Chance Me for Universities around the Nation

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Good Afternoon Everyone!</p>

<p>I would first like to thank you for reading this thread and chancing me! My name is Justin and I am a white, middle class, first generation college student from a small city in the heart of Kentucky. I have narrowed my list of colleges that I will be applying to down to eight and was hoping that you could chance me for those colleges.</p>

<p>The colleges that I have on my list are:
1.) University of Kentucky
2.) Vanderbilt University
3.) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
4.) New York University
5.) Boston University
6.) University of California, Berkeley
7.) University of California, Los Angeles
8.) Stanford University </p>

<p>In order to chance me, you need a little background information, so I have presented my statistics in a bulleted fashion below. However, you should first know that I am a student at the Gatton Academy. At this school I take college classes and live at Western Kentucky University. Currently, I only have thirty-four college credit hours, but I will have over sixty by the time I graduate.</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA: 3.91
Weighted GPA: 4.33</p>

<p>ACT Score: 28 - I will be retaking the ACT after I study more and I expect my score to raise at least two points (I did raise my English score 8 points between the first time I took the ACT and this time and I didn't study for either tests)</p>

<p>Course load: I have not taken any AP's, but I have earned thirty-four college credit hours, which means I am technically now a sophomore in college. My course load is very rigorous as I actually take hard classes at the university instead of easy general education requirements. </p>

<p>Extra Curricular Activities and Achievements:
- I have conducted undergraduate research in which I discovered my own bacteriophage, which I was able to name and archive at the University of Pittsburgh. I was then able to take a bioinformatics course and actually annotate the genes of a bacteriophage.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>I have conducted field research in Costa Rica. I had to hike up a mountain to the location of a recent landslide where I collected samples of Gunnera so that I could study the symbiosis between the Gunnera and Nostoc bacteria that grows in the plant's roots. I then returned to a small "lab" where our only technologically advanced scientific instrument was a 40x microscope.</p></li>
<li><p>I am currently conducting lung cancer research at the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center, Kentucky's only NCI designated cancer center, where I am comparing lipid profiles of cancerous and noncancerous tumors that were taken from patents' lungs. This research will then be used to try and formulate a way to diagnose patients with lung cancer sooner so that they have a higher chance of survival. (I will be entering this research project into the Siemens Competition and the Intel Science Talent Search. Also, my mentor constantly repeats that this will become a publication)</p></li>
<li><p>I am a member of the beta club, MED club (I will possibly become president), yearbook club, and WKU's microbiology club.</p></li>
<li><p>I will be a community developer for my floor of the residence hall, which is a huge leadership position</p></li>
<li><p>I have presented my bacteriophage research at the annual Western Kentucky University Student Research Conference where I won best of my session. I also presented at the local regional science fair (I won a total of five awards), state science fair, and even qualified for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.</p></li>
<li><p>I traveled to Italy for two weeks where I learned Italian and was fully submerged in the culture of various parts of Italy</p></li>
<li><p>I won an award for having the highest grade in algebra II honors, which I took a year before the others in my class.</p></li>
<li><p>Perfect attendance freshman, sophomore, and junior year</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Volunteer:
- I volunteered at my local hospital's Intensive Care Unit and Progressive Care Unit where I was able to gain first hand experiences in what it would be like to work in a hospital/ the medical field</p>

<ul>
<li><p>I helped organize and run a benefit dinner for a young girl that was suffering from cancer (We raised over $5,000 in less than two hours)</p></li>
<li><p>I volunteered at the local food kitchen multiple times</p></li>
<li><p>I also helped deliver, relocate, and take care of endangered baby leatherback sea turtles in Costa Rica. I ended up saving over fifty baby turtles, which is a large amount considering how few are left. </p></li>
<li><p>I have over 30 hours of other random small volunteer things I did</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Letters of Recommendation:
- One will come from my residential counselor. We are extremely close and she has seen me prosper and bloom as a student and as a regular teenager</p>

<ul>
<li>The other(s) will come from one of my college professors that has their PhD and knows me very well. </li>
</ul>

<p>There are other things I am leaving off, but this is a gist of what my applications will look like. Also, please make any recommendations that I should do to better my chances! Thank you very much!</p>

2

<p>Bump, I know it’s a lengthy post, but does anyone happen to know where I stand in regards to my chances of being admitted? </p>

3

<p>Stanford is a reach for everyone, and your test score - as it stands right now - probably disqualifies you. UNC admissions are brutal for out-of-state applicants, and so it has to be considered a “reach.” Your GPA is probably adequate for Berkeley and UCLA, although your ACT is a little low. You should calculate your UC GPA - they have a discrete formula,and any Common Data for their admissions will use that. Vanderbilt famously places a lot of weight on ACT/SAT scores, and yours are not competitive. If they go up significantly in the fall, you might have a shot. Otherwise, consider applying to Tulane instead. Are you looking at pre-med programs, or a STEM-intensive undergraduate college? I’d say that NYU and BU are probably matches (especially if you bring your scores up a little bit), unless you are applying to their more competitive Engineering or six-year BS/MD programs. In that case, they are probably low-to-middle reaches. I’m pretty sure that UK is a safe choice for you. You might want to explore some test-optional colleges, also, if your scores don’t rise substantially. Your credentials are impressive, apart from the ACT score. </p>

4

<p>Thank you for chancing me! I plan on going into the medical field, specifically neurology, so I would like to attend a school that is focused on STEM and research. Ultimately, I would love to attend a university that has many opportunities to conduct biomedical research like I currently am. I have two quick questions. Do you think the fact that I’m a first generation student will help me or is it not very important? Second, my dream school is either UCLA or NYU, so if I’m able to raise my ACT to a 30 or higher do you think I’ll have a good chance of getting into either of those schools? Thank you again! </p>

5

<p>I’d say that my previous response would still hold even with an ACT of 30. There are lots of terrific colleges out there. Look at Temple, Case Western, Butler, and some other UCs (if you are prepared to pay out-of-state tuition). Maybe Pitt, also - they are associated with a world-class hospital. You are an extraordinary candidate, but your ACT is your weakest link. Some colleges will look past that, but don’t presume that they all will. Be prepared to apply to colleges where a 28 ACT is well within the median range in the department you are applying to. Some larger universities post aggregate figures that can be misleading if they don’t break down by specific schools. Students admitted into visual or performing arts programs that rely heavily on auditions and portfolios will not have the same Math scores as those admitted to the STEM programs, nor will the football players admitted into the least selective academic division. State universities usually don’t break down the statistics for in-state and out-of-state, either. </p>