easy and I’m writing the TED talk one about how Eurocentric makeup doesn’t work on brown girls (as someone who always wears makeup).

I got rejected from Barnard last night (boooo) but I’m super into Scripps right now! My safeties are pretty solid (UMass Amherst + Pennstate) but I would really, really love to go to Scripps!

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I think you’ve got a decent chance at Scripps, as an ED2 applicant, and the fact that they’re need-aware and you’re full-pay can only help. (Barnard is need-blind, so there was no advantage there in not applying for aid.) It seems like a good fit for your academic interests and extracurricular pursuits! (The joint 5C’s student newspaper is excellent, both journalistically speaking - launching quite a few careers at well-known publications - and as a social incubator. My daughter’s friends who were involved with the paper made close friends through their work there.)

It would help to have a sense of where you stand in your class; a 3.55 UW is a little on the lower side, but it may not be low at all for your school, and rank would shed light on that. Hopefully your counselor recommendation will give them an idea where you stand in your class, in terms of rigor and grades.

However, my impression from watching years of Scripps’ admissions is that it’s a very “fit”-oriented school that just likes who they like, not necessarily selecting for the highest stats. I’ve seen applicants with very impressive stats get turned down, and others with less-stratospheric stats get in with merit. It’s very hard to predict, but absolutely worth going all-in with ED2 if it’s your true first choice. Not a slam-dunk by any means, but absolutely a realistic reach. Good luck!!

(Pro tip, if you do end up at Scripps - you’ll probably find the Pomona choral program more satisfying than the Scripps/CMC/Pitzer/Mudd Joint Music Program choir. That’s one thing my daughter would do differently if she had it to do over again - she didn’t fully realize that she was free to audition for either program. The Joint Music Program choir director is a really, really nice guy; but the bar is higher in the Pomona ensembles in terms of musical polish and attention to detail - plus there’s the touring Glee Club group to move up to.)

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You should reconvert your weighted. +.5 for Honors, +1 for AP. It will be lower than you show.

The SAT is solid - not high or low for them.

Your ECs are strong.

WIth a 30% admit rate, I think you need to go ED2.

Maybe I missed it - is that your plan or RD?

Best of luck.

I think if you like a Barnard / Scripps - there’s other women’s colleges out there if you want that although both of these are integrated with male. There’s also many a LAC that you’d get into - so I’d encourage you to expand your list downward.

PS - how about Bryn Mawr?

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okay so i think my weighted would be around a 4.1! and yes i would totally do ED2. for me i bet that there are other LACS that i would have a better shot at getting into but personally i’m alright going to umass mostly b/c it’s cost efficient and i’m 95% certain that i’ll get in barring any surprises. i liked bryn mawr when i visited but idk i don’t think that it’s for me - not the same but when i toured haverford i wasn’t really a fan. but yeah this is good to know!

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thank you for all of this information! i don’t have exact numbers b/c we don’t do class rank but i would say i’m somewhere in the top 15%? my gpa isn’t like the highest due to covid straight up tanking my motivation but i take most of the hardest classes that i can, so i’m not totally sure, but somewhere around there! also - do you think that scripps puts a good amount of weight in the essays? b/c i think that mine are actually really good but idk how holistic scripps is to that extent!

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But there’s so many others - maybe not women/cohort men. If you’re great with UMASS, that’s awesome…but lots of LACs have big merit…whether it’s an Alleghney, Wooster, Hobart, Dickinson, etc.

I think you can have your cake and eat it too. Hopefully at Scripps but if not - there’s definitely others. You have a strong record.

Best of luck to you.

PS - according to the common data set, the essay is at the highest level of consideration.

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