Chance me please! chicago ed2 v rd

chance me for uchicago ed2 vs rd!

i love chicago and i’m trying to decide if i should ed2 or if i should risk getting in via rd. i didn’t ed1 because i was still too undecided

demographics: female, south-east asian, fl, small private high school (on scholarship), full pay

  • have “extraneous circumstances” in counselor’s essay about mom being sick and dad traveling, having to take care of my younger brother, etc

  • speak english, telugu, and spanish

intended major: philosophy

act/sat/sat ii: 35 in every section, 10 on writing (first sitting). didn’t take sat ii’s because covid

uw/w gpa and rank: w: 5.1, uw: 3.86, school doesn’t rank

coursework/rigor:

  • 12 aps in total (5 this year), 5’s and 4’s so far.

  • 5 on human, psych, apush and 4 on bio, world, calc ab, lang.

  • taking us government, macroeconomics, literature, statistics, and enviro this year.

  • all my other classes were honors

awards:

  • royal conservatory piano exams up to level 6

  • national spanish exam level 3 honorable mention

  • ap scholar (soph year), ap scholar with distinction (junior year)

  • in school debate awards: academic excellence in speech and debate (9th), speech and debate top point leader (9-11), speech and debate leadership award (10th)

  • national merit commended scholar

publications:

  • wrote/published chapter in an anthology for a yale prof on the philosophy topic i want to go to grad school for

  • article for the un youth envoy

  • article on medium for a large non-profit/youth activism group

  • helped direct social media of a podcast with large and established media company

  • series of interviews and spoken word for aapi month

societies, clubs, extracurriculars:

  • speech and debate / grades 9, 10, 11, 12

  • national honor society / grades 10, 11

  • national english honor society / grades 10, 11

  • pre-med society / grades 9, 10, 11 (i used to be pre-med bc parents)

debate awards/comm service:

  • national speech and debate association ranked #1 in the state of florida and #5 in the usa

  • high school team event captain sophomore and junior year

  • high school team co-president junior year

  • national speech and debate association premier distinction, all state award, academic all-american award

  • co-president of an organization that gives resources to hs debaters who can’t afford private coaches or have large teams; planned lectures, demos, etc

  • mentor for organization that coaches young gender minorities in debate to combat sexism/trans*phobia in the activity

  • helped plan and organize free online summer debate camp for students who couldn’t afford it

  • qualified to various national tournaments and states (got to elims as a sophomore, had covid as a junior so i couldn’t go)

  • invited to exclusive round robins at various debate schools and university of florida

  • was fairly good at debate, got a lot of speaker awards and elims of most tourneys jr/sr year

  • judged over 30 hours at a variety of online debate tournaments run by peers for younger students to acquire practice

activism

  • regional director for march for our lives

  • press team (and other smaller roles) of a youth environmental activism org

  • interned with organization that gives educational resources to kids in bangladesh

community service

  • indian health initiative to provide anemia medicines to poor tribal

communities

  • free clinic in india to provide medical treatment to poor populations

  • founded, developed and co-directed a non-profit organization to provide free tutoring for foster kids/cancer patients who were struggling during remote learning (affiliated with large nonprofits)

  • fostered at a local shelter which had a surplus of kittens, cared for underweight/special needs kittens

essays:

  • common app: talked ab being love for charles dickens in elem school, going to a pwi when i was young, bulling, debate, etc. pretty good and a lot of ppl liked it (8.5/10)

  • u chi main: talked about philosophy program, wanting to be a professor when i grew up, other opportunities in chicago like working with chicago urban debate league (9/10)

  • u chi creative: picked the dividing by 0 prompt, connected it to linguistics and my own life. good really good feedback about this one, asked a bunch of t20 friends who helped revise it and said they really liked it (9.5/10)

lors:

  • counselor: really liked me and only has 8 students bc she’s head of dept, we had a lot of heart to hearts so she knows a lot about me (8.5/10)

  • ap psych teacher: wrote ab emotional intelligence and being a good peer/leader but idk how good she is at writing (7/10)

  • ap lang teacher: didn’t know me super well but i did good in her class and normally writes good letters (8/10)

  • school debate director: loved me, known me since middle school and talked ab how much i care about debate more than just competitive success, really good writer but barely writes kids letters unless he really likes you (10/10)

note: this post might be on here twice because my friend posted it for me on accident lol

Where did you ED1/EA?

SCEA yale

My son did the same and when deferred applied ED2 to UChicago because it was a strong second choice and practically tied with Yale at the time. Now he thinks it is the better school and is glad to be there. My advice: apply to UChicago ED2 if it’s your strong second choice. If you want other choices (including rolling over to RD with Yale), then apply RD to UChi. You have a very strong application but of course it’s not possible to gauge chances in a CC forum. Good luck to you!

2 Likes

Southeast Asian and Telugu? So you’re either Singaporean or Myanmese?

If Singaporean, there is a large contingent at UChi. You should reach out to current students