APs: Environmental Science (4), European History (4), Language & Composition (5)
Currently taking: Calc BC, Literature & Composition, Gov, Macro
Honors in almost all other classes
Highest level math: Calc BC
Highest level foreign language: Mandarin III
Awards
NMS Semifinalist
AP Scholar
Extracurriculars
Dance crew member/choreographer (9-present)
Co-captain/member of track and field (10-present)
Student government department director (10-11)
Worked full-time in restaurants over the summer (11)
Big Sibs at high school, had leadership (11-present)
Basketball player/coach outside of school (9-present)
Other: some volunteering (9), cooking for family (9-10), Outreach Director for free tutoring program (10)
Essays/LOR
Essays: At least good, I don’t think any of them were that bad
LORs: Honors PreCalc teacher, English teacher/Assistant Principal of English, not allowed to view either but I’m pretty sure they’re good
Cost Constraints / Budget
Trying to keep it under 40k, applying for need-based and merit aid
Schools
SUNY Binghamton (EA)
Drexel (EA)
WPI (EA)
William & Mary
McGill
Boston University
USC (EA)
UMich (EA)
Duke
CMU (considering ED
UChicago (ED or EA, depends on CMU)
Williams
Cornell
UPenn
Stanford
MIT
Def have a lot of reaches/hard targets, working on narrowing the list/adding financial safeties for RD. Need the most help choosing between CMU and UChicago for ED
You rate yourself as being an MIT/Stanford level student but your assessment of your essays is that none of them were “that bad”? “Chance me” threads are (at their best) a reality check, but most often a cri de coeur for reassurance and affirmation.
They are not a place for false modesty. I get that it is hard to assess your own writing, but if you don’t think they are strong- if you aren’t pretty satisfied that they speak of who you are, that they show something important about you as a potential member of the college community, then why do you think that an AO- who has to say ‘no’ to 95% of the applications they read- will put yours in the ‘yes’ pile?
re: CMU & UChicago, in some ways they are such different collegiate experiences that I am struggling to figure out what your decision metrics are. What do you see as the key pros/cons for each of them?
ps, W&M OOS will not come in anywhere close to $40K, even with the max merit award, and I don’t think UMichigan will either
You say your budget is $40k and you are applying for need based aid. Have your parents filled out any net price calculators? Your Cornell, Penn, MIT etc you’ll know now whether they are affordable. If they’re not (based on what the school says, not what your folks say) then you can swap in schools like Vandy, WUSTL, Emory that are comparable but offer merit aid. Even USC with its merit scholarship will be over $40k unless u get need aid. And if you have need I’d remove Michigan and go UVA or UNC instead as both meet (again reviewing the NPC).
Williams stands out as it’s smaller than the rest. Again run the NPC. W&L offers the Johnson Scholarship to 10% of students. Look it up.
Are you TAP eligible ? If you like SUNY B, that’s your financial safety. If you become a national merit finalist, your door is open at the schools that give you free tuition or a free ride.
A school like Florida State full pay will already be under budget and you’d likely get an out of state waiver. A school like S Carolina with its fine Honors program, Alabama (best NMF deal but still cheap for you without based on auto merit) Mississippi State, etc are financial safeties for you. A Purdue will be close and with merit. You can try a UDEL or Ohio State and hopefully get to your figure. Arizona too. If you have need Rochester could be worth a look.
Lots of great options, lots of fine Honors Colleges or specialized programs / cohorts at lots of great and aggressive public schools.
Your list is fine depending on your need situation - not as you see it but as the college does.
Consider adding Hamilton, which offers a top mathematics program and, fairly uncommonly among LACs, a data science major. If you would like to continue in Mandarin, Hamilton offers a top program in this area as well.
The challenge though, for high stat students like you is that all the reachy schools are very unpredictable; as are schools that a few years ago might have been considered matches.
I’m also guessing you’re a Stuy kid (yes?). If so, you’re going to face a lot of tough competition from your own classmates. You definitely need to add few likelies and a couple of safeties.
Please check the NPC at these schools and tell us what number you get. I agree with @tsbna44 that you may want to remove UMich. As an OOS applicant it’s unlikely you’ll get need or merit $$ to get it within your budget.
The first thing that comes to mind is that you need affordable safeties. I do not know the SUNY’s well at all, but I am guessing that SUNY Binghamton is probably one (and a good one). Does your guidance counselor agree? I think that your chances at McGill are very good and if I am interpreting their web site properly the cost of attendance should be just under $40k in US dollars (a bit more in Canadian dollars but the exchange rate is still in your favour). McGill actually was my only safety decades ago with grades that were marginally lower than yours, but many decades have gone by and I was in-province at the time. Others would know better than me whether Drexel or WPI might count as a safety.
The second thing that comes to mind is that you should only ED anywhere if the Net Price Calculator makes it appear to be affordable. Have you run the NPC on CMU and U.Chicago? Are either of these schools clearly your top choice?
Let’s suppose that you get accepted to either CMU or U.Chicago ED, and then a week later get accepted to McGill or MIT or Stanford, would you be happy turning down MIT or Stanford to go to CMU? Of course these are all excellent (and academically very demanding) universities and you can get a great education at any of them.
