chance me please!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a high school junior and I attend a rigorous public high school.

University of Liggett Merit Scholar- I got one of 8 academic scholarships at a private high school and I attended for a semester. I left because it was not challenging enough, I had a 4.28.
Varsity hockey (two years). Starter. Recently quit, I was not enjoying the sport and wanted to focus on field hockey.
Varsity field hockey- Starter, MVP, All-state
Varsity track
Student council senator
WILLOW member
Interact Club
NHS
School paper- I am the managing editor
I am a reporter for our local paper.
Bible school instructor, volunteer at local soup kitchen. I don’t have hours for these because honestly I have been doing these my whole life and never really thought to.
Classical pianist- have competed in some competitions and festivals as well. 13 years of experience.
I have won awards in journalism and english and am currently running for student council president.

I have just been accepted into a program at Northwestern for journalism. It’s 5 weeks long, on-campus, and seems to boost chances of admission by the looks of last years graduating class.

GPA- 4.4 (weighted)
4.24 (unweighted)
ACT-33 (first try, am taking again)
SAT II- US History- 780
5 on AP US test

Current schedule (junior year)
Pre calc
Spanish II (I have 2 years of latin as well)
AP Lang
AP Biology
AP Gov/AP Econ
Advanced journalism II (our paper)
Freshman Assist- I mentor at-risk freshmen in a literacy class that aims to improve their reading levels and cultural literacy as well

I would have outstanding letters of rec, I have been assured by my teachers.

I am looking at Columbia, Yale, Brown, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, etc. University of Michigan is my backup. I would be majoring in public policy, political science, english, or journalism. I’m currently undecided.

What do you think? Do I have a shot?
Thanks for your input!

2

Your unweighted GPA makes no sense to me (usually it’s out of 4) but if you have mostly As with no more than a few Bs in mostly AP/honors classes you have a shot at all these schools. Your ECs are great, so are test scores. The last major portion of your application to keep in mind is essays which you should spend a lot of time on. I don’t know how much the NU journalism thing helps (I’m going there and during my application process I’ve noticed all over the NU CC board you can still hear tons of people complaining they did that program and got rejected). Basically they consider it but still reject 50% of the ppl that did it. I’d ED at your top choice because NU, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, etc have really nasty RD rounds due to having so many applicants. You should probably look up the comparative ED to RD acceptance rates. RD and you’d probably get in one or two of them on the higher end, but you wouldn’t want to accidentally get locked out of your top choice if you have one. Good luck applying!

3

Thanks! My school’s GPA is weird. A pluses (98-100) are 4.33, A’s are 4.00, A minuses are 3.66, B pluses are 3.33, etc. So my weighted and unweighted is with my AP multiplier. I have all A’s/A pluses. Thanks for the reply!