Chance me? (special case)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey all, I've never posted here before but I kind of wanted to see what your opinions are on my situations.</p>

<p>Me:
White Female
California native
parents split soph year, and the subsequent fallout (my dad ran away with the soccer mom of my team and my mom became an alcoholic and a substance abuser after that...well i actually just found out she's been addicted to prescription painkillers for most of my life)</p>

<p>Yeah and I'm not even kidding...my life sounds like a soap opera and it understandably severely affected my grades, especially second semester junior year...when most of this fell on me.</p>

<p>Yeah so I think my cumulative is like 3.35 now.....I got a .3 second semester last year. It was horrible. Anyway, i wrote about it in my essays and all that...and my counselor knows my situation and wrote about it in her report. If it's any consolation...i managed a 4.2 this semester</p>

<p>2190 SAT
760 US History
740 Literature</p>

<p>Courseload - basically the most rigorous possible 3 hons classes (frosh) 3 honors, 1 AP (soph), 4 AP, 1 hons (junior) and 5 AP (senior)
I was aiming for ivy league standard before all this happened to me</p>

<p>Tons of EC's - just a smattering:
Varsity Soccer (11, 12)- amazing team, we're first in the nation (10 was JV)
Club Soccer - my whole life - big time sucker
Science Olympiad - won some stuff
Science Bowl
Tutoring
Track
Cross Country</p>

<p>My essays are solid, i've read one of my recs and it's really good. i'm pretty sure the other one is good too. I applied to a lot of schools - on the off chance that a really good will make a mistake and accept me...sorry if i seem resigned to JC...ive had a bad couple of days. Here are the ones I really want to know about </p>

<p>U of Chicago
Columbia
Brown
NYU
Boston U
Boston C
UCLA
Johns Hopkins
American</p>

<p>And for those all knowledgeable about the UC system - do i have any chance at all? I applied to all but merced, and got accepted to riverside (thank god)</p>

2

<p>beautiful... amazing test scores plus an amazing GPA, diverse ECs... don't sweat it. I know you're going to hear good news, and I'm not just being optimistic. Boston U, NYU and American are probably your safeties (basing this off of Naviance graphs for my school) - I want to say a 50% chance for everything else. </p>

<p>God bless you, stay strong, I'll pray for you tonight.</p>

3

<p>I commend you for your achievements, despite your major setbacks. But to be honest, your chances for U of Chicago, Columbia, Brown, Johns Hopkins are all Mid-Reaches/ to Low Reaches at best.The others i don't have too much knowledge on, but i can tell you that you will be accepted at American.</p>

4

<p>I don't really know about how colleges treat special cases like yours, but considering you have really good test scores and a good reason for your low GPA, I would think you'd be pretty fine overall.
U of Chicago - Reach
Columbia - Reach, for everyone.
Brown - Same
NYU - High Match
Boston U - Low Match
Boston C - Match
UCLA - High Match
Johns Hopkins - Low Reach
American - Low Match</p>

<p>(I tried to kind of base it off SATs, ECs, and a decent GPA)</p>

5

<p>thanks for the encouragement guys </p>

<p>i'm kinda bummed cause i just got wait listed by one of my safeties (willamette)
it's so weird, cause I got into a harder school (mills) a couple weeks ago</p>

<p>it seems like different colleges are treating my application differently</p>

6

<p>bump?</p>

<p>i'd really like to know if chicago would take a chance on me. i heard they sometimes accept kids without the best credentials but who wrote good essays</p>

7

<p>^I haven't heard that specifically, but all schools take chances with kids who haven't preformed well in HS but who they believe have a lot of potential. </p>

<p>Sselbor's assessment is spot on, except that Hopkins is also a Reach. (Sblogblah has the "low" and "high" thing backwards, but is basically saying the same thing).</p>

<p>Now, since your circumstances are quite unique nobody can really give you an accurate "chancing" on those top schools. Each school is only going to come into contact with a handful of cases like yours, and so you can't really say that your circumstances add [x] points to your GPA. </p>

<p>You obviously recognize that your GPA is low and your SAT is good (great for NYU, BU, etc, decent for Columbia, U of C, etc.) Based on your SAT scores and EC's you'll most likely get into one of those reaches, either Hopkins, Columbia, Brown, or U of C. Depending on how each individual adcom views the situation with your GPA you may get into more than one or none at all. </p>

<p>The only consolation I can offer you is that, despite the popular misconception, the college admissions process does NOT reward you for your HS accomplishments. Admissions officers take your HS accomplishments into consideration, but ultimately render a decision based on whether or not they believe you'll succeed at their university. A U of C adcom won't "punish" you for your low GPA--you just have to hope that he believes you'll have a high GPA at his university.</p>