Chance me! Stressed Junior for T20s, UMich, UC's and Seven Sisters

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I’m really stressed and I just want an honest assessment so I can adjust my expectations :slight_smile: All comments are truly appreciated. Brutal is fine.

Demographics:

Gender: Female

Race/Ethnicity: Asian-American

Citizenship: USA

Income Bracket: mid-class, dad retired (90k), only child

Large suburban public school (600 in grade)

Hooks: hard home life but not first gen or anything

Intended Majors: Poli-sci or finance? Philosophy or English lit minor. Idk rn

Academics:

GPA: 4.0 UW and by senior year expected 4.63 W

No class rank but expected top 5%

All Honors/AP (expected 14 AP and at least 10 5’s)

1590 SAT, 36 ACT

Awards:

2 national essay contest top 5, met senators

1st in state journalism competition (objective test)

1st place in the state cello comp. ($4600)

National Merit Finalist expected

Extracurriculars:

Freelance journalist, published 15+ articles in local newspapers, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, letter to the editor in NY times (should I include this?)

Editor-in-Chief school newspaper and designed website w/ 5000+ monthly views.

Expected to attend either Yale Young Global Scholars, Northwestern Journalism Institute, or Telluride this summer (I’m confident I’ll get into at least one of these).

Intern for smallish poli-sci Silicon Valley company, published policy and campaign research and directly advised campaigns.

President: Peer Mentorship Club: 60+ members; truancy awareness and fundraising $2000+

Raised $1500 for independent Ukrainian media thru advertising on newspaper website

Varsity Debate: underfunded pilot program, nat and local circuit, some wins

Library Teen Advisory Board with 60+ volunteer hours, service projects and organized Mental Health Expo with a multi-thousand dollar grant.

Secretary: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) local chapter

Cello: 9+ years of experience in solo performance, chamber music ensembles, and cello ensembles

Private Chinese Tutor

Letters of recommendation: def my English teacher we besties and probably calc teacher

Worried about essays, a lot hinges on that.

Schools: Yale is my dream school, but I know chances are slim. Penn, Brown, Cornell, and Columbia, as well as Northwestern and UMich are my reaches.

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You mentioned UCs in the title of the post, but not in the list of schools. Which ones interest you?

For the UCs, are you in state (CA)? What is your expected UC GPA? (See this post for info on how to calculate UC GPA: UC Application Discussion Fall 2023 and new extended Submission period - #3 by lkg4answers)

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I am out of state, considering UC Berkeley, Davis, and Irvine. My UC GPA is 4.88 weighted and 4.25 capped.

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For OOS, budget is going to be a big consideration, since COA is $70K+ with OOS tuition, and financial aid is mostly reserved for CA students. Is this COA comfortable for your family?

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You sound like an extremely strong candidate and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you got into a least a few of your reaches. However, there are no guarantees, as I’m sure you know, so make sure you have a back up plan with at least one or two (or three) targets/safeties where you’d be happy. Just in case. And, honestly, unless you have special love for the UCs, I wouldn’t focus too much on those - they are expensive if you’re OOS and, to be honest, not as good a value as some of the privates that may give you merit and possibly need based aid (depending on your family’s financial situation). Just my opinion.

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Do you know how much you can afford to pay each year for university? Do you know how much you can afford to pay without taking on any debt?

With a retired parent, money that your parent thinks of as “retirement funds” might look like “college funds” to the way that they calculate need based financial aid (yes I have personal experience with this).

I might have missed it, but I did not see any discussion of safeties. You need to find at least one and preferably at least two universities that you will be admitted to, you will be able to afford, and you will be happy to attend. Sometimes in-state public universities are safeties.

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I’m fortunate enough to have a college account with sufficient funds considering financial aid. I definitely have state safeties, but I didn’t feel the need to ask about them here since I’m confident I’ll get in. Thanks for asking!

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I think sharing what schools you consider to be safeties is important.

