Chance me for USC, UT, UVA, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, UPenn, Duke.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

PLEASE BE AS BRUTALLY HONEST AS POSSIBLE. I want to see my legitimate chances at each school so I know I don’t waste time.

So, I go to an average size but a really competitive high school in the Dallas area. It is in the top 500 high schools in the nation and one of the best in the state. Btw, here are my stats:

Weighted GPA from frosh and soph years: 5.0360/6.000
Unweighted GPA: 3.74/4.00. (Messed Up Freshman Year, Had 5 out of 7 B’s during Freshman Year).
First SAT (10th Grade): 1260 (EBR: 600 M: 660)
Second SAT (11th Grade) : 1390 (EBR: 660 M: 730)
First ACT (Summer Before 12th Grade): 34 (E:30 M:36 R:35 S:33) (Writing:9)
Rank: School doesn’t rank. (If I had to guess, maybe 10%-11%, however colleges wouldn’t see it.)

In terms of classes, I have taken 8 AP’s from Freshman to the end of Junior year. I am taking 6 AP’s my senior year as well. I am taking the most rigorous schedule available to me. My grades through high school so far mostly A’s and 7 B’s (5 of them were during Freshman Year than one in sophomore and junior year). I’ll probably end this year with all A’s my senior year.
Total, I would have taken 14 AP Classes over 4 years.

Extracurriculars:
Non-Profit Foundation (9,10,11,12) - My uncle and I founded it in a village in India. We provide food for homeless villagers who can’t afford to walk to the city to get food.
Cookbook sale (10) - My mother and I created a cookbook that we sold around the community to friends and family to raise funds for the non-profit. We raised over $2,500.
Knitting Club (10,11,12) - President of an informal club that I made out of school in which we met up at another members’ house and had fun knitting clothes.
Economics Club (11,12) - Founder and President of an out-of-school club in which we had weekly meetings with members over either group skype or meet up at an agreed-upon location to spark discussions, talk about investment ideas and learn and understand what we could about micro and macroeconomics. The studying was with the help of online classes, in school teachers, and self-learning through books, etc.
Philosophy Club - (12) - Nothing, really. I club that I helped establish in the school in which we talked about different philosophical beliefs and sparked discussions between students of various socioeconomic levels. Ideas included talking about religion, differences in values through different cultures, different philosophical beliefs.
Key Club (9,10,11,12) - Member who used their services to better help the community in which I lived in.

Hook (*Reason why I did poorly Freshman Year):
I was very anti-establishment throughout my whole life. I was very into religion and finding the true purpose of life. I wasn’t the typical Asian student growing up and that’s why I didn’t give much effort in school. I was always against the notion that I waster years of my life to go to school only to learn how to make money for someone else and slave away my life doing it. I always wanted to know the true purpose. That’s what got me into reading philosophy and religion. That is also why I wasn’t doing so well Freshman year. I know, I can’t use that as an excuse but, to be honest, that is why I had no motivation my freshman year. However, after reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic philosopher, I soon realized that, although money doesn’t buy one’s happiness, it does give one the freedom and time to pursue the things in life that make them happy. That’s when my motivation for school kicked in. Rather my motivation to escape this bond to a life that makes me work for 40+ years. I soon realized that a quality education and a ticket to a good college can lead me to a path in which I can use my limited time in this world to gain my freedom from living paycheck to paycheck, worrying about money, and actually helping the greater community around me. Essentially, I’ve always wanted to help the unfortunate but I had no plan, but after the summer after my freshman year, I did. That is what I want to convey to the admissions officers in my college application. I don’t want them to see my low GPA and think I am unmotivated and lazy when it comes to school and throw me out of the possible candidates. Essentially, I want to show how I am actually a motivated student who has many goals and aspirations he wished to reach in life rather than a lazy kid who is just passing by. It’s just that this sense of motivation came a little late.

Work/Volunteering:
I’ve done roughly 100 hours of community service.
Volunteered at my school (Basic school work and volunteer activities such as setting up items for an event, etc.
Volunteered at both of my local temple (Helped teach basic English and communication skills to recently immigrated Indians who sought refuge and connection at my local temple.)
I was a Supply Chain/Corporate Finances Intern at a local restaurant over the summer of 2017. (I shadowed the owner and the CFO to learn the logistics of their restaurant business model.)

Awards:

AP Scholar with Honor (2019)
Most Confident Speaker in Spanish Class (2017)
AP Capstone Credit (On track to get by end of Senior year)

(I think this is my weakest area as I didn’t participate in many school-sponsored activities to get many certified awards. I didn’t have a parent that could pick me up after school since my dad only works and he needs the car till 7 or 8 every day. That is why I had to come home every day with the bus and I had to start clubs outside of school to compensate for my complications.)

I’m Indian, and I will put Asian on my application cause my name is recognizable as an Asian/Indian name.
Family Income is roughly 150k.

BASICALLY, I am trying for USC, UT Austin, University of Virginia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, UPENN, Duke. I am pursuing a career in either Accounting, Finance or Economics. Do I have any shot at ANY of these colleges? Please be as HONEST AS POSSIBLE.

