Chance me!!!! Pretty please !!!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi!! I am a high school sophomore in New York. My school is kind of an inner-city school (this year there were 3 stabbings near or in the school resulting in 2 deaths etc). I know my GPA is low, I am working on it. My test scores should be good.

School Type: Public
Location: New York
Race/Gender: Caucasian/ Female
Prospective Major: Neuroscience or Statistics (pre-med)
Unweighted GPA: 3.55
Weighted GPA: 3.72 (will go up after next year, taking many APS and honors)
Class rank: I think my school is abolishing ranking after this year but I’d say I am in the top 15%

Haven’t taken SAT and ACT yet, taking ACT for the first time in June, on practices I have been averaging 32-33 on ACT

Extracurriculars

*Cheerleading (placed top 10 in national championship and 3rd place in “world” championship
*Habitat for Humanity (anticipated president)
*National English Honor Society (anticipated board position)
*American Sign Language Club (Community Outreach and Social Media Coordinator next year, anticipated president senior year)
*IGNITE mentor (like peer leader) and anticipated executive member senior year
*WISE (Westchester Individualized Senior Experience) like independent study senior year, planning on shadowing a doctor at local hospital or conduct neuro research
*Performance and Visual Arts Education program (PAVE), majoring in Dance, Dance class every morning from 7:22 till 8:15 and one period during the day, all 4 years of High School
*Global Institute, member of an inaugural group, run by Vice Principal, learning about worldly issues and culture
*Model Congress club member

Planning on joining/participating in:

*NHS
*Student Government
*Science Olympiad
*Hospital Volunteering once I turn 17

Also:
*Business selling small bracelets in school. Made $700 last year
*Volunteer at annual Christmas Dinner
*Potential summer and weekend job at ice cream store
*Babysitting
*Dual enrollment at a local college to take Pre-calc during the summer
*Shadowing program through school at local hospital

Awards (nothing special YET):
*AP Scholar w/ Honor (Anticipated)
*AP Capstone Diploma
*PAVE diploma
*Most Dedicated Award for Cheerleading
*Community/Leadership Award at Temple

Recommendations:

I have a pretty good relationship with many of my teachers. I may be able to get a good recommendation from the Vice Principal (school has 3500 kids, so would his recommendation pull any weight?)

Cornell is my dream school. I plan to ED there for the Human Ecology school. I know that school has the highest acceptance rate in Cornell, and being from New York and ED-ing should help. My uncle also went to Cornell so I could get a recommendation from him. Do I have any chance?

Other schools I want to apply to (not applying to all these, but just some ideas):

Safeties- U Wisconsin Madison, U Indiana Bloomington, University of Florida, University of Miami, Penn State, Syracuse
Matches- Binghamton U, UMich, Lehigh, Emory
Reaches-CORNELL!!!, Duke, Wesleyan, Tufts, Brown, JHU, Northwestern

2

I don’t think that U.Wisconsin is a safety for an out of state student with an unweighted 3.55 GPA. I would put it somewhere between a high match and a reach. I would put Michigan as a reach also.

I think that your reaches are mostly very high reaches.

Have you run the NPC on your safeties, and are you and your parents okay with the results?

3

None of these are admissions safeties and certainly not financial safeties as an out of state applicant.
Emory is a reach.
Duke, Tufts, Brown and JHU are high reaches.

4

Agree with the other posters. Michigan, Lehigh, and Emory are reaches and your safeties, matches. You will need a big bump in GPA and a very competitive ACT/subject tests to be competitive for your reaches. Spend time researching true safeties and re-balancing your list.

5

Ok. Do you think Cornell is a no go? How are my extracurriculars?

6

What would be some good safeties?

7

Nothing should be off the table until you finish your junior year and you have your standardized test scores and work to get your GPA up. A safety would be a school you are happy to attend, can afford, and preferably has rolling admission so you know of your acceptance early. Look for schools with over 70% acceptance rates and where your stats are well above the average.

8

Out of your reach schools, you have the biggest chance of acceptance for Cornell. Don’t get a LOR from your Uncle- that won’t help. Being from NY will get you instate tuition, but it’s debated whether it helps admissions-wise. ED will definitely help your admission if you can afford the school. UW gpa and Wgpa are hurting you a lot right now, so try to bring those up. A good ACT score (33-34) and good LORs can make you more competitive. I don’t think SAT2s are required for HumanEC, but they will be for some of your other reach schools- aim for a score of 700 or higher. I realize you are only a sophomore now, but its not too early to read books such as The Dirty Little Secrets to Top College Admissions (Pria Chatterjee) can help you understand how to “market” yourself when you apply. Because you are starting early, you have time to perfect and improve your college application.

In the future, make sure to spend lots of time writing good common app essays and good supplements. There will be thousands of applicants with solid stats and LOR. You essays have to set you apart. Although you won’t be writing college essays anytime soon, books such as On Writing the College Application Essay (Harry Bauld) can help give you some ideas for writing essays later. (This book also has fantastic insight to the world of college admissions in general).

Good luck!

9

Also, if you intend to major in stats or neuro, those majors are not offered in Cornell’s college of Human Ecology. Stats is in the College of Arts and Science. Neuro you could do in either A&S or CALS (ag and life sciences).

10

@SuperGymnast_04 thank you so much for your informative comment! What would be a good GPA goal to make Cornell feasible (admissions wise) ?

11

Cornell doesn’t technically report an average GPA. If you look at their common data set, it’s blank. That said, the majority of the students I’ve talked to over the years in alumni meetings have 3.9+ UW GPAs.

12

@momofsenior1 thank you so much! You guys are all so informative :)!!! I am going to focus a lot on academics junior year to try and reach that goal!