Chances; Different Circumstances

<p>Hey all, I just recently found out about this site, and it seems like a great place to help my college admissions! I'm Asian (chinese), I just finished junior year, and would like to see what colleges I would have a good chance of getting into (and also safeties and reaches). I have read some of the other chance threads here, and I'd be able to tell my own chances at some good liberal arts colleges and universities if not for some factors that I haven't noticed in other people's chance threads. </p>

<p>The thing is, I've been suspended for five days once, and have gotten a referral for something else (both in junior year). I'm definitely not proud to put such a thing on my application for colleges to see, but there's no way around that. I'm trying to see how this will affect my chances. The suspension was for damaging/vandalizing school property, and the referral was for something minor. I'm really intent on finding out how this will affect my chances, how college admissions view me, etc.</p>

<p>Colleges</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon, Dickinson College, Kenyon College, Hamilton College, College of William and Mary
I don't think I have a chance at HYPS</p>

<p>Basic Info
Asian (Chinese) Male
New York State
Public High School
Just finished junior year</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA</p>

<p>My school's GPA is out of 4.5; my GPA is approximately 4.3 or 4.4
Out of 4.0, I think my GPA is 3.8-3.9</p>

<p>I'm not sure how to do the weighted GPA. Is that just my GPA converted into out of 5.0 scale? </p>

<p>AP Courses</p>

<p>Sophomore - World History - 5
Junior - English Language, Physics B, US History awaiting scores
Senior - going to be taking Psychology, Biology, English Literature, US Government, Macroeconomics, Calculus BC</p>

<p>Class Rank</p>

<p>I don't know my rank. I'm certain I'm in the top 10% and even top 5%. Or higher; how important is this to find out? I can ask my counselor.</p>

<p>SAT</p>

<p>Math - 720
Reading - 730
Writing - 540 </p>

<p>Total - 1450
With writing - 1990</p>

<p>Oops, I messed up the essay on my first SAT. I plan on retaking it in October.</p>

<p>SAT II</p>

<p>Math II - 800
World History - 790
English Literature - 650</p>

<p>ACT</p>

<p>Just took this in June, but my score hasn't been posted online yet. I'll update this with the score when I get it.</p>

<p>ECs</p>

<p>My main extra-curricular is table tennis. I've been playing competitively for about 4 years, and have also been a member of the Genesee Valley Table Tennis Club for the same amount of time. It's one of the greatest passions of my life, and I just plain love it. I'm also a member of the Junior Program in the club, and since I'm one of the higher level juniors (aka kids) there, I often help lower level players. Just some advice, drills, and practice; not lessons.
I play quite a bit (9-13 hours a week), if that's important to know.
I've played in USA Table Tennis sanctioned tournaments, and have won some trophies that I can include in my 'awards, honors, etc.' section.
[For those who play table tennis, I'm playing at around a 1700 level now, maybe higher]
I'm not really sure how much info is needed on this. It's one of the things that take up a lot of my time, definitely my favorite sport to play, and is one of the things I'm pretty good at.</p>

<p>I'm also in my school's Varsity Masterminds team, sophomore to present (I'm going to be playing in my senior year too). I think an equivalent of this is Quiz Bowl? It's basically a team trivia competition that faces off between schools in my area in New York state. I'm the top scorer on my team. There's no official team captain, since someone is chosen to be 'captain' when we are in a match, but I've been captain many times.</p>

<p>Tutoring - I've unofficially tutored a lot of my classmates and friends, in a wide variety of subjects. Also helped my older brother study for the physics portion of the MCAT, since I just finished AP Physics and the MCAT tests pretty much the same material.</p>

<p>These extracurriculars aren't that great though. :(</p>

<p>Volunteer Work</p>

<p>Helping a teacher from another school district that my brother knows set up and prepare various projects and educational games for special ed students. This was throughout junior year. I'm continuing this throughout summer and in my senior year.</p>

<p>Helping set up and clean up tables and barriers for a table tennis tournament hosted by one of our club's officials.
Coaching and refereeing scholastic events (tourny for kids; split into different age groups) at the same tournament.</p>

<p>Working with other students in a group to create podcasts as review materials for our AP US History course throughout junior year. The podcasts covered the entire course, and were available on a website for our classmates to use. A lot of other students found them really helpful for studying for both the midterm and the AP exam.</p>

