Chance me for U Chicago, NYU, Rice, Upenn, etc.

Applying to College
1

<p>Colleges in order of preference:
U Chicago
NYU Stern
UT Business Honors/Engineering Honors/Liberal Arts Honors
Tufts
Northwestern
UC Berkeley
Columbia
Rice
Vanderbilt
U Penn</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA: ~3.9, at least 3.85 for sure
Weighted GPA: 4.208
UC GPA: Unknown</p>

<h1>of AP/IB: 4 by the end of Junior year, 5 more classes senior year and 2 self-study tests</h1>

<p>Class rank: 93/1289 or ~7%, likely to go up to top 5 or even 4 at the end of the semester
Possible hook: Huge upward trend from top 13% to nearly top 5%</p>

<p>SAT/ACT scores:
SAT: 2350 760 CR 790 M 800 W
ACT: 33 - Probably not sending in in favor of the SAT</p>

<p>SAT II scores: 750 World History</p>

<p>ECs:
Teen court (2 Years)
Debate (4 years)
FBLA (State champion in my event)
Key Club (Vice president)
French National Honor Society member</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:
UIL Current Events regional champion
FBLA 1st place Business Law State and Area
8th St. Mark's National Tournament
Rotary Youth Leadership Award (165 chosen out of 3000 applicants)
9th grade Advanced Orchestra 1st chair Viola
Junior Classical League Latin - Several awards
NFL degree of excellence</p>

<p>Short explanation of recs/essays</p>

<p>Well, clearly, very few colleges have released their essay topics, but I know from my teachers and friends that I can sound passionate about anything. Recommendation-wise, two of them will be from people who know me as a person and one is potentially a Harvard professor (Though I need to work on the skills to build a close relationship with a teacher)</p>

<p>Additional information:
I'm looking at combinations of these majors:</p>

<p>Applied Econ/Finance
IR/PoliSci
Petroleum Engineering
Korean/Norwegian - <em>minor</em>
Linguistics - <em>minor</em></p>

<ol>
<li>Please chance me</li>
<li>Am I shooting myself in the foot for law school by aiming for top colleges and then taking on such huge academic loads there? I want to graduate summa cum laude and with a near perfect LSAT score (To give me the best chance at all the law schools), but I feel like I would miss out on the 'college experience' by becoming a bookworm. Not only that, but I would have to do something outside of internships and classes to stand out as a leader.</li>
</ol>

2

<p>Definately send in your sat scores over your act. You really want to get that class rank up because although your class is large, mostly all of your schools listed get applicants from the top 1 to 2 percent of their classes. Being an econ major of any sort at UChicago is going to hurt, since 39 percent of the incoming freshmen choose it. That is a good hook but not a great one. UChicago really emphasizes essays over everything else. So you had better start looking into topics that personigy you and what you stand for. And I think no matter where you go, if you even want a little college experience, you will find some way to get it. Good luck</p>

3

<p>*personify</p>

4

<p>Our #2 (out of 600), with good ECs was waitlisted by:</p>

<p>U Chicago
Northwestern
Rice
Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Pretty much all of our top 20 was WL by these schools. The one who got in was our highest ranked URM.</p>

5

<p>@|OP - you mentioned “Well, clearly, very few colleges have released their essay topics, but I know from my teachers and friends that I can sound passionate about anything.|”</p>

<p>Can you please mention the colleges that have released their essay topics already? I was under the impression its generally released in August only. Would appreciate the names of those colleges and the links to the 2012 essay topics.</p>

<p>thanks</p>

6

<p>Well, I think UC’s essays (personal statement, really) are constant and that UT’s don’t really deviate from corny stuff like, “Write about a time someone profoundly affected you.” I’ll be honest, I’m beyond excited to write for U Chicago</p>

