Chance Me! Please rate my chances at some of the schools I applied to.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello,
I have finished my applications and am now just waiting on the responses. Can you please rate my chances of getting in to my schools and give me some insight as to why, or even just some tidbits about the schools.

Here is the list:

Stanford University
UC Berkeley
UC Los Angeles
University of Southern California
Georgia Tech
University of Washington
UC Santa Barbara
Virginia Tech
Clemson University (already accepted)

Here are my stats:

White, wealthy, male, South Carolina
Very good public high school
Applied for engineering
Early Action to Stanford and Georgia Tech
All of my grade related stats are going to be way higher at graduation than they were after junior year

My essays were pretty good, maybe a touch boring but well written and dense with information
1 teacher recommendation I wrote myself and was very, very good and like 4 pages long and the other I’m not sure how good it is.

SAT: 1480 (770 Math, 710 reading, 22 essay)
SAT Math 2: 710
Unweighted GPA: 3.79 (7pt scale)
Rank: 42/932
AP: Euro(4), Lang(5), Calc AB(3), USH(4)

Extra Curriculars:
Varsity golf (5 years)
Club Varsity Hockey (4 years)
National Honors Society (3 years)
Beta Club (3 years)
Politics Club (2 years)
Mu Alpha Theta FRM Secratary
German Club Federal President

Worked as a webpage consultant and marketing consultant for a guy and coached junior golf camps
Very well traveled
Lots of community service
Family and I moving to Australia here soon

Grades:

8th Grade-
Honors: Algebra 1-96

Freshman Year-
Honors: English 1- 94
Honors: Physical Science- 97
Honors: World Geography- 93
Health- 97
PE 1- 98
German 1- 99
Freshman Focus- 100
Honors: Geometry- 90
Honors: Intro Engineering- 97

Sophomore Year-
Honors: English 2- 89
Honors: Biology 1- 98
AP: Euro History- 90
German 2- 96
Honors: Algebra 2- 95
Honors: Pre Cal- 90
Honors: Aero Engineering- 94
Honors: Civil Eng and Architecture- 95

Junior Year-
AP: Eng Lang and Comp- 91
Honors: Chemistry 1- 96
AP: USH- 93
Honors: German 3- 99
AP: Calc AB- 97
Steel Drums- 100
Honors: Principles of Eng- 96

Senior Year- (Projected Grades)
AP: Calc BC- 98
AP: Gov and Politics- 96
AP: Micro Econ- 98
AP: Physics C Mech- 95
AP: Physics C E&M- ?
DC: ENG 102- ?

Thanks

2

UC GPA? https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

3

@Gumbymom
I’m not sure what UC considers an A, but I did it twice

With A being 90+:
Unweighted- 3.93
Weighted- 4.20
W&C- 4.20

With A being 93+ (how my school did it up until last year):
Unweighted- 3.80
Weighted- 4.07
W&C- 4.07

Does UC only give honors weight to California honors students?? If so why am I being penalized for being out of state? Or do California kids only get honors for AP too?

4

Writing your own recommendation is unethical. Four pages is also excessive but I guess you had a lot to say about yourself.

5

California students do get Honors points but not for all Honors classes, only the UC approved courses. UC’s are state funded schools so advatages are given to in-state applicants. As an OOS applicant, yes are do not get the extra honors points for your Honors classes but there are only about 3 UC approved honors clases so not a huge advantage. You also realize the UC’s give no financial aid for OOS applicants so expect to be full pay at $55K+/year.

6

@Gumbymom

Dang. Our entire education system is wack.

And yes, I do realize that, and unfortunately $55k is at the lower end of what I’m expected to pay of the schools I applied for, excluding Clemson.

7

No, our education system is not “wack”. As a California resident, I pay taxes to help support my in-state schools. I think my tax dollars should give my kids an extra boost over applicants that have parents that do not pay taxes here in California. You do not have to apply if you do not like the system.

