Chance Me (Notre Dame, Duke, Emory, etc)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi everyone, hope you are having a great day! I am applying to a wide variety of schools, and I was wondering what my chances were!

Schools: Notre Dame, Duke, Emory, Princeton, Stanford, Rice, WashU, Vanderbilt, UCLA, UC Berekley, UCI, UCR, UCSB, USC, Georgetown

Demographics: Asian, Male. Competitive public school in suburbs (school is ranked in top 5%)

Income: ~33k

Major: Sociology (I have taken over 7 sociology classes at my local community college)

SAT: 1570

SATII: 790 Math2, 740 Lit, 670 US History

UW/W GPA: 3.8, 4.53

Rank: 42/560

AP (Previous and Current) : AP Psych (4), AP Lang (4), AP Comp Sci (4), APUSH (3), AP Bio(3), AP Chem (3), AP Euro (3),AP Lit, AP Comp Sci A, AP Human Geography, AP Calc BC, AP Macroeconomics

Awards:
Questbridge National Finalist,
Earthwatch Ignite Fellowship recipient,
National Merit Commended,
4 years of President’s Volunteer Service Award (Gold, 9-12th grade)
, 1st Place in Student Television Network Category,
3rd Place in Student Television Network Category,

PBS SoCal- Video Feature,

EC:
President of Science Olympiad,
President of club focused on helping orphans,
Treasurer in club focused on bringing water to 3rd world countries,
Work part time to support family (18 hours/ week),
6 years of city’s youth orchestra,
Part of the School on Wheels program where I tutor disadvantaged children every week,
Vice President of music orchestra that plays music for the homeless,
2 years of JV Lacrosse
300+ hours of volunteer hours

Essays/LOR: Counselor - 9/10, 1st Teacher - 10/10, 2nd teacher - 7/10

Special Circumstances: The reason my UW gpa is so low is because in the 2nd semester of my sophomore year, my family got evicted from our home and sent into the streets. That really hit me hard, and it was hard for me to focus on my studies that semester. However, 11th grade and on, I kept straight A’s and I am hoping to continue that into senior year as well. I wrote my common application personal statement on this experience, so I hope that might suffice as an explanation for my circumstance.

Thank you so much!

2

All of these are reach schools. Based on the income I’m seeing, you’re going to have a very hard time affording them, even if you attend a school in-state. You’ll need a scholarship, and the more prestigious the school, the less scholarship money you can expect to get.

There’s a lot of scholarship money out there. You just have to know where to look. Less densely populated areas such as the south, southwest and the midwest are often gold mines for university guaranteed scholarships. The places you can start would be University of Alabama, Auburn, Univ of AZ, University of UT, Texas State University, University of KY, University of Louisville, Univ of Iowa, Baylor, and TCU.

Also many of these schools have competitive full ride scholarships in their honors programs. You should take some time to apply for those as well.

3

Congratulations on achieving QB finalist! Did you rank 12 schools?

I can’t chance you, but have some more questions:

Are you a California resident?

What is your UC weighted, capped GPA? https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

For the UC schools, what major(s) will you be applying to?

You do need to add some target schools, and at least one affordable safety.

Please run the net price calculators on each school’s website to get an estimate of cost of attendance to help determine affordability…note the NPCs may not be accurate if your parents are divorced, run their own business, or have multiple or income producing properties (I assume based on noted family circumstances that last factor does not apply)

Good luck, and I hope that you match thru QB come early December. If you don’t match, do have an application plan for QB partner schools that you would still be interested in (some have EDI/II and some schools will allow those apps if you don’t match even if the deadline is passed, and they will all accept RD apps via the QB portal.

4

I would not report the AP scores, as they are low compared to the GPA/SAT 1 score.

If you’re not matched to WashU, chances are good for ED1/2, as the school wants to increase enrollment for students with low SES.

Sociology is a relatively new major at WashU (they eliminated the major in the 90’s and just reestablished the major a few years ago) so an interest might be favorable for admissions.

Asian male not interested in STEM but rather sociology might be beneficial, although it’s not really a hook.