<p>Employment</p>

<p>Inland Vacuum Industries as a part time job. Small company that distributes and makes specialty lubricants and greases for the vacuum pump industry and other markets (like silicone and manufacturing). Worked from summer of 2007 to present. I've done packaging for some of their products, market/competition research, and office maintenance (pretty much cleaning/vacuuming/mopping/etcetc.)</p>

<p>Honors and Awards</p>

<p>Some significant awards from Table Tennis
- 1st Place Rochester Giant Round Robin Group C 2008
- 1st Place Under-1100 and Under-1300 events at the 2006 Millcreek Open in Erie, Pennsylvania (For those who play table tennis, the u1100 and u1300 events dont seem that great, but when I won those events, I had been only playing for a year and a couple months.)</p>

<p>I've gotten 2 awards for sportsmanship at my club. One was given to one person by the club coach, the other was given to one person by vote (secret ballot) by all the club members. </p>

<p>2 academic scholar excellence awards (i'm not exactly sure of the name), given for maintaining a high GPA throughout the entirety of my high school.</p>

<p>I think that's it. Your help and advice is greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>in at all easily</p>

<p>Yeah, you're a pretty good match for all those schools, with the possible exception of Carnegie Mellon, which I see as a high match-low reach. Either way, I think you're safe with those schools. You could do to find some more high reaches and safeties - go ahead and try for HYPS, can't hurt.</p>

<p>Really? I was really nervous about this:

[quote]
The thing is, I've been suspended for five days once, and have gotten a referral for something else (both in junior year). I'm definitely not proud to put such a thing on my application for colleges to see, but there's no way around that. I'm trying to see how this will affect my chances. The suspension was for damaging/vandalizing school property, and the referral was for something minor. I'm really intent on finding out how this will affect my chances, how college admissions view me, etc.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Also, if I'm able to get in those colleges easily, should I keep 2 or 3 of them as safety and apply to some schools that would be harder to get into like Georgetown, Ivies (Brown, others), Colgate University, and others?</p>

<p>I was striving for some colleges that weren't as hard to get into because I thought my suspension would seriously affect my chances at top schools.</p>

<p>The suspension might have some effect on your chances, but I doubt it will seriously hurt you as much as you think it will. Aim high and keep the schools you have now as matches (maybe find a couple really guaranteed safeties). Raise your SAT writing score and I give you pretty good odds.</p>

<p>Thanks for the quick responses, everyone.</p>

<p>What would be some good safety schools? I forgot the mention in the OP; my intended major is International Relations (or the equivalent or similar program).</p>

<p>W&M may be very tough given the SAT scores.
If you have time, possibly look into getting those up.
Especially for schools like W&M you don't want to present the ad com with a low writing score. Everything else is ok.</p>

<p>Yeah, it would be a good idea to retake the SAT in October to increase my writing score (and to raise math and reading scores too!).</p>

<p>Bump</p>

<p>A little update on my original post, since I now received my AP and ACT scores.</p>

<p>APs
English Language, US History, Physics B - all 5s :)</p>

<p>ACT - 34</p>

<p>math - 36
english - 35
reading - 35
science - 31</p>

<p>Just to reiterate a question I asked in the OP. I'm really concerned that the suspension will detract from my application. The things I did were really bad. How much will this affect my chances?</p>

<p>If you want, you can actually explain the whole incident briefly somewhere in your application. Either ask your guidance counsellor to do that for you, or use the Additional Information section in the CommonApp.</p>

<p>You have a very good profile and you seem to be an intelligent and mature person. Don't sweat too much about it. </p>

<p>None of the colleges you mentioned in your OP are safeties for you, I think. More like low-ish matches. I can't really suggest any safeties.. why don't you try the Parents forum?</p>

<p>And yeah do try to take another look at the Ivies and other tippity-top-ranked colleges. Good luck! :)</p>

<p>Alright, thanks!</p>

<p>Anyone wanna do chances on Georgetown, Cornell, and Tufts?</p>

<p>Which college at Carnegie (matters a lot if its CS/Tepper vs. rest)</p>

<p>Georgetown/Cornell/CMU all slight reaches/matches</p>

<p>Tufts should be match and so is William n Mary</p>

<p>rest are safeties</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>It'll be the college of humanities and social sciences, at carnegie mellon.</p>