Chances for Vanderbilt, Pomona, Brown, Columbia...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m about to be a senior next year; please chance me on whichever ones you feel like out of Vanderbilt, Pomona, Brown, Columbia, UNC @ Chapel Hill, USC, Northwestern, Emory, and UChicago. They’re all OOS and I’d be applying as a math major.

GPA: 4.61 (W); 4 (UW)
SAT: 2200 (M: 800, W: 720, R: 680) (taking this again to try to get 700+ on reading)
SAT II: Haven’t taken any yet, but I plan on getting 760+ on math 2, and 720+ on physics

Class rank: 5/165

I’ve gotten an A+, A, or A- every grading period in every class every year of high school.

APs: US History [3 (awks)], Calc BC [5], Statistics [5], Government [5], Macroecon [5], Psychology [5], Physics I [5], Physics C: E&M [?], European History [?].

Senior Schedule:

AP European History
Choir (done all four years)
Linear Algebra [through Kent State]
Java Programming [through Kent State]
AP Physics C Mechanics and E&M
Honors English IV
Multivariable Calculus

  • maybe one more college course—haven’t decided yet.

I also took Number Theory at KSU over the summer and got an A.

Extracurriculars:
Mock Trial (4 years, Secretary then VP, 4 best attorney awards)
Model UN (3 years, Treasurer, 3 superior delegation awards, chairing international conference in October)
Model UN Student Leadership Committee (only ~10 kids in this; we set up the conferences for all of Cleveland)
Independent Contractor for a business, where I do data analysis, product management, and web development
Varsity Track Sophomore through Senior year
Jazz Choir & CVC Honors Choir (separate from school)
In a punk rock band where we play shows at local venues
Waiter at a pizza place
100+ volunteer hours

One rec letter will be amazing; the other will be very good. My personal statement is about a 9/10. No interviews as of right now.

2

Bump. Also Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper.

3

Bump

4

Columbia - Reach (7% chance)
Chicago - Reach (8% chance)
Brown - Reach (10% chance)
Pomona - Reach (11% chance)
Northwestern - Reach (12% chance)
Vanderbilt - Reach (13% chance)
USC - Low Reach (23% chance)
UNC-CH OOS - Low Reach/High Match (25% chance)
Emory - High Match (33% chance)

I figure you are an average applicant at Columbia, Chicago, Northwestern, Pomona and Vanderbilt; very slightly above-average at Brown; and fairly well above average at USC, UNC-CH, and Emory.

You should add some true matches and at least one safety.

5

@prezbucky Even pretending that there’s any way to put an exact percentage on OP’s chances at half of his list is pointless. I have an inkling you’re right in calling Columbia a reach, for instance, but unless you’re a member of the Columbia admissions committee or you’ve built a proprietary algorithm to estimate a student’s chances, there’s no way you can say with certainty that OP has a 7% chance. Maybe OP has a 10% chance, or a 5% chance, or a 14% chance, but unless it’s 1% or 99%, giving any percentage without acknowledging significant error bars on either end is misleading.

6

sure - i’m only basing the guesses on three things:

  1. OP's GPA and the GPAs of admits
  2. OP's SAT and the average SAT of admits
  3. The admit % of the school

OP’s numbers are average at most of the schools and above average at others; that much is not misleading. I don’t believe I have grossly overestimated OP’s chances at any of them – that’s something that happens a lot on this site, or so it seems to me.

7

You have an excellent resume. You definitely have a chance at the strongest schools. At my son’s school, the counselor says any school with an acceptance rate below 20% is a reach for everyone. Good Luck!