Downwards trend, poor class rank, high aspirations, will chance back.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I have done a chance thread before, but this is my last one.</p>

<p>Schools
Stanford(REA?)
Harvard (REA?)
MIT (EA?)
Brown(ED? likely if my class rank is low).
Columbia
Caltech
UC Berkeley (EECS OOS)
Carnegie Mellon (CS, Computer engineering).
Upitt (rolling early) Dietrich school of sciences/humanities (OOS) (honors college?)
RPI
University of Rochester
SUNY Stonybrook (honors college?)</p>

<p>Could I get my chances as an approximate percentage please (more meaningful than just listed as a reach)?</p>

<p>Background</p>

<p>Gender: M
Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)
Income Bracket: around 200K
Hooks: None
High School: Fairly competitive public school with around 300 students which sends 1-4 kids to HYPSM, 3-7 to other top 12ish schools and 5-10 to cornell and a couple to carnegie mellon and Umichigan.</p>

<p>Grades/Course Rigor/Class Rank</p>

<p>UW GPA: 3.92
W GPA: N/A
non A grades: B+ in honors pre-calculus as 8th grader, B- in AP English Language and Composition and A- in Honors Spanish 4 as a junior (3.76 gpa for junior year). I'm worried about a downwards trend here?
Class Rank: N/A but school profile gives gpa of top 10%, which may or may not be higher than my 3.92 (good chance it is). How much would it hurt at me at my reach schools to have this gpa as it looks like well above 90%(and sometimes 95%) of the students there are in the top 10% of their class?
Course Rigor: Will get generic most demanding course rigor checklist despite taking more AP's/advanced courses than anyone in my grade by quite a margin and possibly more than anyone in years (no recognition for this). Took most demanding course at every opportunity, several years (4) ahead in mathematics (when no one has been more than 2 years ahead in years), doubled up in sciences every year.</p>

<p>AP/College Level Classes
Freshman Year
AP Calculus BC: 5 (AB subscore of 5)
Sophomore Year
AP World History: 5
AP Biology: 5
AP Physics B: 5
Dual-enrollment with community college Calculus III (multivariable): A
Junior Year (checked with california proxy)
AP U.S History: 5
AP English Language and Composition: 5
AP Chemistry: 5
AP Physics C Mechanics: 5
AP Physics C E&M: 5
AP Statistics (self-study): 5
Linear Algebra with differential equations at local university on scholarship: A
Dual-enrollment (with CC) Technical Drawing/CAD: A
Senior Year (if schedule fits)
Dual enrollment with surrounding university Economics (will take AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics).
AP Literature
AP Environmental Science
AP Computer Science
Psychology (with AP)
Possible local university class</p>

<p>Standardized Tests:</p>

<p>SATII:
Math 2: 800
Physics : 800
World History: 800
Biology M: 770
U.S History: 800
Biology M: 780
Chemistry: 800</p>

<p>SAT (took only once)
2360
780CR, 800M, 780W (9/12 essay)</p>

<p>ACT: Never took</p>

<p>EC's/Awards</p>

<p>Math-related</p>

<p>Math team captain, participant since 7th grade.
Will organize more practices as captain
2013 Team MVP
State (NYSML) qualifier since 8th grade, on county A team since 9th grade.
Qualifier for NYSML (NY's version of arml) tiebreakers 2013-2014
2014 4th place at NYSML
Qualified for ARML tiebreaker 2014 (9/10)</p>

<p>2x USAJMO qualifier (first at school since 90s).
2011-2014 AIME qualifier
2010-2014 school Amc10/12 topper
Peak AMC10 score of 132
Peak AIME score of 9
194 USAMO index this year.</p>

<p>Founder/President of Mu Alpha Theta Club (11-12)</p>

<p>Advocated to continue middle school mathcounts club and have served as assistant coach (10-12)</p>

<p>FBLA (10-12)
5th place in team event 2013 states
2nd place in team event, 3rd and 5th place in individual events 2014 states
Officer for 2 years and Vice President for senior year.</p>

<p>Science Olympiad (9-12)
5 regional gold medals and 3 silver medals in 9 events.
6th place in one event at 2013 states, 5th place at another event in 2014 states.</p>

<p>Environmental competition (10-12)
3rd place team 2014 in county, 1st place at current events and presentation.
No officers for club</p>

<p>Chess Club (8-12)
Team won 2014 regional competition, helped to organize some activities for it, make email.</p>

<p>Programming Club (11-12)
Club founded in my junior year, am secretary for it. (I might be able to list founder for this, but I feel like I shouldn't seem like I started a lot of clubs in my junior year. Thoughts?)</p>

