ACT: 31
PSAT: 1420
GPA: 4.03 W/ 3.7 UW
RACE: African-American
GENDER: Female
INCOME: gross income is high, after tax is low. Does this make me low income???
Class rank: school doesn’t rank
Extracirrculars:
Independent research at tulane lab
Founding Member/President of Society of Women Engineers Club (big outreach event every year)
Outreach Captain of Robotics (in charge of whole team administration)
Secretary of Peer Assistance Team
Regional Scholastic Award (gold and silver)
Published in School Magazine & Newspaper
Summer Research Intern (paid) at local medical center
Former docent (paid) at local art museum
District Lit Rally Qualification
Regional poem contest honorable mention
100+ hours at hospital volunteering
AP Scholar with Distinction
Letters of rec:
1 from science teacher
1 from english teacher
they’re all probably a 6/10
AP:
5 - human geo
5 - apush
5 - european history
4 - environmental science
5 - english 3
Current classes:
AP bio, ap english 4, ap psych, calc Honors, independent research, ap gov
I’m highly considering applying ED to Columbia. Should I? A lot of people are telling me to just go for it, but I’m not sure… For the longest, I thought that being URM would give me a boost in admissions but I’m not first gen~
If your parents’ income is $100k and they pay $60k in taxes, are they the same level of income as a family who grosses $40k? No. When colleges talk about income they mean gross, not net. Some colleges offer generous need based aid though. Whether or not you qualify depends on how much your parents actually earn.
So no, you are not low income. As @austinmshauri mentions, net income after taxes does not matter. High discretionary expenses do not matter.
Depending on the college, it can be a boost, but the rest of the application package has to be competitive. You application will be competitive for many schools, but Columbia is not one of them. Good luck.
Right now your list seems very aggressive. Be sure you have enough match and safety schools that appear to be affordable and that you would be excited to attend.
While your school doesn’t rank, where do you think you would fall? Top 10%, top 5% or better? If you are in the top 5%, I might be a bit more sanguine about your chances: URM, female STEM, likely underrepresented state.
@collegemom3717 I guess I’m kinda being modest. My english essay will probably be more like an 8 or 9/10 because I had the highest grade in the class out of 100+_students and it was my teacher’s first year at the school, so we really bonded. My other teacher is the sponsor of the club I’m president of, but we don’t have a very close relationship so that one will probably still be 6/10.
OP, sometimes you have to just shoot your shot for your list of schools. I would say you at least have a chance (I think you will get into a couple of those schools) but I do agree that you should add a couple of match/safety schools … The Ivy’s 8 schools accept about 22,000 kids a year and 14,700 kids actually attend Ivy League schools every year. The quoted rate of African Americans that attend the Ivy’s is at 9% which if they are also accepted at the same rate means that almost 2,000 African Americans are accepted and 1300 African American freshmen students attend Ivy League schools every year. Your standardized test scores put you within the top 1000 or so African American ACT takers (out of 260,000+ African American ACT test takers) if the percentages from past ACT data on African Americans (5 years ago) holds. You are special, but you still have some work to do (like great essays) to close the deal on the schools on your list.
"Your ACT is below the 25th percentile which is a big negative for an unhooked applicant. "
OP isn’t unhooked, though. She’s black/URM, which is a hook. Also she has strong background in engineering, robotics, tech which is not as common in female applicants. Not sure if the engineering/tech ECs will be helpful, though, since the math track will be weak compared to most other tech applicants (she’s only in honors calc her senior year, no AP calc.)
OP - any chance you can increase your test scores?
So, I’m going to go mom-ish here, and push you a bit on that. A ‘meh’ LoR is as bad as a bad LoR- b/c that’s what it is. Pretty much nobody writes an actually bad LoR- they hint, they imply, they use passive verbs, etc.
Tbh, I’m not a fan of the ‘out of 10’ metric. Imo, a LoR is either exceptionally enthusiastic (“best student I have taught in 20 years, b/c…”), strongly positive (“strong leadership skills, takes initiative, intellectually curious”), generically positive (“pleasant student, hard working, academically capable”), or damned by faint praise (“works competently, prioritizes grades”). With your grades and leadership, if you can’t see your teachers being able to write a rec along the lines of the 1st two, reconsider who is writing your recs.
Also, if your school / recommenders haven’t already asked you to, prep a ‘cheat sheet’ for them: very briefly (nearly in bullet points), note the things that you want them to remember about your interactions: particularly strong moments in their class / your academic work / your experience outside of the classroom (eg, the club). Use language for them that mirrors or echos the points you are emphasizing about yourself in your essays. Don’t be shy or modest about reminding them of exceptional work you have done (including their comments) or phrasing your points in ways that they can use. Your goal is to make it easy for them to highlight your best things to the colleges you are applying to- and it starts with plain old remembering.
Remember, also, that how a teacher rates you as a student is not always reflected in how warm the relationship feels. If you are not sure, it is completely fair to ask the teacher you think might give you a “6/10” LoR “I appreciate that you agreed to write my LoR. Now that I have my college list, I just want to confirm that you feel you can write a strong letter for them?”. If the teacher expresses doubt, ask if it is b/c s/he has reservations about you & specific schools, or is it more general? Take your cues from that.
