Chances at Business/Top Schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi all~ </p>

<p>Intended major: Finance/International Business </p>

<p>Personal: Female/Asian (boooo~ I hate being Asian, we don’t get in anywhere) </p>

<p>SAT I- Math: 750, Reading: 730, Writing: 700 (Retake in a week)
SAT II- Math II: Pending, Chinese: Pending
GPA- Unweighted: 3.7/4.0, Weighted: 6.23, Initial Rank: 3/860 (top 1%)</p>

<p>School Stats: Our school sends at least 1 person to Harvard every year (3 in my soph yr), dozens to other top notch schools. There are kids in my class/school that have been nationally ranked as chemistry/physics/math students, made the national teams for such competitions, won national level community service awards in middle school, etc. Basically, pretty cutthroat. </p>

<p>Courses: (listing only AP/Dual Enrollment DE)
9th: AP Music Theory, AP Calc BC, AP Art Hist
10th: AP Euro, AP Enviro, DE Multivariable Calc, DE Differential Eq, AP Stat
11th: AP Phy C, AP Eng, AP Amer Hist, AP Pysch, AP Chem, AP Comp Sci A
12th: AP Phy B, AP Eng, AP Human Geo, AP Bio, AP Jap, AP Micro/Macro, AP Govt, DE Intro to Business
Other: 4 Years of Japanese, Current internship in Mechanical Engineering</p>

<p>Clubs:
National Japanese Honor Society (Vice President, President, Founder) – 2 yrs
Japanese Club (Film Festival Coordinator, Vice President) – 3 yrs
Key Club (9th grade rep, public relations officer) – 4 yrs
Mu Alpha Theta – 3 yrs
Phi Beta Chi – 2 yrs
Amnesty International – 2 yrs
Math Club (Tutoring Coordinator) – 1 yr </p>

<p>EC:
CCSSF Volunteer Program (Co-Founder, Vice President) – 2 yrs (works a local Chinese school to offer tutoring/etc services – over 500 accumulated hrs)
Full Orchestra Musical Performances (Pianist) – 3 yrs
Superintendent’s Honors Piano Festival (selected for) – 2 yrs
Girls Badminton Team – 1 yr
High School Model UN – 2 yrs
Environmental Immersion (selected for)
Environmental Day – 3 yrs (school wide activity)<br>
Private Tutor
Other volunteer work</p>

<p>Awards:
National Japan Bowl – 14th place
Badminton Team District Champions
Badminton Girls Doubles B - 4th Place
State Japanese Skit and Speech Contest – 2nd Place
Florida Japan Bowl – 4th Place
National Honor Roll </p>

<p>Target Schools:
*University of Pennsylvania (ED to Huntsman) – I know I have no chance to Huntsman, but my counselor urges to me to do it under the pretense that in the past 3 yrs, 1 student in our school has been selected for Huntsman. There’s also about 15 people in my class applying to Wharton. I’m not too sure about my chances.
*Massachusetts Institute of Technology – B’s in science classes will hurt me.
*Cornell University – (?) Can I count on this school to accept me?
New York University – How’s the atmosphere? I’m not sure if I’ll like the big city feel
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of Chicago
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Washington in St. Louis
Emory University
Georgetown University
University of Florida – Backup.<br>
University of Miami (FL) – Backup.
Yale University – as a joke. </p>

<p><strong>I think my unweighted GPA and my lack of academic awards will hurt me. I also received a “C” in AP Physics C: E&M (.5 credit).</strong> </p>

<p>If you have some other good business schools you think I should apply to, feel free to throw them out. Please be realistic in your evaluations, our school college counselor says I have no chance at Yale or Penn or MIT. :( </p>

<p>Thanks a bunch~</p>

2

<p>weak scores for top schools
a lot of aps so thats nice
your ECs seem a bit discursive besides japanese.
you have better chances than you think. but not that much better</p>

3

<p>I've only taken the SAT I once, but I'm retaking in a week. Hopefully I can boost them up by 100 points. :/</p>

4

<p>The only school your scores are low for are Yale & MIT. 20 AP's + advanced college courses + rank of 3/800+ will get you in at many of those schools. You do lack business oriented EC's though which certainly will not help.</p>

5

<p>Your counselor urges you to apply ED to Huntsman but also says you have no chance at Yale Penn and MIT? lol</p>

<p>While your GPA (3.7) is on the low side, your class rank is excellent, so that signals grade deflation, which the college admissions officers will be sure to notice. You also took BC as a freshman, which is crazy. You look pretty good all-around - I think you can get into MIT, on the math, especially since you're a girl.</p>

6

<p>Well, MY conselor tells me to ED to Penn. But the school college conselor (different person), tells me I have no chance. As for BC in 9th, there's a kid in my grade who took it in 8th...</p>

7

<p>is it normal in ur school to take 20 AP's..cuz in mine the max is 10. </p>

<p>how is ur courseload compared to other students in ur school?</p>

8

<p>Oh, well I splurged on APs. But only rank 1 and 2 have about the same # of APs as me. Probably by a couple less. It's normal for the top ranking kids in our school to take about 12 APs by the end of their senior year.</p>

