Chance me/Match Me Potentially delusional rising Junior

Demographics
NorCal, Competitive HS (Deerfield Academy), Dual Citizenship (US, Kenya), African Immigrant Female, ~750k annual household income.

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science then to Law School or Pre-law to Law school

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.75 (Working on improving it over the next two years)

  • Class Rank: In the top 20%, Highly likely to improve over the next two years

  • ACT/SAT Scores:
    I took the PSAT as a joke in the 8th grade (1150). Plan on taking the PSAT/SAT again Junior year. Might take the ACT not sure yet.

Coursework

  • AP Bio (prospective)
  • AP Lit & Lang (prospective)
  • AP Photography (5)
  • AP Physics (prospective)
  • APUSH (prospective)
  • AP Statistics (prospective)
  • AP Calc BC (prospective)
  • AP Computer Science Principles (5 - self study)

Awards
Awards is an area which I’m lacking, cant really think of any awards I’ve won.
Subject to Change.

Extracurriculars

  • EBMUD (utility company) Engineering Intern
  • Senate Page Program Intern (capital hill)
  • Founder of DA GEMS (Deerfield academy girls in engineering math and science), hosts a science fair for schools like Andover, Exeter, St. Paul’s @ Deerfield.
  • Model UN (prospective)
  • Cooking Blog and Instagram account with 2k followers on 300 monthly readers
    Will improve for the better over the next two years.

Essays/LORs/Other
None yet, but strong LOR candidates

Cost Constraints / Budget
No cost constraints, open to applying for scholarships etc.

  • Safety Any California state school, SDSU, CSU, etc
  • Likely Spelman College, Howard, William and Mary
  • Match Boston College, Villanova,
  • Reach Columbia, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkley, Georgetown

Some CSUs are very competitive for CS and should not be assumed to be safeties: CPSLO, SJSU, CPP.

What is your GPA as recalculated for UC and CSU? GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

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Using the calculator GPA came out as a 3.83

It’s too early to chance you if you’ve just finished 10th grade.

The best thing you can do right now is focus on your academics and test scores.

At the end of junior year, start building your college list from the safeties up, with the help of your guidance counselor. They will be able to help you best as they’ll know the historical placements of your classmates.

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If your GPA doesn’t improve, you are not likely for William & Mary. As @momofboiler1 notes, it is too early to be chancing you, without meaningful test scores and a GPA that has your junior year grades included.

For future reference, check out the Common Data Sets for the schools in which you are interested. Section C7 tells you how different academic and non-academic admission factors are weighed by each school; Sections C9-C11 give you various objective criteria for recently matriculated students.

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Things will change a lot over the next two years. If you are at DA, they are known for grade deflation, so a 3.75 there is very high. You will also be given tons of opportunities for leadership roles in 11th and 12th grade.

You have excellent college counselors that you will begin working with this year. They will probably be able to give you much better advice being familiar with you and how DA students place at many universities.

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Can you say that, though? This kid is at one of the best high schools in the country, and their gpa isn’t viewed the same as a public high school gpa.

OP your best guidance will come from the Deerfield college advisors. Plus you will have access to Naviance (or its equivalent) which will tell you much more accurately what your chances are.

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thanks for the advice!

I’ll make sure to check that out, thanks!

Your college advisors will definitely guide you but you should know that because it’s test blind, Berkeley is really tough with deflated GPAs. First step is recalculation by their formula, which you’ve done (remember only Soph and Jr years count). Then look at the tables for GPA admit rates by UC. Then look at majors. CS is unfortunately a capped major that has been scaled back and is highly competitive. You also can sort of get an idea of outcomes at the UCs by high school…for fall entry 2021, the last year for which you can get info, there were 33 Deerfield applicants to Berkeley, of whom 4 were admitted (and we don’t know what their majors were). Admissions by source school | University of California. The UC apps/essays are shared across campuses, so you might consider adding more UCs (Santa Cruz may be doable and is great for CS) if you’re open to the Cal States. Best of luck, rooting for you!

For CSUs, the recalculated GPA just gets plugged into an admission formula. High school does not matter unless it qualifies the student as local area for a given CSU campus.

Yes, but the poster to whom I was replying was talking about William and Mary, not the California schools.

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I think that it’s a little presumptuous – certainly at this stage – to consider W&M as “likely”.

I am actually agreeing with both you and @gandalf78 about William & Mary. I probably wouldn’t categorize it as a likely for an out of state female. The overall out of state acceptance rate is 28 percent and it is a bit lower for women. It probably should be categorized with Villanova and BC as a match. That being said, a student in the top 20 percent of the class at Deerfield will be a competitive applicant for just about anywhere.

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Congrats on your accomplishments, but IMO:
–It is too early to chance you (no standardized tests, lots of “prospective” coursework etc.).
–The guidance counselors at Deerfield Academy will have the best advice/feel for college admissions.

Keep doing what you are doing, study for the SAT/ACT, and you should have plenty of options.

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Ha, I read “not likely” as being “unlikely”. I certainly cannot categorize William and Mary for this student. But I wouldn’t say it’s "unlikely ".

If this student is in the top 20%at Deerfield it is likely (using the word advisedly!) that they will end up at a T20 school. Which T20, I don’t know. And there’s always a chance that they won’t. But it’s more likely than not.

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