<p>Music (9-12)
Play violin for school orchestra and outside youth orchestra </p>

<p>Volleyball (9-12)
Playing since 8th grade, club volleyball ever year except junior year.
On varsity since junior year.</p>

<p>RPI medal (15k/year scholarship there)</p>

<p>Work/volunteering
Paid full-time summer research internship: best local opportunity. Will apply for intel/Siemens and include paper I write there, get recommendation from mentor there (is this a good idea?) Earned opportunity (application), not given.</p>

<p>Alternate for RSI (should I list this)?</p>

<p>Around 100hrs of volunteering at 2 hospitals (might add more, should I?)?</p>

<p>Volunteer annually for workshops for grade 3-8 students at our high school, 9hrs.</p>

<p>Recs/essay. One is from my math teacher/math team coach, should be great, she's known me for forever and will likely attest to my mathematical talent/ability and character. Other will be a bit more generic. Will do my best on the essays!</p>

2

<p>Stanford, Harvard, Columbia: you have a good chance and should definitely apply but no one can really say. you might need another leadership position in my opinion to really stand out. should definitely apply. do EA for Harvard.</p>

<p>MIT (EA?): low reach especially with your focus in math and good subject tests but because you’re an asian male, you’re a dime a dozen tbh </p>

<p>Brown(ED? likely if my class rank is low): i’d almost say you have a better chance of getting into MIT just because Brown looks for more than stats and likes people with personality and quirks more than anything so if you can make your essay really unique you have a good chance. just try to make yourself stand out as a PERSON. HYPS wants stats and commitment to ECs, Brown wants this too but they want more personality and likability than the HYPS but i’d say low reach </p>

<p>Upitt (rolling early) Dietrich school of sciences/humanities (OOS) (honors college?): low match, you should get into the honors college. i’d be extremely surprised if they denied you. </p>

<p>RPI/UR: low matches </p>

<p>SUNY Stonybrook (honors college?): safety even with honors college </p>

3

<p>Caltech: this is hard for me because i don’t know much about it but just based on numbers, i’d say it’s a reach. you have the grades and test scores but i hear cal is pretty random with admissions. better chance at MIT </p>

<p>UC Berkeley (EECS OOS): match, i’d be surprised if you weren’t accepted. stats are good even for oos </p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon (CS, Computer engineering): match, even low match maybe. </p>

4

<p>You have excellent scores, grades, and ECs. I generally agree that RPI, UR, SUNY Stonybrook are low matches/safeties
MIT is going to be difficult, simply because you look, and not just from a race perspective, like a typical candidate. Ivies and Stanford will be reaches due to low acceptance rates. But honestly, you have put yourself in the position to be a top candidate at any of these schools. You will get into at least one top school, can almost guarantee it. Good luck with essays :)</p>

5

<p>Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Brown and Columbia are all reaches, but there’s a definite possibility you could get into at least one of them, especially the one you ED of course. Those type of schools are reaches for everyone, but since your achievements are within the bounds, you should definitely keep them on your mind. It’s almost just a matter of luck and your essay at this point, since you don’t really have any hooks. (~25-30% if ED, ~15-20% if RD for each)</p>

<p>UC Berkeley seems like a high match and Carnegie Mellon a solid match. (70%s or so). The rest (I don’t know much about them) seem like low matches or safeties. </p>

<p>Honestly you lack volunteer hours, but the rest of your app should probably make up for that. Your awards, scores, extracurriculars etc. are all very solid.The downwards trend isn’t too concerning, and the class rank may be noticed but not a dealbreaker. Your grades are all at a high level, its only the B- in AP Lang that stands out to me. It’s also good that you have a sport. Just use the rest of your senior year to secure your grades. Good Luck!</p>

6

<p>oh btw yes you should add more volunteer hours if it won’t affect your grades. more is better. </p>

7

<p>Thanks guys. I’ll definitely try to add volunteering hours, maybe around 140 by EA and 170ish by RD if I stay committed at the hospitals,</p>

8

<p>I wouldn’t RSI alternate because it makes it look like you’re scrambling for ec’s. Besides, you seem to have some good ec’s. Chance me back if you want: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1665451-chance-a-rising-junior-for-all-the-top-schools-and-whatnot.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1665451-chance-a-rising-junior-for-all-the-top-schools-and-whatnot.html#latest&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

9

<p>@tooty44‌
I guess I won’t, hopefully MIT likes me for the same reasons they liked me then (minus gpa lol). Any predictions? I chanced yours.</p>

10

<p>Forgot a few accomplishments in violin, selected for 2011 area all state orchestra and 2014 all county orchestra.</p>

