chance me for some american schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

hey ! my names ari
so i’m from canada, and i’m in grade 12 this year! i really want to go to an american school, so if you have the time i would super super appreciate it if you could just look over my stats and tell me what kind of a chance i have !

i currently go to a small, all-girls private school outside of toronto

gender: female

ethnicity: desi

also identify as lgbt+

desired field of study: either astrophysics, astrobiology, or planetary astronomy

Academics-
-3.9 GPA
-my grade 12 courses are english, french, calculus, functions, chemistry, bio, physics, and astro
-my school only offers two AP courses, one in grade 11 and one in grade 12, and i’ve taken the gr 11 one. i couldnt take the grade 12 one though because of scheduling, unfortunately
-in the top 5% in my grade
-took the SAT once, didn’t get a score i liked, taking it again on saturday, going for between a 2250 and 2350
-taking the physics, math II, and bio subject tests in december

ECs/Activites:
-debated individually at the national level this year. head of my team, won competitions, went to provincials as a team last year and hopefully again this year
-lead oboe in my school band? have played classical piano for 12 years, doing my grade 8 RCM exam soon, played classical oboe for 5
-in the inaugural stages of starting a family charity to fund the education of children in india
-house head last year at my school/member of the athletics and spirit council
-FRC robotics
-did an astrophysics & cosmology course at Brown summer before gr 11
-MVP at the Michael J Fox Foundation
-90+ volunteer hours
-co-founder of Pennies for Parkinson’s, a Canadian fundraising endeavour
-nominated for and attended Ontario Educational Leadership Camp twice
-STEM club
-7 years of acting & directing experience in theatre 14 productions
-have done talks across the country on parkinson’s disease, and specifically how it affects family dynamic
-founder of No Reservations Required, a new charity in the GTA that provides gourmet meals to people in homeless shelters from recipes donated by the top restaurants in toronto, so like, we do pop up restaurants and donate to shlters
-i’ve done one TEDx talk, have another one in january, and am currently planning my own TEDx event in my area for january, where i’ll also speak

that’s about it for ECs I think? if it makes a diff, i can also speak six languages: english, french, hindi, spanish, icelandic, & dutch, and i’m currently learning 5 more (mandarin, italian, swedish, russian, portugese) but idk lol

also, i decided not to ED for anything

Schools (not in order):
-Caltech (FIRST choice!!!)
-Brown (second choice)
-Harvard
-Johns Hopkins
-Stanford
-UChicago
-Yale
-MIT

also won’t qualify for financial aid

what are my chances right now to get into these unis? how can I round/fill up my EC section?

thanks for reading!! and thank you SO much in advance for your responses too !!!

2

What did you get on the SAT the first time? Can’t really chance you with a projection. Also you might want to ass some matches and safeties. Everything on your list is a reach for everyone.

3

@danfer91 oh yeah, i have a bunch of matches and safeties i’ve already applied to, here in canada (u of t, mcgill, western, mcmaster), and i’m pretty much guaranteed to get into all of them, so that’s not a worry for me. i just didn’t list them here for that reason.

my first SAT was a 2050, not the greatest score : /

4

Until you can show otherwise, we have to assume your first SAT. In which case all of those schools are a big reach for you with most totally out of reach.

5

Just some observations so that you can streamline your applications:

That SAT score won’t get you into any of those schools. It will be tough increasing that score to the required level for those schools.

Also, since you won’t qualify for financial aid, most schools will charge hefty tuition and fees.

FYI: being identified as LGBT is not a hook and is not considered for admissions. It would be like another student stating he/she was hetero.

Your ECs are all over the place. Well rounded does not mean collecting ECs. The schools value quality over quantity.

6

@soze yeah, i’ll post back in a couple weeks with my new score since i’m taking it again right this weekend.

@“aunt bea” yeah, the sat score is pretty dismal! i’ll post when i get my new one, but if its like any of my practice ones, then i’ll be right in that predicted range.

in regards to financial aid, thats fine with my family, we’re not worried about tuition. and i wasnt sure if being lgbt was a hook in terms of schools looking for diversity, thank you for clearing that up! : )

and really, are they? everything ive done is something im passionate about, are they really all over the place? how can i strategically choose some of those ECs to put on my app that will make me look cohesive?

7

So your parents are willing to pay over a quarter of a million dollars for your undergrad education??? Wow.

Focus on your volunteer work with the neurological diseases.

Going to be direct and harsh:

<“Founding a family charity” is self-serving padding of your resume.

<All students are nominated for special leadership camps if they have over a 3.0. My blue recycle bin was plastered with these for my three kids.

<Hundreds of thousands of high school students do summer coursework at big universities; it brings in extra dollars to the universities who know that we’ll-heeled parents are willing to pay, if the parents think it will get their kids into an elite university. The neighbor’s child became ill at one of these.

<Being a head anything, in an elite school, is too common. It’s like giving ribbons for 10th place.

The laundry list, you have provided, shows them that your time can be split into these multiple, varied activities that don’t involve serious time commitments. It shows that you’re building your activities to get into your colleges, instead of the other way around.

