<p>Yes, an EA admission that has sufficient scholarships or financial aid becomes a safety.</p>
<p>However, the California publics all have early RD application deadlines (November 30), so the OP would need to apply to any of those of interest along with any EA schools, rather than waiting until EA decisions arrive.</p>
<p>Kei- not sure why you are so concerned with QB’s Senior year program in March of your Junior year. Maybe take the foot off the gas a little, you have plenty of time…</p>
<p>Apply for the QB Junior CPS program- there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t, it is completely separate from NCM, which 1) you will need to apply to separately in the Fall and 2) has really no drawbacks if you choose to not rank schools.</p>
<p>They will be able to give you as good or better advice than you are getting here.</p>
<p>As for selectivity, consider the minimum GPAs on this list of diversity fly-in programs: </p>
<p><a href=“2013 Free Fall Visits for Rising Seniors | Get Me To College”>http://getmetocollege.org/hs/2013freefallvisits</a></p>
<p>Diversity students (uhh that’s you) can qualify for free airfare to and from school and obviously no cost once you’re there. Many of these students will be QB Finalists and obviously not all of them will have the scores to get in.</p>
<p>And by all means, apply to UCR next December. If you qualify for free or reduced lunch it will cost you nothing, so why wouldn’t you? But if I were you I’d just take a gap year and try to get a job rather than pay to go to UCR.</p>
<p>Yes QB does help a lot although I don’t have numbers, I’ve seen enough to know that being selected by Questbridge increases your odds tremendously.</p>
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<p>To pick up the UCR GAP to make it a 100% safety with no holistic review risks, the OP needs to apply in June/July this year, then include UCR in the normal UC application in November.</p>
<p>Given that chemical engineering employment and medical school are less school prestige conscious than such directions as investment banking and management consulting, it is not necessarily a big problem to go to a safety school for those goals.</p>
<p>Taking a gap year after being shut out is not necessarily a magic solution. The OP would still need to find a new set of schools to apply to (note that andi’s son got rejected by his two repeats), probably those which are less selective than the schools that rejected him the first time around.</p>
<p>Well I’m no expert, in either the UC system, or really any of this so I’ll defer to ucbalumnus.</p>
<p>Kei- please try to remember to update this thread with your acceptances next year :-)</p>
<p>^I second ormdad. I’ll be looking forward to hearing updates from you re: College Prep Scholars (Questbridge), then Questbridge Match, then if necessary QuestbridgeRD, then admissions with full scholarships :).
Please don’t forget to post updates from time to time:! </p>
<p>QB: At the very least you’ll be able to apply to what amounts to 8 colleges ED plus unlimited colleges RD if the first process doesn’t work, for free.
Beware of the March 26 deadline - you need your recommendation before then, etc:
<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/for-students/cps-college-prep-scholarship”>http://www.questbridge.org/for-students/cps-college-prep-scholarship</a>
<a href=“QuestBridge | Quest For Excellence Awards”>http://www.questbridge.org/for-students/qfe-overview</a></p>
<p>I really think UCSB is your safety, even with a holistic process. Is it 100% sure? No. But 99% :). If you’re ready to take the 1% risk and your parents are okay with a gap year, you’re fine. :)</p>
<p>Ok thanks for the advice this thread is super helpful. I’ll be sure to keep this updated (filling out QB CP apps right now)</p>
<p>As a side note I was rejected from RSI fyi and I’ve applied to Simon’s Clark SIMR and Garcia so I’ll put results as they come.</p>
<p>One more question. Some say that low income is actually a disadvantage because colleges are reluctant to offer FA while others say low income is a hook that adds to diversity. Which is true?</p>
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<p>It depends on the college.</p>
<p>So is it only advantageous for super selective schools like Harvard and Stanford?</p>
<p>You can check which schools are “need aware” (versus “need blind”) in admissions to see where needing more financial aid could be a disadvantage.</p>
<p>If a school is need blind does that mean it’s also not going to be advantageous in any way?</p>
<p>Holistic reviews may consider whether the applicant has come from a disadvantaged situation and see his/her achievements as being more impressive if starting from a disadvantaged start line.</p>
<p>Note that this may not always match with current financial aid need calculations. For example, if the applicant was born into a poor family who only recently managed to become non-poor, s/he might have had to overcome considerable disadvantages associated with poverty while growing up and going to K-12 school. In contrast, an applicant who grew up in a high income family who recently became low income (but have enough savings to avoid losing the house) may not have had to overcome any disadvantages while growing up and going to K-12 school.</p>
<p>Harvard in particular is practically begging for high achieving, low income students to apply. I’d guess that Stanford is similar if maybe not quite as desperate.</p>
<p>Just google “harvard low income” and you might find:</p>
<p><a href=“https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23214-harvard-initiative-to-attract-low-income-students-includes-free-tuition.html”>https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23214-harvard-initiative-to-attract-low-income-students-includes-free-tuition.html</a></p>
