Chances at Columbia ED and others! Please help!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Large(650) class size
Public School in Mid-west
50% Caucasian 50% Asian(indian)</p>

<p>Rank:5%(35/650)
GPA: 3.746(frosh-senior)UW
GPA: 3.85(frosh-senior)W
GPA: 3.933(soph-senior)UW
GPA: 4.1(soph-senior)W
-School weighs terribly-</p>

<p>Courseload: 1 honor freshmen year(max was 1), nothing sophomore(1 AP and 1 Honor offered), 6 APs max(no one did it, I had 5), same for Senior year
Nothing below an A junior and senior years (no such thing as A+), 1 B and 3 A-'s sophomore, 1 C+ 2 B's and 3 A-'s freshmen year</p>

<p>APs:
AP Calc A (A/A)
AP Calc B (A/NA)
AP Calc C (A/NA)
AP US History (A/A)
AP Statistics (A/A)
AP English Lit (A/NA)
AP Gov't and Poltiics (A/NA)
AP Biology (A/A)
AP Physics A (A/A)
AP Physics B (A/NA)
NA = senior year, taking now, and term won't end in time for the grades)</p>

<p>AP Tests:
Calc AB-5
US History-5
Biology-5
Statistics-5</p>

<p>Taking:
Gov't and Politics
English Lit
Calc BC
Physics</p>

<p>SAT: 2350 800M/780CR/770W
ACT: 34 (Forgot exact, only know 36M 36S)
SATII: USH 800/Math IIC 800/Literature 770/Physics 780
PSAT:230(NMSF)</p>

<p>Awards:
National Merit Semifinalist
Math Seal of Excellence(top 1% math students)
Science Seal of Excellence(same)
AP Scholar with Distinction
Honor Roll
LD Debate top 50 in the nation
AIME Qualifier</p>

<p>EC's:
Speech and Debate - Vice President - (10,11,12)
Community Service Club - Treasurer - (11,12)
Foreign Language Club - Secretary - (11,12)
Tennis - (11,12) - Varsity Letter (started Varsity in 11th)
NHS - Member - (10,11,12)
[I only joined clubs I really care about, so obviously the top 4 I put in ALOT of work, moreso Debate then anything else]
Tutoring at an elementary school in town, 100 hours for fourth graders</p>

<p>Summers:
TASP
Spanish IV
Intern at a law firm
Stanford Debate camp - partially paid for
VBI@UCLA
Volunteering at a Nursing home twice a week for two months</p>

<p>Reccomendations:
AP US History teacher (very good)
AP Statistics Teacher (very good)
close family friend who teaches at a University nearby (extremeley good)</p>

<p>Essays:
I think they were pretty good, not meaning to toot my own horn :)</p>

<p>Schools: (ranked in order of preference)
1st Columbia (ED)
2nd Harvard
3rd MIT
4th Georgetown(match?)
5th Emory University(match?)
6th NYU(low match?)
7th St. Louis University(safety)
8th University of Missouri - Columbia(safety)</p>

<p>Unsure of how to rank myself at Columbia, Harvard, and MIT</p>

<p>How's it look CC? Thanks alot- greatly appreciate it!</p>

2

<p>I'd suggest lopping off #7 & #8 and add URochester, Vandy, Case Western, UWisconsin-Madison, Lehigh, Wake Forest, UWashington, or other similar schools or LACs for your safeties. LAC safeties would be colleges like Trinity (CT), Union, Bucknell, etc...</p>

<p>You're good at Columbia, Georgetown, Emory, NYU. At Harvard & MIT...it's possible.</p>

3

<p>Good candidate for all, but I would put something inbetween HCM and the others unless you love GTown and Emory.</p>

4

<p>Suze- I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean by "put something between HCM and Georgetown/Emory"
Like.. a higher reach school then Gtown/Emory? Any colleges come to mind?</p>

5

<p>Deprnding on what you want to study, Dartmouth, Duke,
Brown, Amherst, Williams...</p>

6

<p>i think you have a really good shot at columbia, with your sats/satii's, courseload, and pretty solid ec's. i'm sure tasp will be looked upon favorably. it seems like a good list; i think emory and nyu are both low matches, gton match, and i'd say columbia is a slight reach/match with harvard and mit being your reaches.</p>

