Chance Me, Will Chance Back!

Chance Me / Match Me!
21

To be completely honest and objective, your GPA is killing your chance of admission:

Here’s my prediction based on available stats on websites:
Scale is 1-10, 1 being the easiest and 10 being impossible
UPenn(ED)- 8
MIT(EA)- 10
CMU- 7
Columbia- 9 (Look at the admission rate)
Cornell- 8 (Look at the admission rate)
Michigan- 3
Southern California- 6
Berkeley- 8 (Look at the admission rate)
UWashington- 8 (Look at the admission rate)
CalTech- 10
UIUC- 3
JHU-3

*I don’t why some people would say Ivies are low reach or match for you. Ivies are all at least 8 for you.

22

Anyone ranking UMich or JHU as a 3 on a scale where USC is operating on some faulty assumptions.

Anyone who says

And then rates JHU as a 3 (Cornell acceptance rate: 14%. JHU acceptance rate: 12.4%) has yet to do his/her research.

23

Try to lower down on the reaches I would say. Ditch CalTech and MIT.

You have a very solid profile, don’t get the wrong impression, but your choices should be weighed a bit more.
JHC, Columbia and Cornell would be your biggest reaches in there. UPenn will have special consideration because of ED, but you know…
Following closely behind those, CMU, UMich, and Berkley. CMU would be a fantastic place to go to, especially for your major, I’d pay special attention to that one.

I personally would never apply to so many colleges like that, but that’s just me. My advice would be to trim it down a bit, so your focus and consideration won’t be as diluted, especially when it comes time to do their essays, etc.

Care to see if I have a shot? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1832658-chances-for-some-great-liberal-arts-colleges.html#latest

@NotVerySmart
I received fantastic answers on my chance me thread, you’d be a great addition too. If you’d like, of course.

24

@AGoodFloridian I dropped CalTech, already applied to MIT. I’ll get to your thread tonight but I don’t know too much about Vassar or Hamilton. Still wary about CMU.

@Mminjjae Yup I know, will my weighted 4.4 make up for it or my 12+ AP courses/IB courseload? JHU is a 3? are you sure berkeley is an 8? The last 3 semesters my gpa averages to a 3.8. It was 2013(freshman year second semester and sophomore year first semester) that really destroyed my gpa and I can speak about that in my application or is that not a smart idea?

@NotVerySmart What would you give it then?

25

Trying to assign a precise number to any given college is a shot in the dark - I’d be lying if I told you I could do so in a reliable manner. Aside from the numbers the poster actually gave, this is another reason I’m rather skeptical of the post I was referring to.

We can sort these schools into general buckets, to give you an idea of your chances, but little more.

UPenn, MIT, CMU, Columbia, and Cal Tech are all a roll of the dice for asian engineering applicants, as long as they’ve got the academics to be considered “qualified” (which you do) and good extracurriculars (yours are OK, though a non-club STEM EC would’ve been nice). I’d put your chances slightly below the admission rates for most of these colleges, due to your UW GPA, ORM status, and the lack of any extracurriculars that stand out immediately, but not by much. I think you’ll get a fairly typical ED boost at Penn, and a typical EA boost at MIT.

I’d guess you have a 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 chance of getting into one of these schools, assuming essays and recommendations that don’t move the needle in a good or bad way, simply because they’re so selective that they reject thousands of applicants who are indistinguishable from those they accept each year.

Cornell, JHU, Berkeley, and UMich are all, to varying degrees, like the above schools. It is possible to gauge an applicant’s chances overall beyond “roll of the dice,” and I’d say your odds are at or slightly above their acceptance rates (note that for UCB and UMich, that’s the OOS acceptance rate - the overall numbers are skewed by CA and MI students). I wouldn’t be surprised to see you get into 2 or 3 of them.

USC, UW and UIUC are both good bets for you, with perhaps a 50% chance that you’ll be accepted to all three. Provided you have a safety or two lined up, you’ll be fine.

@AGoodFloridian Don’t really know enough about LAC’s to comment intelligently.

26

@NotVerySmart thanks! Will UW give me merit aid? My parents make too much to qualify for financial and they are comfortable paying the full price for UW or UMich but I’d prefer not to have them waste money if I can get a similar caliber degree at UVA or UMD

27

It seems like you have a really solid chance at Penn ED! (especially since you applied early decision, so probably 40%)
Your chances at your other schools will be lower than your chances at Penn, since you will be applying early action or regular decision (which receives much more applicants, unfortunately, and you dont have the early decision advantage). However, you are still above most applicants to these schools which will make your chances of admission at least higher than the overall acceptance rate. You are solidly within the ballpark at each of the schools on your list, and it should all come down to our essays and who reads your apps. I wish you the best of luck!
Could you chance me back? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1831441-chance-me-for-my-list-of-schools-i-will-chance-back.html#latest

28

Don’t know very much about financial aid at UW. Sorry.

29

http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/scholarships/freshman/ Maybe, but you’d have to apply and be accepted to the honors program, which is not that easy.

30

GPA is slightly lower than your reach school targets but your Act score makes up for it. I would be surprised if you didn’t make a majority of your schools.

Chance me back please!: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1833262-nyu-stern-class-of-2020-early-decision-chances.html#latest

31

@mr23hundo Done, thanks!
@collegebobollege even for OOS?

