<p>Hi, i'm currently a junior wanting to know my chance for the following schools:</p>
<p>Major : Economics/Math
Goal : work for an NGO</p>
<p>UChicago
Stanford
M.I.T.
Northwestern
University of Wisconsin
Ohio State</p>
<p>Asian Male
GPA : 3.57 uw ... my parents died sophomore year and thus my grades dropped.
SAT : 2210
ACT : 32
Class Rank : 14/452
Public School : not competitive
Financial Aid: Yes, i'll need nearly full tuition</p>
<p>School offer no honors and a limit of 5 AP classes.</p>
<p>AP US History (currently taking)
AP Environmental Science (currently taking)
Ap Statistics (currently self studying)</p>
<p>AP Chemistry (next year)
Ap Calculus AB (next year)
AP English (next year)
AP Macro (self study next year)
AP Micro (self study next year)</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:</p>
<p>-Varsity basketball 10th, quit junior year due to parents death, will play senior year
-Guitar - i can play nearly any song (not to sound conceited but it is the truth) , 21 notes per seconds
- work 40 hours a week since sophomore year
-internship at grameen bank in bangladesh</p>
<p>Hooks (not too proud of all of them):
-guitar
-work 40 hours a week
-internship at grameen
-parents death sophmore year ... been living with a friend ever since</p>
<p>Recs : should be great
Essays : not a great writer, but i do have a pretty powerful experience to talk about.</p>
<p>Given your current stats:</p>
<p>UChicago - Low Reach
Stanford - Big Reach
M.I.T. - Big Reach
Northwestern - Low Reach
University of Wisconsin - (Madison?) Low Match
Ohio State - Safety</p>
<p>wait a second....</p>
<p>you have really good chances at all these, just make your experiences known and there's no way they won't give you a pardon</p>
<p>i'm really sorry about your parents =(</p>
<p>yeah your set nearly everywhere</p>
<p>sorry to hear about your parents...</p>
<p>thanks for all the replies guys</p>
<p>cmon, there have 90 views and only 3 responses</p>
<p>Berries N Cream:</p>
<p>Neither eating food nor Issd2012 know what they're talking about. You would be making a serious mistake if you thought that you had really good chances at UChicago, Stanford, MIT, and Northwestern. Stanford admitted only 11% of its applicants last year and MIT only 13%. Your stats, while good, are, at best, only average for applicants to these schools and your ECs are not particularly noteworthy. You have a better chance at Northwestern and UChicago, which accepted 38% and 30% of their applicants, but you are by no means a shoe-in at either school. All four schools are in the most selective category and nobody, not even the applicant with 2400 SATs and a 4.0+ GPA, is guaranteed admission.</p>
<p>Your best bet when you apply to colleges is to choose a couple of reaches (UChicago, Stanford, MIT, and Northwestern would all fit the bill), three or four matches where you figure you have at least a 50% chance of acceptance, and at least a couple of safeties where you figure you have at least an 80% chance of acceptance.</p>
<p>^^^^
I understand that i don't have amazing extracurriculars (besides maybe the internship?) but working 40-50 hours a week limits my time and thus i only have time for 1 or 2 activities.</p>
<p>And are my stats really that average. According to the UChicago (1st choice school) website, I'm above average for SAT's, class rank, ACT, and everything in between.</p>
<p>@ amptron2x:</p>
<p>I think you might have not read the whole post but his/her parents died his sophmore year and he/her had to overcome this while still keeping up with school. I'm sure any school in the whole country will give him/her admission with lots of aid.</p>
<p>Berries:</p>
<p>You're right, your SATs etc. are above average for U of Chicago. I didn't say otherwise. In my previous post, I was referring to Stanford and MIT when I wrote about average stats. Sorry if that didn't come across clearly.</p>
<p>What I am saying regarding U of Chicago is that U of Chicago is highly selective, and that it accepts only 38% of its applicants, and even with your better than average stats, you can not count on acceptance. Consequently, you need to add schools that are less selective to your list.</p>
<p>Along those lines, here's something else you might want to consider: applying to less selective schools with good Honors programs or applying to less selective schools that have strong departments in majors you're interested in. The idea is that these schools are always looking for students of your caliber to improve their academic standing, and they would be much more likely to offer you a substantial scholarship than the more selective schools on your list. (Though admittedly, if Chicago accepted you, given your circumstances, they'd certainly offer you a pretty good financial aid package.)</p>
<p>Issd2012:</p>
<p>I did read the whole post, and your assumption that any school in the country would give him/her admission with lots of aid is simply wrong. You have to understand that schools such as U of Chicago, MIT, Northwestern, and Stanford receive 15,000 to nearly 30,000 applications every year, most from kids with superlative grades, SAT scores, ECs, etc. The competition is fierce, and based primarily on academics and accomplishments. Berries' story is terribly sad, and his/her ability to persevere in the face of this tragedy is laudable, but it does not constitute an automatic admission to any top-ranked university. You can bet that among those thousands and thousands of applicants to these schools, there will be hundreds if not thousands of kids who have equally sad stories to tell, and you can also bet that many if not most will be rejected.</p>