Chance me for UGA, GT, UCLA, UCB, Cornell, Stanford

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics: Indian male, young for my grade because I skipped 4th grade. Upper middle class income. First gen immigrant (parents moved to Europe from India and had me; they moved to the US when I was 6 months). Rising junior in a specialized high school that you have to apply to, yet public. It’s really unique in nature and is very “pathway” based (ie my pathway is Cybersecurity). Would you call my school a hook? (I’m also in the inaugural freshman class).

Intended Major(s): CS or Econ/Finance

ACT/SAT/SAT II: Doing copious amounts of summer studying for SAT and am scoring 1480-1540 each test. I’m in a prep class and the teacher tells us he gives us pretty hard tests, so I don’t know if I should account for that. If I don’t do super well on SAT, I plan to take the ACT as well.

UW/W GPA and Rank: 4.27 GPA currently, 5/326 (my school weighs honors classes like regular classes, only APs get that weightage)

Coursework: I have been taking the highest level of classes available to me. Freshman year I took AP World History (5), and Sophomore year I took APUSH (4), APCSP (5), and I also took AP Euro online (this was an 8th class taken outside school hours, and I did not take the AP exam).

I will be taking AP Econ, AP Physics 1, AP Calc BC, AP Lang, and APCSA my junior year. I decided to stop taking Spanish, so I only have 3 Spanish credits.

Senior year I also plan to take 4-5 AP courses, bringing my total up to 13-14 AP classes. Keep in mind I’ve only taken 4 as of right now.

Awards:

  • 1st Place at State in the platinum division for CyberPatriot
  • Have placed top 50-100 out of thousands of teams for a few CTF events (these are capture the flag based cybersecurity type competitions)
  • 2nd Place in a computer based FBLA event at state level
  • 7th in the nation for a business based FBLA event at the national level
  • I hope to get National Merit and other awards during my junior year.
  • Will have some Networking certifications before I graduate: either Security+ or Network+ I can't remember. Hopefully a few more.

Extracurriculars (in no particular order):

  • VP of Marketing in DECA (upcoming for 11th), member from 9th, but only started competing in 10th.
  • FBLA Member since 9th. Small leadership roles for committees (VP of Membership Recruitment, PR for Middle School Outreach)
  • Treasurer for Cybersecurity club (includes CyberPatriot)
  • Beta Club
  • Vibha Club
  • Volunteer at Teen Leadership Club at YMCA (only like 40+ hours, I haven't been crazy with volunteering)
  • Atlanta Hawks Internship/Job Shadow. Sadly, this was cut short due to COVID. The woman I shadowed was a Sales Associate.
  • Plan to become involved in Democratic Students of America club
  • Plan to found Entrepreneurship/Investing Club
  • Attended 1 Hackathon so far, and I intend to attend more
  • Represented my school in a pitch-deck for a business idea with a few friends. This was local, but prizes were generous sums of money, and we were published in the local newspaper.
  • Net ~15-18k sales reselling shoes/clothing
  • Net ~4-5k sales on eBay (mainly flipping random things but some shoes)
  • Sold cards over Instagram and grew an account to 2.8k followers through social media marketing. It got to the point where I would get 40-80 DMs some days and spend hours DMing/shipping. Eventually hired my girlfriend to do the DM work. Shortly after, I made an e-commerce website selling slightly different cards. Due to a wildly successful marketing campaign, the store made 6k in sales in less than 3 days, but due to a copyright issue I shut it down. Really sad, but it was the right thing.
  • I used this Instagram account to start a new e-commerce business catered to the same audience. I got a buddy on board as a graphic designer to make product images, logos, advertisements, product videos, and FB ads. He took 40% of the company. Though this venture was undertaken with more caution, planning, strategy, and professionalism, we started very slow and only net about $300-$500 total in sales before pulling the plug. No profit was made.
  • Start of freshman year I created this marketplace/community for people to buy and sell items/accounts in a particular game. Had around 2k members. On top of buying/selling myself, I offered services such as advertisements and middleman services. Both were paid services. Hired 2 friends to serve as middlemen.
  • Most recently I've been involved in stock trading and I spend the majority of my time doing it. Though I've lost a substantial amount of money trying to day-trade, I've learned an immense amount about the monetary markets, economics, the stock market, business, and more. Ever since I've been trading stocks in March I've decided to potentially take on Finance/Econ as a major.

Essays/LORs/Other: 0 idea about what I am going to write. There were 2 times I had a “I need to get my ■■■■ together” moments in FBLA, but they seem cliche. A bit early for thinking about LORs, but I’ll def get one from my Cybersecurity teacher (she also is the FBLA advisor).

Schools: UGA Honors, Georgia Tech, possible UCLA/UC Berkeley. I also think I’ll try my chances with Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, and Vanderbilt. I’ll be applying to a few other safeties as well. Stanford has been my dream school since freshman but I realize I have to be realistic; my dream school now is more GT. Please reverse chance me and help me figure out some schools I should have in mind!

