Chance Me with No Mercy!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

For a little background I’m a rising senior that’s a white male with divorced parents, income is around $150,000 from mom and step-dad but I also have a sister going to college at same time.
Here’s my stats:

GPA (Self calculated with A being 4.0 and A- being 3.7, and Honors are .5 and APs are 1 extra, school has weird 100 pt scale): Upward trend:
HS Classes in Middle School: UW: 3.6 W: 3.98
Freshman: UW: 3.91 W: 4.20
Sophomore: UW: 3.96 W: 4.39
Junior: UW: 4.0 W: 4.47
Overall: UW: 3.91 W: 4.30

Class Rank: Not given, but I’d estimate top 10%

SAT: 1520 superscored (750 RW 770 M 17 Essay)

ACT: 34 (35R 35W 34S 31M) and then on other ACT got an 8 on the essay

APs: APWH (5), AP Lang (5) , APUSH (5), and AP Calc BC (5)

Senior Sched: AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Gov, Dual Enrollment Academic Writing and Calc III, then advanced band class.

SAT 2: Taking Physics and Math 2 in August, been getting 700+ on practice tests.

Academic Awards: Chemistry Achievement Award, High Honor Roll all semesters of HS (so far), got some generic school award for course load, rigor, and school involvement. AP Scholar with Honor. NYS Scholar Athlete 3 years in a row

Major: Looking to go into Bioengineering or Biophysics

ECs:

Cross Country (1 year) Sprint coach told me to do it and I struggled.

Indoor Track and Field (3 years) Made all league team for two events and was honorable mention for my areas 1st team in the 2017-2018 season. No official captains appointed but I always played a leadership role, teaching the ropes to newer kids for handoffs, blocks, and form. Same could be said for outdoor. Went to NB Nationals and hold a school record in the 4x200.

Outdoor Track and Field (3 years) Made all league team for 3 events and was honorable mention for areas 1st team for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Went to NB Nationals Outdoor and hold the record for the 4x100.

Summer Track (3 Years) Ran for a club, Qualified and ran in the Junior Olympics in Kansas and was #1 representative from the Niagara region in the short sprints. Have placed in numerous regional championships.

Trumpet (3 years) Play in the honors wind ensemble, been playing since the 4th grade. The band meets every day during school but I also practice for about an hour a day.

Jazz Band (3 years) Was with normal jazz band freshman year then was accepted into the advanced jazz band for my sophomore and junior years. We meet twice a week for an hour all year.

Town Hall Volunteer (2 summers): I volunteer at a local town hall doing numerous things like filing, organizing attic, research, computer work, labeling, and putting away books at library. I’ve probably accumulated 60-70 hours so far.

I should get into NHS in the fall and plan on joining math league or the trivia club since I’m not going to be doing cross country.

Essay + Recommendations: It’s a mystery.

These are the 10 colleges I’ve narrowed my search down to:

Reach: Amherst College , Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins, Tufts

Match: Case Western, Lehigh, WPI, Stevens Institute of Technology

Safety: SUNY Binghamton

OK I just want honest opinions here just tell it how it is. The main reason I’m doing this is because a lot of the coaches from these schools said they would let me in if I ED, but I want to see how my chances would be without. Committing to a college without knowing the exact financial requirements is a little bit spooky to me. Thanks and don’t hold back!!!

2

I agree with your assessment, with a twist.

CMU does not offer BME as a major, only a co-major, in which you would also major in a different engineering.

Lehigh RD is unforgiving. ED2 you still have a shot.

I would be very careful where you apply your ED, JHU I think is a long shot, as well as Cornell. Both Case and Lehigh offer ED 2, but they admit so much from ED1 that ED2 is slightly better than RD.

I would also consider Pitt as a safety. Pitt BME is alot better than you think and on the medical level it is a great graduate choice.

Good luck.

3

@Kadel1023 Thanks for your honest opinion! I was definitely considering Pitt at one point but I want to run track in college and their team is beyond my level athletically atm :frowning:

4

Because you are not eligible for need base grant, all those privates will be 70G a year, not sure if you want to go that route.

For BME, with a better price tag, Pitt, UVA, Purdue, Illinois. Yes these are big public schools with little chance for you as a track and field athlete, but come with half the student loan.

Good luck to you sir.

5

Congratulations on your academic achievements and national record in the 4x100. I can’t chance you, but offer the following.

1)Run the NPCs for your schools, I am not sure it’s correct to say (as one poster did) that you are not eligible for need based aid…even though your parents’ income is higher than average, you do have a sibling in college. Talk with your parents about what they can contribute each year to your college costs.

2)If you choose to apply ED because you have a clear favorite school, and you made sure it’s likely to be affordable, and you want to run track/xc… make sure the coach is offering more than what you stated above ‘they would let me in if I ED’. You need to know if you are a tagged athlete and they are offering you one of their spots or slots. If, even after speaking with the coach, you want clarity from admissions, that is an entirely reasonable thing to ask.

Good luck!