7

<p>Bump for actual chances.</p>

8

<p>What’s URM?</p>

9

<p>Underrepresented Minority. In the United States, universities sometimes take things like race into consideration when considering applicants to either counteract the effects of years of discrimination or improve campus diversity. For example, it’s often thought that Native Americans can get into most colleges that they want, because not only do they form a very small minority of the American population, but full or half Native Americans rarely leave the reservation to pursue higher education. We also, you know, kind of killed their buffalo.</p>

10

<p>U Chicago- Match (Excellent chance of getting in)
NYU Stern- Match
UT Business Honors/Engineering Honors/Liberal Arts Honors - Don’t know enough
Tufts - Safety/Match
Northwestern - Safety/Match
UC Berkeley - Safety/Match
Columbia - Reach
Rice - Safety
Vanderbilt - Safety/Match
U Penn- Reach</p>

<p>Your SAT scores alone put you above the 75 percentile of many schools. I think you will probably get into your top 2 choices. The Ivies are the only ones that might be reaches for you.</p>

11

<p>Why would you want to major in petro eng? Dying field.</p>

<p>Sent from my Droid using CC App</p>

12

<p>^Because s/he likes that field?</p>

13

<p>I wouldn’t say it’s a dying field, an article from either this or last year said that it was the highest paying major. Although, I’m not in it for the money. Ugh, I don’t want to type much, so I’ll list arguments.</p>

<ol>
<li>America is not even close to being green-sustainable yet.</li>
<li>Even if America weans itself off petroleum completely, you have to understand that plastics are made from oil, and that creates a necessity for the entire world.</li>
<li>It’s not to say petroleum engineering has reached its peak. We may know how to draw oil from the Earth, but can we do it more efficiently? Can we do it more safely? Can we locate remote sources of crude oil without hurting wildlife?</li>
<li>Oil won’t run out until about 2050 (and that’s known sources), at which point I’ll be at the end of my career.</li>
<li>I don’t really care about being a petroleum engineer. I want to be a patent lawyer for an oil company and having a nice background in petroleum is big ups in terms of getting a job. This is where argument 3 connects in. All that new technology? It’s going to need patents, and it’s going to need someone who understands the nuances of petroleum engineering to properly get it done.</li>
<li>When oil does start to run out, companies will try to create new technologies to make better use of it or get more of it. I’ll be there when crude oil costs $150 a barrel.</li>
</ol>

<p>Also, how badass is it to be well-versed in both the engineering field and the legal field? Talk about semi-Renaissance Man.</p>

<p>If anything, P-engineering is growing, it just gets a bad rep from the media.</p>

<p>But really, my major depends on the college I get into, because I want to go into the program it’s best in. I have way too many interests to be set on one field.</p>

14

<p>Bump for more answers</p>

15

<p>Engineering or International Relations or Finance? I would say do a little more focusing on what career path you would like to lead and then finding colleges will be much easier.</p>

<p>That being said, I don’t think you have enough math-geared involvement (besides your math SAT score) to warrant an acceptance to NW or Columbia engineering. You would be much more likely to get accepted applying to your list of schools as a business or PS major.</p>

16

<p>can someone explain to me what a UC GPA is for a high school student? does it have something to do with the california school system or is it some alternative acronym for unweighted or something.</p>

<p>haha i feel like an idiiot</p>

17

<p>The University of California system calculates GPA differently. It takes into account 10th and 11th grade, and only allows 8 semesters of the additional honors/AP point to be taken into consideration when calculating the GPA. Any honors/AP class after the 8th point counts as a regular class (A=4, B=3, etc.) My weighted GPA is 4.40, my unweighted GPA is 3.87, but my UC GPA is 4.19. Google it for more info.</p>

18

<p>Of this narrowed down list:</p>

<p>Columbia
Upenn
Brown
UC Berkeley
Tufts
Northwestern
Chicago</p>

<p>Which programs (Other than brown) are more liberal arts while still maintaining the university feel, in both atmosphere and curriculum?</p>

19

<p>And Georgetown as well.</p>

<p>So high academic focus, but leaning towards liberal arts.</p>

<p>Also, what programs at Northwestern and U Chicago are best?</p>

20

<p>Bump for answers</p>