Chance me for T20 Universities and T10 LACs

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi, I am a junior and I wanted to know if I would have a decent chance at the schools I am looking at. I go to a VERY competitive public high school in Northern NJ where 30-40 go to top 30 schools.

Preliminary College List:
High Reach- Stanford, Princeton, Duke, Yale, Dartmouth
Low Reach- Williams (ED), Amherst, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Georgetown
Match- Colgate, Hamilton, UVA, Middlebury
Safety- UT Austin Plan II, Wake Forest, U Richmond

Stats:
SAT: 1540 (770 M 770 CRW) 19 Essay (6,6,7) (Should I take again? This was first time)
SAT II: Bio M: 790
GPA UW: 3.93/4
GPA W: 4.32 as of 1st semester Junior year
Class Rank: Top 5% in very competitive HS, 10/366 (Rank not given to colleges as of now)
AP’s:
Sophomore:
AP Euro (5)
Junior:
AP Spanish, AP US History, AP GOPO, AP Chem
Senior:
AP Spanish Lit, AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Enviro, AP Econ (Macro and Micro)

Extracurriculars:

  • Model UN- Middle School Director, President prob next year, multiple awards
  • School Newspaper- Op-Ed Section Editor, hopefully Head Editor next year
  • Founder and President of Young Republicans Club
  • Chair of Essex County Teenage Republicans
  • Run a Political News Blog for 5 years
  • Play Violin for 9 years, in Accel Music Program
  • Cross Country and Track Team
  • 50 hours of volunteering at local library

Summer Activities:
2018:

  • Internship on a political campaign for 15 hours a week (120 hours in total)
    2019:
  • Internship with the Cumberland County (ME) Republican Party

Letters of Rec:
History Teacher- I had him for two years and he is continually impressed with my knowledge and passion about politics.
English Teacher- I only had her this year but she said my writing is at a really high level and gave me her first 100% on an essay ever.

Awards:

  • Will be National Merit Commended if numbers don’t drastically change
  • Williams College Book Award
  • Biliteracy Seal if I get a 4 or 5 on AP Spanish exam

Other Info:
Income: High
Ethnicity: Indian and Filipino
Sex: Male
Financial Aid: N/A
From a suburb in Northern NJ

Hooks: A conservative? Maybe Filipino?

I am looking to major in political science or philosophy.

Thank you in advance for reading this and giving me feedback! I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s responses and please be as honest as possible regarding my chances and my college list.

2

Can you explain how these are safeties?

“Safety- UT Austin Plan II, Wake Forest, U Richmond”

When I think of safeties I think of guaranteed admission (or close to it) with your stats.

3

You have no safety schools on your list. None. Also not sure how you are determining “low reach” for schools with sub 10% acceptance rates.

This list is a recipe for heartbreak

Find true safeties!

PS. Conservative and Filipino are not hooks.

4

@socaldad2002 I assigned them as safeties based on counseling from my guidance counselor and looking at the Naviance Scattergrams from my school. I also looked at the SAT ranges and I was way over 75 percentile. Would Rutgers as instate public be more of a safety? I really don’t want to go there though

5

I think you are a strong candidate and assuming your essays and LOR’s are as good as the rest of your application, you should get into at least one of your reaches. I agree with your safeties, especially if you consider them in aggregate. You my friend have no hooks.

If I were you, I’d pick two of the schools you really like and focus your application on those two. Make sure your essays speak to how you, and uniquely you, plus the university make society a better place. Find out what those two universities really like, and ask your teacher to include examples of how you’ve exhibited that in their class. You don’t want “Joey is a great kid” type recommendations. You want “I know that the University of Chicago values the Life of Mind. Let me tell you about a time where Joey showed that…” type of recommendations.

You can’t do that for every application, nor is it fair to ask your teachers to write those kind of LORs for every recommendation. So, pick two for the focused LORs and essays. The rest can be more generic.

I know it isn’t on your list, but UChicago seems to really value the Model UN EC. I’m not sure about the rest. Also, remember if a school has a 5% acceptance rate, it doesn’t mean your chance of acceptance is only 5%. With your stats and transcript, I’d say your in the high 30% at any of your High Reaches. If you don’t get it, it isn’t anything you did or didn’t do.