2

State of residency?

Budget?

3

Georgia, and money isn’t a huge issue with financial aid and scholarships, however I’d prefer cheaper (like probably not paying 60k out of pocket).

4

I also forgot to add I am starting, with 2 friends, a free soft skills tutoring service to teens in India where soft skills aren’t really emphasized and people are just taught to learn by books. We’re trying to partner up with a large non profit, but for now we’re fine with just running it ourselves and teaching 20 kids to start.

5

Then you should take all the UC’s off the table. The UC system does not provide any financial aid, nor substantial scholarships/grants to non-residents. Expect costs of $65k per year.

The University of California is a public university system, funded by the state’s taxpayers. They are not going to fund a non-resident who doesn’t currently pay taxes in the State of California. FYI their scholarships average about $2k a year. That will, maybe, cover the health insurance fees that are required by the schools.

Before you apply to some of these schools, you need to check your budget first with your parents. A lot of schools will not have money, given Covid, so you need to ask your parents how much they are they going to pay per year.

6

I forgot to ask: you mentioned that you were brought to the US at age 6 months. Does that mean you have a visa or do you have a green card? It does impact your application and funding.

If your family or you, are currently on a visa, you would be considered as an international student.

7

This is a huge issue. Currently on a visa, but if all goes well we will have our green card within the next few months or within the next year. If I’m still on my visa by the time college applications roll out, then yes I’ll have to apply as international and won’t qualify for Hope, Zell, or in-state tuition. However, since I expect my green card very soon just assume I have it already.

8

My dad loves UCB, and he said he doesn’t mind paying for me to go there, but yeah UCLA is probably a no go with their financial aid. I just put it on here for kicks because I wish I could go

9

You’re going to have to assume $65K for all 4 years, cash, for UCB because you won’t qualify for instate tuition, nor residency, at UCB-because you have not been a taxpaying resident.

Your father’s willingness to pay over a quarter of a million dollars seems really extreme. It won’t matter if you get that green card status because it wont change the fact that non-residents don’t qualify for any state funding. Entering the State of California for educational purposes does not qualify you as a resident.

Also, assume that you will continue to be on a visa status. As of now, you have to assume that your green card paperwork is on hold. Until it is in hand, you can’t assume being able to use the FAFSA application at the time of application to your schools.

10

UCB isn’t even my first choice, so it’s honestly fine. I really was just wondering if I would even get in. And again, I should get my green card within the next few years, I’m even considering a gap year if I don’t get it by college application time.

Disregarding UCB and immigration, what do you think about the rest of the schools/rest of my app?

11

Your EC’s fit your goals which shows your passion.

The issue is that those schools are extremely competitive and no one really knows what those schools want, per year, for the “fit” of each class.

Personally, we know Stanford. Each year’s class is very different. They are very picky and, generally, tend to favor students who have volunteered in the community and created something for their community that attracts the nation. Activities that are “self-serving” are areas that we’ve seen them avoid. But, as I’ve said, every year, the class is very different from the previous years’, so you never know what the focus will be.

12

When did your green card application get submitted? It takes years for these to get processed sometimes. Don’t assume you will be the exception and yours will get her very quickly. It just might not.

13

My situation is very specific, if you wanna know more about it just DM me. Honestly I don’t know the full story because it’s really really specific and long, but I should know whether I’m getting my green card in the NEAR future, or if it’ll be prolonged within these next few months.

And yeah, people on H1B have been waiting years upon years upon years. Again if u wanna hear my story DM

14

thank you for that advice! I figured as much, I realized that my ECs are more profit/corporate based, and I really do want to help the community out, and I’ve forced myself to try and take up an entrepreneurial venture that actually makes an impact. Currently me and 2 other friends are making a tutoring type service where we offer free tutoring on soft skills to teens in India (where people really aren’t taught soft skills at all). Currently trying to partner with an NGO in India, and if we can get a partnership it’ll be huge

15

@leakcentral I am not going to DM you for details. My point is…do not assume that you’re situation is so unique that it will net you a green card faster.

Until you have that permanent resident status, you need to choose your college applications list like you don’t…and have a side list for if you actually get that green card before applications are submitted.

@“aunt bea” ?

Re: your chances? Stanford accepts about 5% of applicants. Your chance of being accepted is like everyone else with strong stats who apply. You have a 95% chance of not being accepted. Can your parents pay the full cost of attendance for this school?

I’m unclear whether you are eligible for need based aid or not…if NOT, then expect to be full pay at Stanford and Cornell also where only need based aid is given. I believe GT is moving in that direction as well.

16

Honestly good advice, to prepare for the worse. I’ll have that in mind when drafting college apps. My parents can afford UGA or GT even without Hope, Zell, scholarships, and in state, however for other OOS options private and public there may be issues.

Thank you for the help and chancing me!