32

Also, for UC Berkeley, what if I dont respond my spanish grades? I got B’s all years and would like to exclude it since it has nothing to do with my major.

33

Yes, it’s much harder to get merit out of state

34

@collegebobollege thats what I thought, thanks!

Anybody know whether I can exclude classes from my UC academic record?

35

At UW Seattle, I think you have a very good chance for a Purple and Gold Scholarship (up to $7,500 per year for 4 years):

https://admit.washington.edu/Paying/PurpleGold

Good luck!

36

@VeniVidiViciDM Your gpa really hurts your chances especially at the extremely selective schools your applying to and you don’t seem to have won any national/international awards or any achievement that stand out. Here is how I would chance you:
UPenn(ED)-25% admit rate
MIT(EA)-6%-8% admit rate
CMU-10%-12%
Columbia-5%
Cornell-20%-25%
Michigan-30%-35%
Southern California-35%-40%
Berkeley-30%-35%
UWashington-50%-60%
Caltech-1%-3%
UIUC-50%-60%

JHU- I’d like to comment on Johns hopkins. The university had a 27% admit rate fall of 2009 but now has a 12.4% admit rate 2015. Is the university a lot better now than in 2009? I doubt it. The reason is the university is accepting a lot less students than it did in 2009 even though it has around 7,500 more applicants(24,718) in 2015 it only accepted 3,065 students, Whereas in 2009 it had 16,123 applicants and admitted 4,318 students. One could explain this using yield rate however even though the yield rate has increased the number of students enrolled is less than in 2009 only 1310 enrolled in 2015 in comparison to 1350 in 2009. I believe the university enrolls 40% to 50% of its class from early decision to inflate its yield rate then dramatically drops its admit rate at regular decision in order to reduce its overall admit rate given that 80%-90% of students apply regular its really cheating most students of a fair chance. This is a disgusting practice used by universities with early decision and I suggest you don’t apply to this institution.

Anyway, your chances at JHU is probably 8%-12% although that isn’t fair, universities these day would do anything to inflate their reputations and be more selective.

Please chance back: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1823242-chances.html#latest

37

Many schools with ED do the same thing as JHU. What’s wrong with giving preference to the students who are willing to commit to a college before even knowing whether they’ll get in? Places in a freshman class go to those qualified students who most want them.

The admissions process is unfair just about everywhere (except at for-profit schools, which admit everyone). If OP is going to apply only to “fair” schools, half that list should be gone at the very least.

38

@NotVerySmart Do you believe that Johns Hopkins is seriously better than it was in 2009 since now its a lot more selective? Universities use every dirty trick in the book these days to reduce their admits rates and increase their yield. Why should a university raise its standards to a high level during regular decision but lower it standard during early decision?

I honestly doubt the early decision applicant pool is any better than the regular decision pool but their chances are almost 3 times as high? Also why does the university insist on admitting fewer students than they did before even if the yield rate is higher? It’s simple the university is using the ED system for its own benefit and yes its unfair to most of the students. I don’t mind small liberal arts colleges doing this but a big institution such as Hopkins shouldn’t use such practices.

39

I think they got rid of that (class exclusion) a while back, but I’m not entirely sure.

40

@Ali1302 I never said anything about Johns Hopkins being “seriously better than it was 2009” because of its lower acceptance rate. Please leave that straw man alone. I don’t think the University of Chicago is seriously better now than it was in 2009 either, despite an acceptance rate that’s now 1/3 of what it was then. That doesn’t mean both schools weren’t excellent when they admitted a quarter of applicants - witness this list of several dozen Nobel Prize winners associated with Chicago.

http://www.uchicago.edu/about/accolades/22/

I don’t believe either school has become a first-class institution because of a lower acceptance rate. I think pretending that their higher acceptance rates in the past precluded them from being elite is silly, unless you think non-elite universities churn out Nobelists on a routine basis.

Oxford and Cambridge accept about 20% of their applicants, but nobody’s questioning whether they’re among the world’s top universities.

Ponder this: you’re the dean of admissions. You know you’ll have at least 5,000 applicants each year who are superbly qualified to handle the coursework at JHU. You’ve got about 1,300 spots in your freshman class. Do you want them filled by

A. the 1,300 applicants out of the 5,000 whose files are read when their admissions officer is in a good mood, and who may or may not have JHU as their first (or second, or third) choice; or

B. 700+ students chosen by the above method, but also 500-600 who are indicating that Hopkins is easily their first choice and are willing to commit to the university.

It’s worth noting that JHU accepts 500-600 students through early decision, and 3000+ overall.

Hopkins has gone from a class size of 1350 to a class of 1310. That’s a difference of about 3%. Maybe they knocked down an old dorm. Maybe they reduced their faculty by a dozen professors.

Any college where the yield rate is higher has to admit fewer students because, if they admitted 4,000+ students (as they have in the past) and 2,000 of those applicants enrolled, the university would be trying to stretch the resources previously devoted to less than 1,400 freshmen to serve 50% more students. They’re aiming for a similar class size every year, so if yield goes up the number of admissions has to go down.

  1. Virtually everything about the college admissions process is for the college's benefit. They don't owe you anything.
  2. Why is this OK for a LAC but not for Hopkins?
  3. Are you arguing that other top schools with ED don't do the same?