You are competing with American kids who have spent **thousands ** of hours working in hospitals, homeless shelters, food pantries, vision clinics, animal rescues, etc. Speaking from personal experience, dropping off gourmet food for the homeless is not the same as working in a shelter every weekend and summer to house, clothe, bandage and feed people.

You need an almost perfect SAT/ACT to get into Caltech.

How do I know all of this??? Besides teacher experience,
I have children at UCD, JHU and Caltech.

Quality over quantity.

8

@"“aunt bea” Yeah haha they are i guess! i don’t qualify for need based financial aid anyway

and thank you for your directness though, i really do appreciate it, im but not getting a lot of honesty from the people helping me out irl so it’s really refreshing


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oh, is it? i should probably point out, though, that that is one mistake i have on my OP, i copy/pasted a lot of the points from a doc from over a year and a half ago, and we (my mother and i) are way past the inaugural stages now, we’re a full fledged charity, do public donation packages, etc, and have funded thousands of children. does that change anything then? or is it still self serving padding? because then i don’t want to send it in as a point

oh really? we only have one program like that here, so i didn’t know it was so widespread and common for kids to be nominated for the leadership things on the states, thank you

oh man, seriously? i thought that it would show to brown that im seriously interested in the school… : /

imstead of the school head thing then, would the fact that im on a student council for the single-sex school association in the GTA count more? i thought the club head thing seemed better since it would reaffirm my commitment to debate, but i guess not.

also, just in terms of what you said about volunteering, i actually cook weekly for two shelters in my area (unrelated to the charity), a youth and a women’s shelter, and monthly for another three. but i ive never done it for hours. was that a mistake?

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thank you so much for your constructive criticism, i just have a few more questions since you seem to have a lot of knowledge.
i didn’t emphasize it enough i don’t think, but i commit a huge amount of my time an effort to debate, 16 hours a week during competition, 8 hours off competition. if i really push my involvement and accomplishments in debate and public speaking, which i didn’t post much of, would that look more cohesive?

and what kind of influence do you think my tedx involvement has?

again, thank you so much!!

9

Right now you need to up that SAT score if you want any chance at any of the elites.
They look first at GPA and SAT scores above anything else. Everything else is secondary.

Streamline your ECs. Less than 8.
How long have you cooked for the shelter? If you’ve done this for all of your high school years, then that’s a good EC; put it down and write about it.

The family charity in India might be considered; I don’t know how the schools will take it being funded by your family. If your family is also in India and on the receiving end, it might not look too much of a charity.

Stick to your Parkinson’s talks and a/your passion. The schools like students who take their extra time to help the community.

TedX, depends on the school.

Did you play organized team sports? HS team sports play requires a lot of time and discipline, that’s why they consider it as a strength-especially Varsity level.

10

@“aunt bea”

okay, yeah, ive gotta remember that academics comes first above all! i think my sat this weekend will go well, so we’ll see then

yeah, ive cooked for the shelters since grade 8, but ive only been doing it seriously since grade 10ish, i think since ive been so involved for so long

oh, sorry, i must have not been clear again haha, we own the charity and we founded and run it, but we dont fund it, public donations fund it. and we do have family in india, but theyre not on the receiving end, they just organize the funds and are hands-on with the programs and especially the kids at the schools since its a lot to go back and forth for us.

okay, i have a few more talks coming up with my mom so i’ll stick with that!

the Tedx events werent school events, they were public. one was in ottawa, and the next one is in cyprus, they were city events, not affiliated with any schools. i might have two more in the future too.
does that change anything? or is it better if theyre school events?

nooo ! :’’( ive never played a sport actually in my entire high school career, debate takes up too much of my time.

11

Good luck on the test; it’s the first decisive cut.

Just cut down your laundry list and consider your long term events that your school counselors know about.

Sports is a biggie, even though people will tell you that its not such a big deal. It is to American colleges. They know that students have to practice almost every day, improve accuracy, compete with your team against other schools, travel to other sites, fundraise for competition fees, and try to win in the divisions, then do homework and other activities. There’s a lot of self discipline in sports- that’s why I asked. When you are on a good team and have great teammates, it affects how you view being in a group and there’s a lot of support for your teammates within a small “community”. All three of my children LOVED playing high school sports. It grounded them and they learned a lot about working with different personalities, different coaching styles and it set them up for work relationships. Thats why the colleges like athletes.

12

we’re a full fledged charity, do public donation packages, etc, and have funded thousands of children. does that change anything then
=> yes, if you can explain this with numbers that “prove” what you’ve done. Adding a website link and/or a link to a newspaper article would also help but concrete proof of your impact is primary.

GROUP your activities together by theme:
Volunteering/Charity
Music (RCM8 piano + lead oboe = good)
Leadership
Debate

If asked about an activity, spend time on activities related to Parkinson’s since it’s the most distinctive part of your list.

American universities will understand it if you don’t have AP’s as long as your Grade 12 courses are at U level.