9

<p>University of Pennsylvania (ED to Huntsman)--Big Reach
University of Pennsylvania (ED to Wharton) –Reach
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – No shot at business school, although match to slight reach as a physics or chemistry major
Cornell University – Match (no problem, you will get in)
New York University – Match at Stern
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)--Match and direct admit for business as freshman (you enter the business school as a sophomore)
University of Chicago--Chicago has no undergraduate business school. You are a match for Economics.
Carnegie Mellon University--Match
University of Washington in St. Louis--Match
Emory University --Safe Match
Georgetown University--Safe Match, but your profile doesn't match them, so you may be rejected
University of Florida – Match (OOS)
University of Miami (FL) – Safe Match
Yale University – Yale has no undergraduate business school. You are a slight reach for Economics.</p>

<p>Your problem for Wharton and Huntsman is that you have no business experience, no business background, and haven't started a business of your own. Additionally, you have no leadership in your ECs outside of the volunteer program creation--so you have to really play this up to have any kind of chance at all.</p>

<p>As far as MIT, they only take 215 students a year into this program, and you have the same problems as for Wharton. Your 20 APs would be very helpful in other programs, and since you are a girl, you would probably get in if you applied to major there in something beside business.</p>

<p>Yale is a shot for everyone, and I'd say you are good at all the rest (except maybe at Georgetown, because you don't match what they look for--which is more literature/debate and community service through religious groups).</p>

10

<p>Thanks~ Your post was very insightful. Fingers crossed for U of Penn (and bribing/blackmailing parents into paying)!! Does Cornell have a finance major? (That doesn't have to do with agriculture?)</p>

11

<p>From what I can tell, they don't (weird, huh?)</p>

<p>Here's the link to the list of majors and minors (and double majors) they offer at the business school at Cornell:</p>

<p><a href="http://aem.cornell.edu/undergrad/index.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://aem.cornell.edu/undergrad/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I guess you just major in Business and then take all the Finance courses you can that aren't related to Agribusiness. This also explains why Cornell's business department is ranked in the top 11, but their finance major does not rank in the top 10. </p>

<p>P.S. If you definitely want to go with a finance major and you don't get into Wharton (ranked #1 in finance), consider NYU (Stern) which ranks #2 in finance. 80% of their business students major in Finance. Or, if you are concerned about the "big city" pressures, consider Carnegie-Mellon (Pittsburgh), Virginia (Charlottesville), or Michigan (Ann Arbor);--all top finance schools.</p>

12

<p>The kids I know who got into Huntsman all had extraordinary ECs. They are beyond anything else amazing leaders. I also don't know anyone who got in using their native language. There are so many Asians applying with a language spoken at home. If you are Japanese make sure to highlight other ECs.</p>

13

<p>9th: AP Music Theory, AP Calc BC, AP Art Hist
10th: AP Euro, AP Enviro, DE Multivariable Calc, DE Differential Eq, AP Stat
11th: AP Phy C, AP Eng, AP Amer Hist, AP Pysch, AP Chem, AP Comp Sci A
12th: AP Phy B, AP Eng, AP Human Geo, AP Bio, AP Jap, AP Micro/Macro, AP Govt, DE Intro to Business</p>

<p>Why C, then B? That's arsebackwards. And what were your scores on the exams? </p>

<p>That said, you've got a shot at MIT, better then your GC would admit. Not great, but a shot.</p>

14

<p>I know, Huntsman is completely out of my reach, but I'm EDing to Wharton anyway. It's just an extra essay so I figure I might as well try. </p>

<p>As for ethnicity, I'm Chinese. I'm trying to double in Int'l Bus/Finance so I'm playing up the language bit since I don't have much else in ECs. I am fluent in Mandarin and Shanghainese (dialect). I'm passably decent in Japanese and Catonese. Having taken Japanese throughout high school, I could probably have a decent conversation in Japanese, but give me a newspaper or a novel, and it doesn't quite work out. Catonese all comes from Dad's side. I don't know how well I would be able to carry a conversation, I can understand it. </p>

<p>Physics C -> B is a route many of my friends took. So I just followed the crowd I suppose. No big reason for it. I got an "A" in C: Mech part and a "C" in C: E&M. D: I got a "4" and "3" on the exams, respectively.</p>

15

<p>Oh, I got 4's on all my other exams, except Chemistry, which I got a 3.</p>

16

<p>Bump. </p>

<p>Anyone have any other comments on chances at Wharton/MIT/NYU/UMich/Yale? </p>

<p>Should I play up the language aspect for Huntsman?</p>

17

<p>oh well, being Asian myself, and being a Whartonian myself, I would say you have a decent chance at Wharton. But I think you need to boost your SAT score to 2200+ to increase your chances. For hunstman, you need to write FANTASTIC essays. Of course their average SATs and GPAs are higher than general Wharton's. However, there are LOTS of students at Wharton who has higher SATs and GPAs than those in the hunstman program. So, I guess essays are important...</p>

18

<p>and you donn't need a business experience. Trust me on this.</p>

19

<p>I wouldn't say she's a match neccesarily for U of Michigan - ROSS PA. They only admitted 70-80ish students last year...</p>

20

<p>You don't need business experience for Wharton, nor do you need to own one. You'll probably be deferred and then admitted later.</p>