11

<p>Loads of accomplishments, awards, ECs.
Heavy test scores and rigor.</p>

<p>I want to say you’re going to at least get into one of those reach schools above.
Sorry if this isn’t enough haha… I’m just blown away by your resume. :-B </p>

12

<p>First, I want to say I haven’t ever seen that many 5’s for AP tests. May must not be a fun month for you :). Moving on, you are probably one of the stronger candidates academically at these schools (although I will tell you that the B- hurts you moderately. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is not in keeping with the rest of your academic record). As far as extracurriculars, they are strong but would be stronger with some more leadership positions. I know you wanted percentages, so I’m giving you percentages, although I feel they are quite arbitrary. </p>

<p>Stanford- REA: 25%, RD 10%
Harvard- REA: 25%, RD 10%
MIT- 20% EA or RD (applying EA to MIT doesn’t help at all).
Brown- ED: 40%, RD 18% (Applying ED I think would help you a ton)
Columbia- 15% RD
UC Berkeley- 45% RD or EA (you’re very qualified, but it’s tough out of state)
Caltech- 15% EA or RD (it’s tough. I wouldn’t be suprised if you got in, but it depends on your essays.)
Carnegie Mellon- 60% RD
RPI- 65% RD
UPitt- 75% RD
University of Rochester- 70% RD
SUNY Stonybrook- If instate: 90% RD, if out of state: 70% RD</p>

<p>GOOD LUCK! Chance me back (I don’t need percentages) :)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1662544-chances-at-harvard-yale-princeton-mit-brown-columbia-dartmouth-tufts-duke-amherst.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1662544-chances-at-harvard-yale-princeton-mit-brown-columbia-dartmouth-tufts-duke-amherst.html#latest&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>Stanford- REA: 30% / RD 10%
Harvard- REA: 30% / RD 10%
MIT- 35%
Brown- ED: 30% EA / RD 15%
Columbia- 25% RD
UC Berkeley- 60% RD / 65% EA
Caltech- 15% RD / 30 EA
Carnegie Mellon- 60%
RPI- 65%
UPitt- 80%
University of Rochester- 75% RD
SUNY Stonybrook- Almost for sure accepted… 95%</p>

<p>As people have already said, I think more leadership positions would help tremendously. I think you will probably get in to at least two of your reaches (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Columbia, and Brown), but I think it’s impossible to say which two since it’s so competitive/random at all of them. </p>

14

<p>@235423‌ @happykid123‌
Thanks for your feedback guys. So this list is balanced, right? For leadership positions, my school is very competitive (some would say methods border on unfairness) to acquire leadership positions and it’s not a smart idea to start a club senior year to gain leadership positions (too much like padding). It’ll have to be what it is.
I’m a little unsure why you guys think caltech is more of a reach than places like MIT, they’re peer institutions in selectivity (most would say MIT is a bit more selective) and caltech doesn’t practice affirmative action or have as strong of a gender preference program, which should only help me, right? Or does caltech place more emphasis on subjective ( and therefore more random and prone to personal valuation) things like essays etc.</p>

15

<p>@235423‌
Btw I have friends in a nearby school (where it is admittedly easier to take more AP’s) who have taken 13 AP’s and scored 5’s on all of them. </p>

16

<p>What is the point of this chance me? </p>

17

<p>@theanaconda‌ I’ve always felt Caltech is harder, probably because MIT receives a lot more unqualified applicants that lower its acceptance rate (don’t know why this is, but it’s something that I’ve noticed). As for the 5’s on AP tests, I guess it’s just that my school doesn’t offer a lot of AP classes so I haven’t seen anyone take that many before. I’ve only taken two AP tests (although I did get a 5 on both :)) Best of luck!</p>

18

<p>@theanaconda Just from the look of Caltech on Naviance, at least for my school, it is much more random than MIT. Looking at MIT, kids that had good GPAs and test scores got in. At Caltech, that wasn’t the case… However, that could just be an isolated pattern at my school. </p>

19

<p>If you write some amazing essays you are most definitely going to earn a spot at one of these top schools. Keep up with the fantastic work! :)</p>

20

<p>@AnnieBeats‌
What is the point of any chance me?
It first of helps me to make some decisions as to where to apply early and maybe add/remove some colleges from my list (was never high on caltech and after hearing that it’s more of a reach than any other school on my list I might remove it) or decide where to early, whether to list some EC’s or not, etc. and like most chance me’s it helps to reassure nervous seniors and make sure they have realistic chances.
If you don’t want to chance me, that’s fine, just please don’t insinuate that this is pointless when you could argue every chance thread is useless with that reasoning.</p>