Although in-state students get a slight advantage with UC approved honors classes, I am still a full pay parent for both kids at these schools, so they also do not get FA.

8

Your SAT is average to slightly above average in terms of your racial and financial background. Your ECs are slightly above average unless you are a nationally ranked golf player. Stanford is definitely a moonshot unless you are being recruited by their golf/hockey coach. Average chances at Berkeley. Slightly above average chances at UCLA. Sorry, but I don’t have much experience with the rest of the schools so I would not be able to give you a good estimate.

9

I mean the system in the entire country is wack. In-state/out-of-state tuition differences is not even legal. Plus financial aid shouldn’t be legal either. But that is neither here nor there. @Gumbymom

Do you know if the UC schools look at things like socio-economic background? Are they need blind, and does that go both ways? Or am I basically being compared to all the rich white guys from out of state for our few spots? @poipr123

Thanks guys for all the help!

10

They won’t see your income per se but they will compare you with respect to your location and given that you are wealthy and you will be compared to other relatively wealthy white suburban kids. Happy to help!

11

UC’s were built to educate California students at reasonable prices; the parents pay ridiculous amounts of instate taxes for public services, and schools. I am also a parent who has paid high taxes since I started working in high school. I’ve paid full fees at the UC’s for my daughter.

You don’t need to apply if you don’t like the system. In-state vs. out of state differences are legal. For ~18 years, these parents have continued to pay into the public university systems, and they will CONTINUE to pay, long after their kids have graduated. Your parents have not paid 18 years of California taxes, so why should California’s taxpayers support your education at our public schools?

GPA, and test scores “first” at the UC’s.
Level of course rigor is very important.
You don’t need to look at “need blind” because you don’t have need.

12

I’m not saying I am paying California taxes or anything of the sort, and hopefully never will. All I am saying is treating citizens from different states differently is illegal under the constitution at a public university, but they get away with it. And discrimination at private schools should be illegal, but is not.

I do need to look at need blind because if they truly are, they won’t take an under-qualified student in need over me because they want “diversity” or “fairness” or something along those lines.

13

Stanford is restrictive early action, i think you can’t apply to Georgia Tech early also. If found out, you will get rejected by both

14

Need blind=if you are low income and need financial help in order to attend, your ability to pay is not used when the admissions committee reviews your application.

They won’t judge your application based on your ability to pay that’s what need blind means. Look it up. Some schools are not need blind and they look to see if the student can pay the fees to attend.

The California publics are not allowed to use affirmative action to admit students. It’s illegal in California for public schools to admit anyone based on race. It doesn’t sound like you’ve done any research about the California publics.

Attending a post secondary institution is not a requirement nor law. You are not obligated, by law, to get a degree from any school in California. Don’t apply if you don’t like the rules of our state. Plus Berkeley and LA are out of reach for you, given your GPA and rank. California kids are uber competitive and have strong GPA’s/SATsACTs.

The UC’s count sophomore and junior grades. Scores from 8th grade aren’t computed for the UC system.

15

@auntbea For UCs, is rigor considered equally as important as GPA and test scores? Can high rigor compensate for a slightly lower GPA?

16

They will look at your GPA in relation to the courses you took.

17

@“aunt bea” That’s good to know, thank you!

18

@wormholes ^in case of UCB/UCLA, rigor becomes even more of a dominant factor, by them removing the cap on the number of Honor/AP classes in UC GPA calculations.

19

@uclaparent9 I am glad to hear that! I hope this will help me…I took 11 APs but I didn’t get straight As in all of them. As a result, my capped GPA is kinda low at ~4.1 but I have an uncapped of ~4.6

20

The one red flag for me in your stats is your SAT Math 2 subject test score of 710. For an engineering applicant, that score seems low. It is a 50% percentile score, which means 1/2 of the test takers scored better. In a competitive admissions process, sometimes it only takes one red flag for elimination.