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Considering your profile, I would say you definitely have a chance. Unfortunately, holistic review process leaves a lot of uncontrollable elements (whether the AO likes your essays and ECs or not). I personally wonder when someone posts that “great essay” or "
strong essay" or “great ECs”, what are the parameters because what is considered great to me might be different to you, the AO and the others.

Also if you read other forums, you’d have seen that there are so many exceptional students applying to top schools and ended up getting rejected/deferred. I don’t think anyone can truly explain why they end up getting accepted, deferred or rejected at those schools.

I agree with ikg4answers: sharing safety schools might be useful because some schools have become “reach” to certain students (e.g. Wisconsin-Madison now probably can be considered reach to Minnesota students).
Sharing your state might help too.

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What do you do for fun and relaxation? How much sleep do you get a night?

I ask because you say you’re stressed? Why are you stressed? Your grades are good and so are your scores… are you doing things you enjoy or only doing them because you feel you have to?

Some stress is part of life, but it shouldn’t be constant. You’re doing great. Control the things you can, like your grades by studying a reasonable amount, but remember to have some fun and get some sleep. You’re going to get into a good school, and if you work hard there you will have amazing opportunities.

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What are you worried about ?

You will make your success… not the school.

You can control the controllable and you are crushing that.

You have reaches - what else you have.

You are a junior. Why stress? You’ll get a great education whether it’s Northwestern or Nebraska.

Visit schools. A big name doesn’t matter. Have a balanced list. If it’s finance you want and you seek pedigree, add IU - also strong in Poli Sci. And you have a home run.

But visit some schools. Is the dream real ir on paper?

Btw there is no dream school. Get it out if your head. Bad roommates, bad profs, bad food.

There are kids who go to their state flagships over Ivies and turn out great. Not saying it’s you but relax you’re doing more than any human should.

It will work out fine.

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That may not be the answer you think it is. Every university has their own financial aid calculator. All of the places on your reach list (except UMi) only give “need based” aid, which means each figures out how much they think you need, and that’s how much they give you. They will take all your family’s assets into consideration. UMi, like the UCs, uses most funding to support in-state students and neither will give you meaningful financial aid. If your family can afford the UCs the odds that you will get financial aid from the meets-need school seem small.

Given your really impressive HS record, I can only guess that you are super stressed because you feel a huge amount of pressure to get into a high reach. You, your parents, your friends, even some teachers may all be assuming that you are the sort of student who ‘should’ be a Yalie (etc). And, in fairness, there is no doubt that you would be well able for the academics, and would likely love all the resources. But: there are many thousands of students who are flying just as high in their own schools- and they will also be amongst the 90-95% of applicants who won’t get into any of your reach schools.

Squaring up to this stressor now could make the next 12 months of your life vastly better. As @tsbna44 pointed out

…except for the part of building up your safety and matches. You mention the Seven Sisters: for you they range from solid matches to (potentially) low reaches. “Potentially” because they each have very distinct personalities, and they do choose for fit.

So, my stress-reduction suggestions for you are:

  1. Make sure that you are doing something that requires physical effort on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter what, but stress creates cortisol and physical activity is a great way to get it out of your system. So is laughing, so if there is something you can read or watch that will make you laugh out loud, give yourself a daily dose!

  2. Set projects for yourself of things that you can do, that you can turn to when you start stressing. Here’s one to get you started: research each of the Seven Sisters (actually Six now, as Radcliffe was subsumed into Harvard), until you know their personalities well enough to know which ones you would be likely to feel ‘at home’ in- and which ones really aren’t a good fit for you. I have yet to meet the person who didn’t prefer some to the others!

ps, hooks are something you have that the school wants. Colleges vary in what gets their attention, even from year to year, as their institutional needs change. URM, a particular talent, truck loads of money, and (for many but not all) legacy are evergreen hooks. Sadly, there are way too many students with a hard home life to make it unique.

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Well…you will be paying the full cost of attendance at these UCs most likely. @gumbymom has the exact costs. So…don’t expect any need based aid from them. None is given to OOS students.

As you likely know…these are reaches for everyone.

