Chances for UChicago EDII?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

Hi,
I recently applied EDII to the University of Chicago and I was just wondering what my chances were.

GPA: 5.16/5.3 weighted, 4.0/4.0 unweighted. Roughly 96.5% average. No class rank.

SAT: 800 CR, 800 MA, 790 WR

SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 US History, 790 Chinese w/Listening, 790 World History, 780 Biology

AP: 5’s on Calc BC, Chem, Physics C: Mechanics, US History, Statistics, World History, English Lang and Comp, 4 Biology, 3 French

ECs: This is where I think I’m really weak.

Science Olympiad (never went to state or nationals)

Math Competition (never went to state or nationals)

Volunteering at Hospital and Soup Kitchen (500-ish hours combined)

Co-founder of the largest club at my school

National Honor Society

Job as Assistant Property Manager (dad’s friend’s company hired me to work as an intern)

Essays:
Common App: Wrote about how my raising of ants led to big-picture thinking (I rate it a 7/10, decent intro and hook into essay but I thought the main point was a bit weak)

Why Chicago: Wrote about their intellectual adventurism (6.5/10, felt a bit generic)

Chicago Special: Wrote about the vestigiality of my childhood love for maps turning into a love of cartography for the sake of history (6/10, felt choppy and the vestigiality part felt forced at times)

Extra essay: Listed a bunch of my favorite things

About Me:

Asian male, middle class suburban family, out-of-state

Large suburban public school, no class rank, class size of roughly 500

Do you think I have a good chance at UChicago, despite my weak EC’s and mediocre essays?

2

You’re in a very tough position. Obviously you’re academically excellent, but you look like you’re in one of the pitfalls of being an asian male in the college admissions process; you look like you have school and nothing else. Chicago, as I’m sure you’re aware, is realllly into the intellectual vitality thing, and it doesn’t sound like you have anything showing that too much other than outstanding academic success. So, statistically, you’re obviously well within their bounds. But since chicago is so dependent on ECs, i’ll predict that you get deferred. Good luck regardless

3

Your stats are great. I think your lacking leadership or ECs though. Luckily, UChicago places a pretty heavy focus essays, so if you have good essays you have a good chance. If you apply for engineering, schools will be more forgiving of lesser ECs.

4

You still have a chance, even with your ORM. Fingers crossed.