Chance me for Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, UCLA, WUSTL, Yale, Brown

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

asian male -

SAT I (breakdown): 2330
[ *] ACT (breakdown): 36 {36,36,35,36) 11 writing
[ *] SAT II: Math II 800, Biology: 800
[ *] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.78 (yuck) - but the Bs and B- came from Freshman year.
Weighted GPA: not sure…
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 5% in competitive public school
[ *] AP (place score in parentheses): Biology (5), Chemistry (5), Calc AB (5)
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov, AP Physics C, AP Calc BC, AP Stats, AP Spanish Lang, English 12
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Placed 2nd at National Chess Champs, Founder, President, Captain of School Chess Team which won 1st @ Nationals, State Chess Champs, Individual State Chess Champion, Team Regional Champs

[ /list][ b]Subjective:**
[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): Chess Club (President and Founder) (10-12), Math Club (9-12), Yearbook (11-12), Key Club (11-12), Badminton Club (11-12, Co-Founder + VP)
[ *] Job/Work Experience: 200 hours as Tutor, 300 hours at Local restaurant,
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: Run my own Chess Camps+ Classes, General community service (50 hours)
[ *] Summer Activities: Volunteer at Hospital
[ *] Essays: -wrote about perseverance and dedication on building school chess team from non-existent to National Champs
[ *] Teacher Recommendation: Should be great!
[ *] Counselor Rec: Ehh okay
[ *] Additional Rec:

[ /list][ b]Other**
[ *]Applied for Financial Aid?: no
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): Wisconsin
Country (if international applicant): USA
[ *] School Type: Public
[ *] Ethnicity: Indian
[ *] Gender: Male
[ *] Income Bracket(mention if FA candidate): 200,000
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): National Chess Champion (both individual and team)

[ /list][ b]Reflection**
[ *] Strengths: Extracurriculars, SAT Score, ACT, SAT II scores,
[ *] Weaknesses: Low GPA

Chance me for:

Stanford
WUSTL
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Brown (ED)
Reed
USC
UPenn
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
Johns Hopkins U

thx

2

bump

3

I think you have some pretty solid ECs and you’d be a pretty good candidate for all the schools you listed. The Ivies are notorious for being a crapshoot, but you’ve got as good a chance as anybody else. What major are you hoping to apply as? I might even say you should go for HYPS SCEA rather than ED.

4

National chess champion is not a hook. It is a good EC.

What are you interested in studying?

I’m not as optimistic as @DanKot. Your scores are top notch, but your GPA is less than ideal, and aside from your chess your ECs are pretty ordinary - even a bit on the thin side. Your chess is very strong, and is by far your best asset, but as an Asian male (and I’m guessing STEM) applicant you will be in a tough demographic group competing against people with some amazing credentials.

You have a lot of very competitive schools on your list. Out of state to the UCs is always a challenge. I’m not sure if you have just listed a ton of top schools and are throwing darts, or if you have a clear understanding of what you want to do and what schools may fit you. Why are you thinking of Brown ED? What is it that appeals to you?

5

Your test scores are your strength but I’m not gonna lie your GPA will hurt you during the application process. If you write some really good essays I think that you’ll have a solid chance at UCLA and UCB. Stanford and Harvard will be definite reaches but it wouldn’t hurt to apply.

6

Also, I know this is your chance page, but can you give me some tips on how you scored so high on the SAT and ACT? It’d be much appreciated!

7

Wash U

8

Your GPA is not competitive for the top UCs.

The UCs are full fees to OOS students. Can you afford $55k per year???

9

I’m not sure why you have so many OOS UCs on your list why your state has perfectly good public school.

10

You should also consider Carnegie Mellon. Both Carnegie Mellon and Stanford do not count your freshman year grades in your gpa. Your chances are a crapshoot but the pool of kids you will be compared against are those from Wisconsin. Most elite universities want at least one student from every state (Carnegie Mellon’s head of admissions actual stressed this asking if anyone was from Idaho). Now if an admissions department gets a recruited athlete from Wisconsin then you are sunk but on a positive note there can’t be that many top athletes from Wisconsin. Good luck!

11

@DanKot Sorry, he does not have " as a good of chance" as you put it, for admission to the top tier school. That is an erroneous statement for the OP. His GPA will be certainly under introspection by admission folks, and statistically speaking would largely make it an unlikely scenario.

12

Your scores are outstanding, and I do not think the UCs will use your freshman grades to calculate your “UC GPA.” I would say “match to high match” for those UCs. Here is some OOS admissions information: http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2014/fall-2014-admissions-table2.pdf
Good luck!

13

Another thing for the UC’s is the ‘f’ requirement- one year of visual/performing arts, in a graded course. Most OOS students get tripped up by that requirement. I don’t see that listed. If you don’t have that course, it is a rejection.

The UC’s look at GPA first (overall GPA including freshman year) but consider course in 10th and 11th grade.

Your test scores are good, but that has to be viewed in conjunction with everything else.

14

I’m with @renaissancedad and am not feeling the spark that gets you into top schools. Why did you not join in many of your EC’s until you were a junior? What will you major in?