When my son (now at UChicago) toured Williams they told us that the ED chance of acceptance isn’t any greater than the RD chance. She told us the stats look better because all of their Hooks are told to apply ED. The unhooked student get’s no real bump. If that is true, I’d do a little research on the other schools and see if you can more strategically use your ED. Of course if Williams is absolutely your first choice, that is the true reason to use it there.

6

UT Austin by law take 90% of their students from in state. It’s a reach for all OOS applicants.

You need to look at the acceptance rates, not just where your stats land.

Yes, Rutgers would be more of a safety but if you wouldn’t be happy there, then it’s not a good pick. You should love your safeties as much as your reach schools.

7

If you are not a Texas resident with a top 6% rank, UT Austin is a reach, not a safety. Plan II is also competitive, so it cannot be considered a safety even for those who can get automatic admission.

8

You are a strong candidate and it’s entirely possible you get into most of the schools on your list. However, if you do some reading on these forums, you can see that without a strong hook, there are kids with your type of numbers who get shut out. Sometimes there are way too many applicants that fit a specific type than colleges can accommodate. Happens a lot with the most selective schools.

I’m puzzled that your GC thinks that UTAustin is a safety. As others have said, it certainly is not unless you have some very strong connection to that school. Though statistically, it looks like an easy admit for you, it doesn’t work that way because of how they have auto admits for certain Texas grads, which you are not.

I don’t look at Richmond or WF as safeties either. Those two schools look at their candidates carefully and are very good at gauging level of interest

If Williams is your top choice school, go with itvas your ED choice. You get it, you are done.

However, i can tell you that it’s a tough blow to the psyche when you get deferred or rejected from your early choice. See it each year with some absolutely top grade applicants.

So far, it’s been an easy college search for you. You’ve been cherry picking colleges with high name recognition. Anyone looking at colleges would likely love to go to these schools. Easy peasy.

The most difficult part of the college search is coming up with programs and schools that you can like and that will provide you the great education you want …without that big name recognition factor. The schools that are certainly going to take you. You should come up with a list of those schools, find some that take early applications on a filling or EA basis, and get that safety school sewn up.

You haven’t mentioned finances. As in what your family can and are willing to pay without hurting themselves financially. If that’s an issue, it should be discussed now and looking for merit money as well as good financial aid, if you qualify should be a priority

9

High income Indian and Filipino = rich asian = ORM, aka the anti-hook.

For kids from a competitive HS with large numbers of kids applying to the most competitive schools, I usually recommend Naviance as a good place to start to get an indication of chances.

That seems to have gone a bit awry in your case, at least as regards Williams as a "low reach. " I don’t think you can assume that a school with a median SAT of 1510, where ~89% of the kids were in the top 10% of their HS classes is a low reach.

Also keep in mind that, particularly at competitive HS’s in relatively well off communities, many of the students will have legacy connections that are not reflected in Naviance. URM (not asian!) and athletic recruiting is also not reflected.

Given the nature of your HS, a safety is a school that there are ZERO red X’s to the NorthEast of your stats on the scattergram.

Matches, and reaches (whether high or low) depend on your level of comfort with the possibility significant numbers of the high stats kids in the past three years may have been legacies, etc.

What helps a bit is that your humanities focus sets you a bit apart from the typical high stats Asian STEM kid. That will probably help more at the LAC’s on your list.

Add some real safeties, write some truly awesome essays and hope for the best.

10

Thank you to all who commented! I will definitely look in to schools that will be more of a safety like Rutgers or University of Florida. Thanks again for the advice.

11

I think uva is atleast a low reach for any oos applicants considering they are required to take 2/3 in-state and like others have said your list of safeties is abit concerning

12

You are in NJ so Rutgers is your safety. Texas is a reach because very few OOS students are accepted.

13

Your list needs some serious re-working or you’re going to be very disappointed come next spring. No one can chance you for these schools. Every single one is a reach.
ETA This is not to say your stats aren’t amazing. They are. But so many kids I know from our competitive school had similar stats and were shut out from all or many of the schools on your list. Maybe consider adding Tulane, but if you do make sure to show them some love or they will reject you.