I would also strongly suggest you drop the “dream school” idea. Sure, students have favorites, but don’t elevate to dream school status.

You mention the seven sister schools in your title. Not sure which ones you are interested in…but if you are interested in womens colleges…I would suggest Wellesley (still a reach), and Mt. Holyoke and Smith. BUT it’s very important to visit these colleges before you apply as they have very distinct personalities.

There are a LOT of options between top 20 schools and your instate publics.

I would suggest you consider Pitt, Wesleyan, University of Wisconsin and Ohio State. Ohio State and Wisconsin are located in state capitals…

Poly sci? Just wondering why Georgetown isn’t on your list of reach schools. English and philosophy can be taken anywhere.

That is quite the LONG list of ECs. If I’m wondering how you do all of these things and attend school…an adcom might wonder too. Make sure you don’t exaggerate your ECs.

Lots of people have tough home lives. That’s not usually a “hook”.

I think you sound like a strong student. This post sort of comes off as a humble brag from a student who is worried about what they have done so far. You have two things to worry about.

  1. That reach list is reaches for everyone. You have a chance of being accepted just like the other under 10% or so who get accepted each year. Or denied just like the other roughly 90%. So…definitely apply and see as you are a strong candidate….but so are the vast majority of students who apply to these schools.

  2. Essays. You need to have excellent essays.

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Sending you a private message. Look for the green circle in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

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I wonder what constitutes excellent essays. It’s all subjective in front of the AOs.

And I do agree with dropping the dream school. There is no perfect school. Find a wide range of schools where you think you’ll be excited to go to if they accept you. Then hopefully you can pick your favorite.

Also, you have an excellent academic and ECs but so do other applicants at your dream and reach schools (and maybe your safeties - we don’t know since you don’t share the list).

And since it seems you are fine with brutal honesty:

  1. Some schools are not safeties anymore (depending where you live etc). My son has seen where some of his friends (who have great GPAs and ECs) not getting into their safeties.
  2. There is no guarantee that you will get that financial aid that you think you’d get (and how much). There are so many factors involved in this matter.
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First, run NPCs for all the schools you are interested in (with accurate financial info - including assets beyond income) to see what your EFC will be and then have a budget discussion with your family to see what they can afford. For example, at the UCs non-residents will be paying full freight as they don’t offer aid/merit to OOS students - can your family afford $70k +/- per year? If not, don’t bother applying. The same goes for any school that won’t be affordable according to the NPC. Apart from that you should create a balanced list of reaches/likelies/safeties where you would be happy to attend (and can afford). Start with safeties you really like - it is easy to find reaches, but you can’t count on those so build your list from the bottom up.

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I agree with this suggestion. If the OPs instate public colleges provide affordability and a strong probability of acceptance, and they like the schools…that is a good start.

I only mentioned this because the OP seems worried about this.

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And remember…the net price calculators are currently set up for students starting college fall term 2023. So…view these results as estimates only. And yes…colleges do change their financial aid determine formulas and policies.

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You mentioned the 7-sisters - so this may already be on your radar…

But, because you list Columbia University, let me just suggest that, as a young woman, you can submit two applications to that university, the other via their Barnard College.

Applications are handled completely separately and are using different criteria/methodology/priorities.

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Thank you to everyone for the suggestions! I’m in Tennessee, so my safety choices are UTK, some of the sisters, University of Alabama (who often gives full rides to people from my school), University of Washington, and University of Florida. Haven’t narrowed the list down quite yet. I have done net price calculators for most of the schools I’m considering, and aside from the UCs, whom I’m hoping to get merit-based scholarships from, everything is reasonable. I have had financial discussions with my family. Thank you for your concern. Target schools include UVA, BU, Emory, and Wellesley.

I understand that having a dream school I set my hopes and dreams on can be unhealthy, but I genuinely love Yale’s culture/academics and the students I know who attend gush about it. I also understand that my reach list is a goal held my thousands of other students, but I have been taught that there are specific things I can and should do to improve, even slightly, my chances of acceptance. That is what I’m focusing on; the little things add up.

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