Chance me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1600 superscored
ACT (breakdown): -
SAT II: 740 Spanish, 750 US History
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/~350
AP (place score in parenthesis): -
IB (place score in parenthesis): Math SL (6)
Senior Year Course Load: English HL, World Topics HL, Psych HL, BC Calc, Physics C, Spanish SL, TOK
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Placed in national/ statewide essay contests, National Merit Commended

Subjective:

Extracurriculars: International Nonprofit (regional board member, club president), Model UN (board member, position w/ conference), County Young Democrats (founder/ pres), Large Young Dems Group (nat’l position), Mock Trial (founder/ captain), Student Government (president), Volleyball, Cooking (not in any official capacity, but I spend a lot of time on it so I put it)
Job/Work Experience: 2016 Coordinated campaign, Internship on gubernatorial campaign
Volunteer/Community service: Voter registration at school-started my own drives with the help of a youth-focused org

Background: ethnically ambiguous, but I wrote about my Asian heritage in an essay; I go to a poor public school, but I’m upper middle class; non-competitive place in a competitive state

I haven’t read any of my teacher recs and I’m a pretty good writer. My Columbia essays were about race, my experience with voter reg, and why I want to go to Columbia (the activist environment).

I’m applying to Columbia ED, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, University of Southern California, Georgetown, GW, Barnard, Chicago, and a few state schools.

Sorry everything is so vague, I really don’t want to be identified :slight_smile: I’m mainly wondering whether my EC’s are ivy-worthy.

2

I don’t want people from my school to find this and know my college list… they’re overly competitive

3

uhh yeah

4

I mean, you have a perfect SAT score, a perfect unweighted GPA, and are at the top of your class. You are taking a full slate of IB classes and are in a bunch of different ECs including leadership roles and volunteering and an internship on a gubernatorial campaign. Assuming that your teacher recommendations are good and you’re a strong writer, you’re a competitive student for the top schools that you’re applying to.

But at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Penn, Chicago, and probably USC, you’re competing with a bunch of other students who also (on paper) look just like you, so there aren’t any guarantees. USC and Georgetown are little more match-ish for you and you’re likely to be offered admission there, but at the other ones you have the necessary criteria for admission and so at this point it’s really up to who you’re competing with and what the admissions officers are trying to put together in this year’s class.

Barnard and GWU are also good match choices. I’m assuming that you are applying to Barnard because Columbia’s your first choice and Barnard has an affiliation, but if you are interested in an activist environment and a women’s college you may want to look at some of the other women’s colleges - lots of them have long histories of activism and are located in college towns with lots of students. Smith College was the first one that came to mind, but also Scripps, Wellesley, and potentially Mount Holyoke.

5

Thank you for the feedback Juillet!

6

If you’re going into politics, I assume you’ll want to gain experiences in college and it is no secret that this will be easier on the east coast. I don’t know much about the poli sci departments at Stanford and USC because I never looked into them, but will you be able to get the extracurricular experience you want? Would you attend them over Georgetown? You have an excellent chance at all of these schools. Really focus on what is going to give you what you want. I think Columbia would be excellent and so would Penn Gtown and GW. Be a little picky, you can definitely afford to be with those stats.

Also, off topic but can you explain what you mean about columbia’s “activist environment”? Nothing to do with chances but I’m also in political science (from NY) and I just find that interesting! You can PM if you want… or you don’t have to tell me. LOL

7

@ a20171

I agree that east coast politics are way more interesting, but USC has a public policy major, which not a lot of colleges have, which is why I’m applying there. Stanford has a lot of interesting political science research, especially from a more data-driven perspective, which is why I’m applying there.

I’m not a giant fan of the DC schools because it’s too close to my hometown for my taste, but I’d definitely prefer a more urban environment so I’ll just have to see where I get in :slight_smile:

As far as Columbia’s activist environment, Columbia is pretty well-known for having a politically engaged student body. You can read more here: http://features.columbiaspectator.com/eye/2017/04/25/it-takes-great-numbers-the-activist-ivy/.

Thanks so much for your feedback!!