Chance Me? UIUC, UMich, Vandy, Stanford...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm going to be a junior in the fall. I go to one of the most competitive schools in Illinois (ranked 5, only behind magnet schools). A lot of this is going to be speculation, but I'd like a general idea of what schools I should be shooting for right now.</p>

<p>Planning on majoring in Biology</p>

<p>Planning to apply to:
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
University of Colorado Boulder
Vanderbilt
Duke
University of Washington at Saint Louis
Stanford</p>

<p>Academic Record:</p>

<p>Freshman Year
UW GPA: 3.39
W GPA: 4.12
Honors Classes: World History, Geometry, Spanish 2, Physics</p>

<p>Sophomore Year
UW GPA: 3.7
W GPA: 4.09
Honors/AP Classes: Honors Algebra 2/Trig, Honors Biology, AP US History (5 on AP exam)</p>

<p>This year I am taking AP English, AP Computer Science, AP European History, and Honors Chemistry. I am fairly certain I will do very well this year, as the only class I had trouble in last year was math, which I have dropped down to regular level.</p>

<p>Senior year I am planning on taking AP English, AP Biology, AP Econ, and AP Calculus (AB/BC depending on what I do over the summer)</p>

<p>This summer, I attended the High School Summer College at Stanford University. I'm most likely going to get an A in psychology and a B in biology</p>

<p>So my cumulative GPA so far is a 3.56 unweighted and a 4.10 weighted. I should be able to bring that up in the next two years, which will put me on an upward trend</p>

<p>PSAT: Took it as a sophomore, got a 190. I'm going to go for around 215 or 220 this year and hopefully get Merit Scholar</p>

<p>ACT: Took a couple practice tests, at a 30. Hopefully will be able to get that to a 33 or 34</p>

<p>SAT: Not taken yet</p>

<p>Other Things:</p>

<p>I've been a violinist for 10 years. I was the first chair in my freshman orchestra, I'm sitting second in symphony, and third in chamber. Next year I'll be first chair in both symphony and chamber. I'm in another well known orchestra program, sitting in the first violin section. I'm hoping to get the Senior Advisor position for the freshman next year. I have a group of friends who are also musicians and we play at venues for North Chicago and are going to start playing for weddings and donate the money to a church run North Chicago aid program.</p>

<p>Chess club and science club</p>

<p>Mission trips to Juarez, Memphis, and inner city Chicago</p>

<p>Lead small groups of 2nd graders Sunday mornings and 8th graders every other Sunday night at church</p>

<p>I will have a very good essay and a good recommendation</p>

<p>Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks!</p>

2

<p>For UMich, you need to bring up your uwGPA. The average for admission is 3.85 this year.</p>

3

<p>bill you seem to help out a lot around cc, i recently went to a umichigan tour and they normalize their applicant’s gpa’s in a strange way.</p>

<p>What they told me is that 90-100 is weighted as 4.0, that means a- is a 4.0
80-89 is a 3.0, meaning b-, b, b+ is a 3.0.
and so on
this means that students with a lot of a-'s but few b’s have a higher shot of getting into umichigan.</p>

4

<p>Yes, UMich skip the subgrades and freshmen grades in GPA calculation. However, I have also read that they no longer recalculate GPA.</p>

5

<p>If they don’t factor in freshman grades, I should have a much better shot, right? My sophomore year was decent, and as long as I can bring my grades up a bit for junior and senior year I should be good?</p>

6

<p>Bumpity bump</p>

7

<p>Stanford also disregards freshman grades. But I think it’s far too early to chance you.</p>