Chances at a few good-but-not-great schools. Will chance back.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m working on an application list for this fall and, with the high reaches (UChicago and some schools on the same plane) out of the way, I’m looking to lock in my matches and safeties of choice. The tough part is knowing what schools fit in each of these categories. Hence this thread.

I’m an IB student who completed the MYP and started the DP in grade 10. Grades are out of 56 (grade 9), 63 (grade 10), and 42 (grade 11)

Academics
Grades: 53/54, 62, 41
SAT: 800 CR 800 M 730 W (single sitting)
SAT II: 800 literature, 800 french
Rank: school doesn’t rank.

Have taken IB English, Biology, Geography and Economics HL, French and Math SL.

Extracurriculars:
-Debate: club co-president, team captain
-Student council: delegate, co-president (grade 11)
-MUN: delegate at 2 conferences, chosen to present a resolution at a conference held at UN’s Geneva office.
-Judo: brown belt, have practiced at home these last few years after 8-9 years at a dojo
-Volunteering for a local NGO: raised about $8,000 from sponsors (as the group’s corporate sponsorship person, not just out of the blue) to organize an event for local schoolkids.
-Sing in an Estonian choir
-Baseball (no good, though)
-School newspaper (section editor, grades 9-11) and creative writing magazine (will contribute in grade 12)
-International Award Gold (will complete in November)
-Volunteering for local branch of one of the major US political parties
-Writing a report for a human rights organization

Awards
-Several regional awards in debate/public speaking (including 3 first-place finishes at competitions)
-National History Bee: 2nd place nationally (grade 10), 3rd place (grade 11), national champion team (grade 10) European semifinalist (team and individual, grade 11).
-World Scholar’s Cup: 1st nationally (grade 10)
-Variety of minor awards in math (school level)

Work experience
-1-week internship at city government
-monthlong internship at a small marketing company

Summer activities
-Went to Johns Hopkins CTY (grade 10-11 summer) and did very well
-Performed at Estonia’s national song festival

Other:
-Ethnicity: white
-Income bracket: middle/upper middle class
-Teacher recommendations: should be 8/10 or 9/10
-Counselor recommendation: likely 8/10
-Hooks: dual nationality (US/Estonia)
-Intended concentration: political science/government

Schools:
American
Boston University
UC Berkeley
Claremont McKenna
Dartmouth
GWU
Northeastern
Tufts
William and Mary

Could you please say:
A. Whether the school is a reach, match, or safety (feel free to indicate high or low if you wish)
B. What my odds would be of getting financial aid.

2

I don’t understand your academic status, especially with no class rank. Can you explain that more clearly? What would you estimate your relative class rank to be? Or can you say how this would correspond to an unweighted 4.0 GPA?

Also, are you a CA resident? If not, recognize that you will have to pay OOS tuition all 4 years and you will not get financial aid to help with the 24K per year OOS portion of the tuition. Also the Net Price Calculators on each college’s website will give you more accurate info than any guesses we could make.

3

@Corinthian -With regards to academic status, I guess I could’ve been clearer. I’ll try and make it as easy as possible to understand, but it’s not too straightforward.

I go to a small, private, international school outside the US (so no, not a CA resident). We don’t have any courses outside of IB courses: the MYP, and the DP (the latter is what most people mean when they say “IB”).

So far as our admissions counselors have told me, colleges see our grades out of 7. There are a lot of “quick-and-dirty” methods to convert IB marks to a US GPA, but the adcoms say those don’t provide an accurate portrait of the way colleges look at our grades (you’d have to ask them for the exact reasons). On Naviance, our school’s scattergrams all use GPA out of 7, and don’t record one out of 4 at all.

Without going into the details, I looked at the exact grades our school’s transcripts will show, and this is what I’ll have.

Grade 9: 48/49
Grade 10: 56/56
Grade 11: 41/42

Grade 11 is the full DP, with 4 HL subjects and 2 SL subjects (see above)

My class rank would have me tied for 2nd in the school-if the school ranked, which it doesn’t.

With regards to financial aid, I’m wondering about merit aid. The NPCs aren’t really designed for students living abroad, due to high cost of living variation between countries (leading to vastly different salaries for the same purchasing power), so estimating need-based aid is difficult.

4

American- Safety but show interest or they’ll think your using it as a safety and waitlist/deny you
Boston U- Same thing
Berkeley- Match but if engineering, low reach
Claremont- Low reach
Dartmouth- Reach
GWU- (See boston u and American U)
Northeastern- Same thing
Tufts- Match
William and Mary- Match

5

Thanks for the clarification, it was very helpful. I’ll take a shot at this.

American - low match, probably get some merit aid
Boston University - low match
UC Berkeley - high match but no FA and no merit aid
Claremont McKenna - reach
Dartmouth - reach
GWU - match
Northeastern - IDK
Tufts - low reach but beware Tufts Syndrome
William and Mary - IDK

Claremont McKenna had an acceptance rate of 9.76% so while you may consider it “good but not great” it is harder to get into than LAC’s like Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore. Having said that, you seem like a competitive candidate who fits the profile and I would think the joint US/Estonian citizenship would be some kind of hook. And CMC gives merit aid but I don’t know how to weigh your chances. Dartmouth’s acceptance rate was 10% and Tufts was 16%. You don’t want to come across as a candidate who considers them a safety or even a match.

You look like someone who should definitely get into American, Boston U and GWU. I hesitate to use the term safety because many on CC define that to mean admission is virtually assured. Suffice it to say I would expect you to get into all 3.

PS - hope I haven’t confused high and low match. When I say high match I mean it’s close to a low reach.