@happy1 I’m considering Tulane my safety school, because I’d get auto admit under their ED in-state policy. Am I being too cocky with that?
@BKSquared Top 10% most likely. I’m from Louisiana.
@milee30 I’m taking the October SAT, but I’m national merit commended if that counts for anything. My math track isn’t that great, but would my science be enough to carry me? Or are math + science viewed side by side?
Math will be important if you are pushing the STEM angle, especially engineering. Have you taken/what are your scores for SAT2’s. They are “recommended” at least for Yale.
“I’m taking the October SAT, but I’m national merit commended if that counts for anything. My math track isn’t that great, but would my science be enough to carry me? Or are math + science viewed side by side?”
I’m not an AO and more specifically not a Columbia AO, so I’m just giving you my impression based on my son’s experience and my reading. My guess - and remember, it’s just a guess - is that national merit commended doesn’t substitute for strong SAT or ACT scores. You really need an SAT/ACT that’s at least within the 50% general range of the college to have the best chance.
I may be missing it, but your science track isn’t especially strong compared to other applicants, either. AP ES is considered one of the easier APs and that’s the only science AP you have completed, and it’s the AP you got one of your lowest scores in (not that a 4 is bad, just one piece of the puzzle that may show that your math/science side is weaker than the language/writing side). It’s good that you’re taking AP Bio this year, but you’re going to be compared with a pool of applicants that have already taken AP Bio or AP Chem or AP Physics and most of whom will have taken AP Calc.
Again, I’m not an AO, so have no idea how Columbia AOs will view your app, just pointing out my impressions based on what I have seen other applicants posting.
“I’m considering Tulane my safety school, because I’d get auto admit under their ED in-state policy. Am I being too cocky with that?”
As long as your UW GPA in core classes (calculated as per Tulane’s website) is 3.6, yes you qualify. And, as you point out, the guaranteed admission is only good if you ED.
There is no auto-admit unless you apply ED. I would not have that as my only safety – there have been people on CC over the last year or two who fully expected to get into Tulane and did not. I always recommend applying to a school or two that has non-binding admissions (EA or rolling) and a decision date in December so you can have an acceptance in hand.
As my son’s guidance counselor told us – you want to put yourself in a position where you will have choices in the end. I think your current list could leave you a bit vulnerable.
Are you comfortable with full pay? I’m asking because of the statement “gross income high, after-tax low” — that suggests that your parents’ perceptions of what they can afford to pay may be very different than the colleges. And with a $250K gross you can’t expect much in the way of need-based aid. So figure that out first – as you probably will qualify for significant merit money at many schools, and you may need to reshape your list to make sure that your choices are affordable.
I second what @milee30 said. The Columbia engineering program is intense, and the students I have known who gained admission had multiple APs in science and math ,ap chem, ap physics, ap calc BC etc. Ditto for other comparable engineering programs. OP may have a hook as a female urm. It may be enough to gain admission into an top tier engineering program, who knows, but staying in the program , where the peers are coming in with a lot more, may be more problematic.
OP may end up switching majors to a soft side discipline at elite university.
Just to clarify, I don’t think you are out of luck or that you won’t be able to succeed. Your work to date shows that you’re not just intelligent and hard working, but you’re able to articulate ideas in a way that many tech types will struggle with. Those are huge advantages that shouldn’t be discounted.
My points about the comparison weren’t to discourage you from applying or from pursuing tech once you’re in college, they were simply meant as a reality check. Here are my recommended action items:
Be realistic and understand your strengths and weaknesses. You have a skill set (strong verbal skills with an interest in tech) that is not common; don't let people forget that. Emphasize that in your app and attitude. An 800 Math score does a person no good if s/he can't communicate with others. It's easier to catch up on the math than to teach someone to communicate so you have a huge advantage there.
Understand where your app may be weak by comparison to others so you know to play up other parts of the app and also so you know what you're up against.
Know that if you decide to go into tech studies in college that you might need some extra work in the beginning to get to the same playing field. This is not a big deal and will make zero difference in the long run as long as you know it and do that work; don't derail yourself by jumping in with both feet and becoming discouraged when some of the other people are at a different level. Take a year to get the courses you need to get to the level and then kick butt. NBD.
UChicago does not have an engineering school but does offer a very specific engineering degree - molecular engineering. Besides, it's a fantastic school that would fully appreciate and make good use of your well rounded skills in all areas.
Good luck! You are a strong applicant and if you are strategic with your apps, you should have many good options.
@BKSquared No, I haven’t taken them. Are there specific ones that I need?
@calmom I’m honestly not sure. Like you mentioned, a lot of the schools I’m looking at don’t really offer merit-based scholarships, so I’ll have to apply to outside scholarsh
@suzyQ7 They have non-binding EA and I really want the t-shirt.
@milee30 I took no offense at your earlier comment! I appreciate the honesty. A lot of my ECs are more engineering-based because robotics/SWE are the only science ECs that my school offers. I’m actually interested in Biology (pre-med track) or an MD-PhD program, but when I evaluated my resume over the summer, I realized that all my ECs are geared towards engineering so I figured I should market myself as such. Taking everyone’s comments into consideration, I think that I will market myself as more interested in STEM outreach/volunteering than just engineering.