6

Have you made contact with the coaches at all the DIII and Lehigh for T&F. My son who is not as accomplished on the track as you used that as a hook and will be starting at UChicago this fall. He will be running XC and T&F. I don’t want to so sound like I’m grouping event success to intelligence of the group(but I guess I am), but the really smart student/athletes tend to be more heavy in Distance first, then mid-distance, then sprints. So I’d think any of the highly academic DIII schools would be really excited to talk to you.

For comparison, here are my son’s stats.

SAT 1510
ACT 34
UW GPA 3.98
W GPA 4.5
He took rigorous schedule and of the 8 AP tests he took (CALC AB, BC, AP Euro, APUS, AP Lit, AP Lang…) he scored 5 on 7 seven of them. (He didn’t test in many of his Senior APs, as UChicago only accepts 4 AP classes to use as credit, so he didn’t see the need to pay and take the test).

You look comparable. What are your times on the track? My son’s PR in the 800 was 1:57 which is good, but not world class.

I throw Lehigh in there because even though they are DI, they and a few other Patriot League schools were interested in my son, in the end he was down to UChicago and Colgate.

7

@BrainBoiler I have made contact with some D3 coaches and Lehigh. The only teams that haven’t gotten back to me are Cornell, Stevens, and WPI. In the 200 my best this season was a 22.4 but I can do better, and my 100 PR of 11.27 is from sophomore year bc I didn’t run it open last season. I run 400s sometimes in the relay and have gone sub 51. Thankfully these times are good enough for me score points in conference meets right from my freshman year (according to some coaches).

8

If you are going through the track coaches, here are my no mercy chances to your schools:

Reach: Amherst College , Carnegie Mellon, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins, Tufts (all but Conell you chances are good-great that you will get accepted to one of them. Cornell is D1 Ivy and the Ivy’s are actually nationally competetive in D1 on a national level)

Match: Case Western, Lehigh, WPI, Stevens Institute of Technology (I’d say your chances are also very high at CWU. Good at the others, I don’t know much about WPI and SIT in terms of T&F was not an option for us so we didn’t look at them.)

Safety: SUNY Binghamton (you shouldn’t need to get to safety, but it looks like it is what you call it.)

I’ve posted on DIII recruiting threads already this, but the key is to find one of those reaches you really like, get the impression that the coach really likes you. The way the process works is if you want to use your athlete hook, you are going to need to commit to using your ED. Before you say you will use your ED, ask the following questions:

Will you advocate for me? (this needs to be yes)
Will you take my app personally to Admissions and request a likely letter? (You really want a likely letter, but some schools don’t do this as much anymore. If the answer is yes, this is good)
IF you don’t receive a likely letter you have a decision to make. You only have one ED (or 2 if one of the other schools you are thinking about has ED2).

For us, we felt like the coaches at my son’s 2nd and 3rd choices were much more willing to let him know that he was a sure thing (Colgate and W&L) if he used his ED then UChicago. But for us the chance of getting into UChicago was too good to pass and he decided to go all in there and if he was differed, to try his two backups. It worked out for us, it doesn’t for everyone.

9

As a recruit, I don’t know. But for engineering or physics, in general, at a top tier, are there any collaborative math/science ECs? What you list is sports x 4, music x 2 and town hall. What shows the prep for these majors beyond classes? Or that you tested this interest? Will you have AP physics or does the school not offer it?

10

Because your parents are divorced, please read the following with respect to financial aid at some of the colleges on your list:

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2083835-faq-divorced-parents-financial-aid-and-net-price-calculators.html

11

@lookingfoward The only science related EC offered by my school is Science Olympiad and that conflicted with track practice heavily so I couldn’t do it. My school only has Physics E and M with a prerequisite of Honors Physics, which I took this year. It came down to either picking AP Bio or AP Physics and I figured I would need bio more bc I haven’t taken it since 8th grade. I am self-studying for the Physics subject test which to my knowledge encompasses AP Physics 1 and 2 so I’m banking on that.

12

@BrainBoiler Thanks for an honest evaluation and I appreciate the recruiting advice!

13

Apply EA (Nov 1st deadline, no additional essays beyond Common App) with Case Western, don’t do EDs if you are not certain if the school is a fit for you. RD for CWRU class of 2023 will be challenging even with your stats. For the 1st time in many years, CWRU didn’t pull students off the waitlist for the class of 2022, so they could be get significantly more picky with acceptances and yield protect for this cycle. Lehigh is another school with significant decline in acceptance rate and they take a very large % of the incoming class during the ED rounds. WPI/Stevens are good matches and they could wait for RD and you probably will not penalize as much (vs CWRU and Lehigh). Score as high as you can with SAT subject tests. These probably wont matter for the match schools, but for the reaches, you should set a goal for 770+. Plenty of kiddos scoring 800 with Math 2 (esp. w/engineering crowds), a 730 in Math 2 probably will do you no good at all (and “I” would not submit to the reaches). One last point, on your ECs, try to laser focus onto something that you have started on your own initiatives. Schools, esp. reach schools, are looking for motivated self-starters. You need something to set you apart from all the other well-qualified applicants. That being said, your athletic records probably will be the single most important differentiating point in your application. I would encourage you to look for the best fit “reach” school where the coaches are suggesting you have a good shot. JHU is an amazing school and BME/Biophysics is TOP notch. You have to find the best fit. You are in a very strong position overall and best of luck.