2

@nkg912 For the average unconnected applicant with no significant national level awards and an unweighted GPA of 3.74/4.00 and SAT 1390 makes the odds of success at T20 about average, in other words - single digits. Add Asian applicant and the odds are even less.

Nothing wrong with a few apps to these extremely reachy schools, but you really should put a significant number of your apps in at schools where your stats put you in the top 50-75% of admitted students.

3

Your chances are lousy. They’re lousy for everyone. Even if you managed to get in, could you afford to go there? Would you get accepted into your major of choice? Your focus should be target and safety schools. It’s nice to reach for the stars, but you need to get into college and be able to major in something employable. That’s your solid footing.

4

Thing is, for the tippy tops, a lot of the real competition will apply with NO B grades. Or just a B in some elective or gym. Their scores will be higher and the ECs will include more that are specifically the sort/energy/stretch that these colleges look for. Kids will have done significant local community action (they don’t count hours, per se, but 100, over 3.5 years, only comes out to about 2 hours/month. That’s not much commitment.)

Imo, kids need to understand the competition for a tippy top is a “no excuses” situation. Boil this down to 2 reaches and find the right matches and safeties for your actual record.

5

(Based only your post, obvs)

So, I don’t really see a story that’s more than 'grew up & decided I wanted to make money so Finance (or similar) at UPenn (or similar) seems like the best way to do it.

There is nothing in your choice of colleges that makes sense to me, unless it’s the “I want Ivy, but am realistic about HYP, so I’ll just apply to all the ‘lesser’ ones, with Duke as the Southern Ivy and UVa as the Public Ivy” thing. But- that is not really a thing. (UT-A and USC are outliers at this party, and I wonder if you see them as your safeties or something?) They are really different and given that you are not a slam-dunk for any of them, your odds will only be helped by figuring out which one(s) is/are a genuinely good fit for you.

In the meantime your first two ECs appear to be heavily tied to adults in your family. The problem with that is AOs will wonder how much was you, and how much was your mom/uncle (and if you just wipe your uncle out of the story about the providing food to a village in India there isn’t an AO out there who won’t assume that there is an adult involved in that). Moreover, even adding up all your ECs & the work section together, it’s not obvious where your time goes. Most of the students applying for tippy top schools are doing a LOT with their time.

A couple of specifics:

Rank: your school might not rank, but you are mistaken if you think that those colleges won’t know whether you are at the top of your cohort or not (especially as you go to a competitive HS, which sends kids to selective colleges).

Naviance is your friend for assessing how your stats place you.

6
Your chances of getting into any of the colleges listed above is close to zero. Your grades are mediocre, and so is your testing (apart from ACT). The ECs are a laundry list that is very proto-typical Asian. You don't really add much to any of the incoming classes, so you will likely be rejected from all of the above colleges.

Now to put this into perspective, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. You will go to college. Probably a very good one. And I’m sure you’ll work very hard and be successful in life. What you achieve in life is not determined by which college you attend. Things are harder for you as an Asian in an over-represented area. You have a couple of options if you want to attend a Top 20 college:

  1. Do a gap year, or PG year at a boarding school. Use this as an opportunity to take challenging courses and show that you can do the work. If you choose this route, suggest to avoid applying to any T20 schools now, wait until your gap year to apply.

  2. Start off at a community college or a lower ranked college with the intention of transferring. You can transfer at the end of your first year, or even the end of your second. Cornell accepts a lot of transfers. They even used to use the term ‘guarantee’. And as long as you had a decent college GPA (>3.5) it was almost a lock. The downside is you apply by major and college to Cornell, so getting into the more prestigious majors or colleges within Cornell is a bit more difficult. Cornell has matriculation agreements with several community colleges in upstate NY. Students who start off at community college under one of these agreements have a good chance of getting into Cornell later.

7

Don’t let the others get you down (even though you asked others to be brutally honest). One thing you’ve got to do, however, is to put together a list of safety schools.

Also, in your essays try to thread your extracurriculars into a theme. I believe it’s really better to have one major interest than several disconnected interests but if you have an array of interests you can still thread together. For example, you can show leadership, volunteerism, or collaboration/teamwork to show the kind of student you’ll be at the University.

8

“Your chances are lousy. They’re lousy for everyone.”

After going through this process with my daughter this last year I have to say I agree. I am still confused by the logic behind where she was and was not accepted. And I saw the same with her friends who applied at top schools. It is simply totally unpredictable, even for a student with a seemingly “perfect” application.

While I don’t think you need to give up on your dream to go to the schools you’ve listed, and I personally think your EC’s are interesting, I don’t think ANYONE can count on getting in to any of those schools, therefore they are reach schools for pretty much everyone. That means you need to think about your safety schools. You definitely need to apply to some schools that you are more likely guaranteed admission (and that you can afford). I’ve seen lots of my daughter’s friends end up at their safeties for all sorts of reasons, often financial.

Finally, like others have said, I would really spend some time thinking about WHY you want to go to those schools you’ve listed. Is it all reputation? You have quite a mix of schools there. Do you have any preferences in regards to location, size, atmosphere, class size, etc.?