The other thing that comes to mind is that you are applying to quite a few schools. You might want to think quite hard about which ones are a better fit for you and consider trimming the list a bit.
At least to me you appear to be a very strong student who is competitive at any university in the US. Of course the top schools are reaches for anyone.
If you do get accepted to MIT or Stanford or Chicago or any of the bottom 2/3rds of the list then you will discover that the day that you arrive on campus you have suddenly become average and math courses have suddenly become challenging. You will need good study skills at any of the top ranked universities. However, based on how well you have done up to now you look to be very much ready and able to take on the challenge and do very well.
I was a math major. I generally recommend that math majors take a significant number of CS courses. Have you considered how these schools are for CS? CMU is of course very good for CS. I do not know how Chicago is. If you end up at MIT, they offer a major that you might consider “mathematics with computer science” (course 18C) which was not available when I was there, but which is quite close to what I actually did.
Congratulations on all of your accomplishments! You have a strong profile and I suspect you will do very well in college. You’ve already been given lots of good advice.
After you run the NPCs, let us know whether the schools would be affordable for you. With respect to William & Mary, I learned today that it, like UVA, meets full-need of all U.S. residents (need met, of course, as defined by the college). Otherwise, you’re looking at competing for one of the very limited (in #) merit scholarships.
Would you be happy attending Binghamton? If so, that’s a great school to have in your back pocket that should be affordable and extremely likely to admit you. If not, then additional schools should be added to your list that meet all 3 of those criteria (affordable, extremely likely admittance, and you’d be happy to attend).
Are those your favorite schools on your list? Have you visited Chicago and CMU? I would not ED to any school that you haven’t visited.
Likely accepted to first five on list
USC and UMich maybe to unlikely on admit, unlikely on any aid.
Duke, CMU - maybe. UChicago - not so much.
Williams - unlikely.
Cornell - depends on which program you apply to.
For Asian kids out of Stuy a 94 GPA and 4s on APs are too low for much of a chance on the last 3. For the lower ranked Specialized HSs, chances are even worse.
This site can be especially convenient for estimating financial aid at the included partner schools, such as William and Mary, and others from your list:
I think the fact he is a first generation student carries a lot of weight at some of these schools. I know it does at Ga Tech. Merit is very unlikely there though and they do not meet need.
This could depend on your anticipated applied domain for your data science major. For example, if you would like to apply data analytics to, say, sociology, then UChicago might make the better choice.
You are a superb candidate, but alas there are too many superb candidates for some of the schools on your list. You are right to forego EA at Stanford and MIT, and probably ED at Duke and UPenn as well, to focus on Chicago and CMU. These are both terrific schools. UChicago has a first-rate math program, though computing is not as well established. You will get a significant bump from ED at UC. You will find the CS major at CMU to be as challenging an admit as an Ivy, so would suggest opting to apply for math. At CMU you will not get the same bump as UChicago from ED, but you will have a fair shot, even in the RD pool.
USC might be worth a closer look, especially given your financial situation and their significant scholarships for NM finalists. They are going to make you commit to them if you want the money, but it might make sense for you to do it. Of course, U of C and CMU have plenty of money, but it’s going to be need based, so you have to see whether you’re likely to get the amount you need. Remember that if you apply ED, you are committing to that school and are consequently at the mercy of the financial aid office should you be admitted. There is an out if the finances don’t work for you, but this is probably not the road you want to go down.
Cornell might work, but you’d need to go ED to have a good shot. Based on your background and interests, it makes sense to prioritize U of C and CMU over Cornell.
Of your other schools, Michigan and BU are probably strong targets in RD. Mich has a great math department. I know a young woman with a resume similar to yours who is very happy at BU.
You are a great candidate, and you will no doubt be accepted at multiple schools on this list. Good luck,
If you go to one of the big public magnet schools in NYC then note that Jim Nondorf likes to read many of the apps from that region (or least he used to). So he knows the schools inside and out. To no surprise, Chicago takes a lot of students from the NYC magnet schools during the EA/ED round.
The Data Science major is fairly new at Chicago. They used to have a Data Science track within the Economics Department. The quantitative skills are heavy on theory.
As someone who went to both, CMU and Chicago are not that different; both are rigorous - though Chicago has far more of a “traditional” humanities bent and CMU more of an arts and hard sciences one. The difference is in culture. When I went there (admittedly a while ago) CMU was a place where you could have fun; Chicago not so much so. UChicago also sits in an island isolated from Chicago at-large; CMU isn’t isolated from Pittsburgh at all. YMMV, but I’d go to CMU, myself.
My oldest said that UChicago is where fun goes to die😂. Although I think there is fun to be had at CMU, when my son asked what do you do for fun during the tour the guy said we go to parties and football games at Pitt😂. One of his good friends is at CMU and agree it is very rigorous. He finds fun there but I think he has to hunt
CMU is very different from when I went there, I guess (nobody, and I mean nobody, relied on Pitt for fun). But, as an anecdote, I have never been to any school where you have to hunt for a study corral in the library … other than UChicago! On the rare occasions I felt like studying on a FRIDAY night, I couldn’t find a corral at the Regenstein Library. So much for “fun” being part of the equation. Chicago, in my admittedly biased experience, is a drag of unapparelled proportions.