7

<p>Miscalculation (estimated before I got my transcript from school)
the actual GPA weighted that will be sent to columbia is 3.776, unweighted around 3.70... is this worse? Does this put me out of the running at columbia in spite of everything else?(frosh-senior), gpa without freshmen does not change- does this change my chances at all the schools? Also, I was thinking of adding Stanford in there because I went there for debate camp, and actually liked it- and the GPA they'd recalculate would be significantly better then the one being sent everywhere else. Columbia is still my first choice, but if my chances at stanford are higher then all the rest solely because of that factor, i'll definatley add it to my list. so.. to change my list i guess it'd be
Columbia(ED - reach?)
Stanford(RD - ?)
Harvard(RD - incredible reach?)
MIT(RD - incredible reach?)
Georgetown(RD - slight reach?)
Emory(RD - match?)</p>

8

<p>Add Stanford if you like, but you still have a good chance at Columbia.</p>

9

<p>Even though my GPA practically dropped a tenth of a point, I'm still at the same standings with all the schools? :) Good to know, anyone else have any opinions .. please?</p>

10

<p>I think your school must have some kind of a weird weighting scale, because there is no way that you are 3.776 weighted and only 3.7 unweighted if you took 10 year-long AP courses. </p>

<p>Here's how this weighted/unweighted stuff works:</p>

<p>You add 1 extra grade point for each honors/IB/AP class you took, but you divide the total by the same number of courses attempted.
So if you took 5 classes, got 4 As and 1 B, and 3 of these courses were honors/IB/AP courses, your GPA would be 3.8 unweighted and 4.4 weighted.
(19 grade points divided by 5 courses for the unweighted, and 22 grade points for the weighted divided by 5). The exception is at the UCs where you add 1 point for honors only for the first 8 courses, and you throw out all grades in PE, health, and non-academic courses like teaching assistant.</p>

<p>Also, you should strongly consider Princeton and Stanford, since both throw out the freshman grades, and this seems to have been your weakest year grade-wise.</p>

<p>I'll wait to rate you on Columbia and the others after you re-post your correct GPA--both weighted and unweighted.</p>

11

<p>Calcruzer,
My school runs the block system, 4 classes per term 4 terms per year, here's my entire rundown for calculating a GPA at my school</p>

<p>for example, for my junior year it was
AP Calc A (2 terms) A/A
AP Biology (2 terms) A/A
AP Physics A (2 terms) A/A
AP Statistics (2 terms) A/A
AP US History (3 terms) A/A/A
Debate II (1 term) A
English III (2 terms) A/A</p>

<p>Therefore to find my gpa I take an A in an AP class (4.333) times 11( 11 AP A's), plus all my regular A's(4.0)
so.. ((4.333<em>11)+(4</em>5))/16(total classes) which gives me a ~4.229 + 3.195 + 3.792 = about a 3.739. With my first term senior grades calculated in it's:</p>

<p>AP Calc B (A)
AP Phys B (A)
PE (A)
Spanish III (A)</p>

<p>(4.333<em>2)+(4.0</em>2)/4 = 4.167 but since it's only 1 terms worth, divided by four = 1.042, therefore (3.195+3.792+4.229+1.042)/3.25 (a fourth of a year, senior year) yields 3.772 weighted. take out all the 4.333's and it yields about a 3.7 or less</p>

12

<p>Okay, so that would be the equivalent of a 4.6875 junior year and 4.5 first term senior, which adding these all together gives you a 3.9376 weighted if you had no other honors classes in your freshman or sophomore years (pretty unlikely). I'll presume you had at least 4 other year-long honor courses. This would make your weighted GPA 4.245 when you compare to other schools. Most of the Ivies require about a 4.2 and up in weighted equivalent (4.33 for top Ivies in my view). </p>

<p>Of course, your test scores are top-notch, your ECs are great and your recommendations are excellent. I'm guessing any lower Ivy and colleges like Georgetown, NYU, and Emory are matches for you, as are Princeton and Stanford since they throw out the freshman grades. But you are still slight reach for Columbia, and Dartmouth, and still a reach at Harvard, MIT, and Yale. Keep in mind that if you had more honor courses, then your odds will be better than I'm estimating here, and with few honor courses, then they would be lower. I think it's worth applying at all the schools you've listed and (even some others like suze mentioned--Williams, Duke, or Brown) and see how it works out. I also thing using your ED at Columbia is the perfect choice--especially if it's your first choice school.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>