<p>If you are incredibly cynical or insecure, you might see this as some sort of “trap” to lure low income kids into a false sense of security only to have their hopes and dreams crushed. I don’t.</p>
<p>Almost all top schools that you will be looking at are “need-blind” and most of them additionally seek out low income students (and spend lots of $$$ to do so).</p>
<p>The only issue I see is that these programs are a little more oriented towards African American and Hispanic students. You being 1st gen college and low income certainly helps. The Asian American part? Maybe not so much.</p>
<p>Do you think I have a shot at QB College Match?</p>
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<p>True, but I did not say that kei should completely disregard his/her academic and career interests in choosing a college. Many students discover new passions in college, though, so I simply noted that to illustrate how the prospective major may not be as important as many people here seem to think it is. Even if a student believes he/she knows what he/she wants to study in college, it would be safer to act the way you say an undecided student should.</p>
<p>kei, since medium size + chemistry + strong financial aid still yields a wide range of options, you need to look beyond these factors to order to reach a smaller list of schools that will all fit you well, including the matches and safeties. Maybe it’s different for some people, but I don’t know how anybody can apply to over a dozen colleges while keeping up with the demands of senior year. If it weren’t for QB, you would also have a tough time finding enough application fee waivers to pay off all the colleges on your list. </p>
<p>Speaking of QB, I do recommend you apply to your reaches through QB College Match. I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, but you seem like an ideal candidate for the program. Don’t stress over it too much, but the QB deadline is at the end of September, so an early start will be necessary. Be sure to ask two teachers and your counselor for letters of recommendation before junior year ends so they can work on their parts over the summer. </p>
<p>Anyone know if the summer program through College Prep QB is binding? I’ve already applied to programs but it’d be nice to have QB’s program as a backup. I definitely prefer my programs though so I wouldn’t want to be obliged to attend if I were accepted</p>
<p>Also look at the website imfirst.org. it is for first generation students like yourself. The colleges that participate in that program are called partner colleges and they are actively looking for first generation students like yourself. Review each college partner and see the levels of support they provide at the different stages of the process. I think you can also fill out a profile where they will match you to college partners. </p>
<p>Another resource is the Venture Scholars program. sign up to be a Venture Scholar at this link. <a href=“http://www.venturescholar.org/”>http://www.venturescholar.org/</a> You can submit your profile and they will send it to affiliated colleges. </p>
<p>A website I really like for learning about colleges and figuring which colleges are the most generous is collegedata.org.</p>
<p>I agree that you need to put on some safeties and matches on your list. Last year a ton of well-qualified students like yourself got shot down by the UC’s. You are a male wanting to major in engineering or sciences. It is highly competitive therefore you can never assume a UC like SD or SB is a safety. Last year a local salutorian who matches you pretty closely with grades and test scores did not get into UCSD. A student of mine with great grades and an SAT over 2100 but who wanted engineering did not get into a single UC. Last year UCSB received over 1K applications for the 68 spots in Mechanical Engineering. Our UC’s are impacted so you cannot consider them safeties. Students from your high school may have been accepted but you have to remember that majors come into play with admissions. You have a problem typical of high-achieving students. You do not want to believe that you may have to attend a match or safety so you do not find one you love. For my students they have to give me 3 reasons why they have a school on their list and prestige is not an acceptable reason. As others have pointed out you have some schools on your list that do not even have your major. </p>
<p>Since your need is great I would look at those full-tuition offers on that list you mentioned as well as the
“Colleges that change lives” schools. ctcl.org. </p>
<p>Also take off NYU- they will never give you enough need and you do not want to take out the number of loans it would require to attend it. </p>
<p>You have to remember that there are 40K high schools in the US. If just the valedictorians applied to Harvard there would still be about 37500 vals unhappy who did not get into Harvard. The simple reality is that there is not enough space for all the qualified candidates- the ivies regularly report that they could fill their classes 4 or 5 times with qualified applicants. You have seen this already with your rejection from that one summer program. </p>
<p>Take advantage of the early action process to get into some schools. It will take some of the pressure off and you will know you can go to college. My DD this year applied to her safeties at the end of June and got accepted by them in mid July with merit money. She knew she was going to college that was affordable to us. </p>
<p>Good luck. </p>
<p>A good match for you would be Occidental. It meets need 100% and is well regarded. It doesn’t have engineering but does have a 3.2 engineering program. </p>
<p>Also be sure to learn about diversity fly-ins which are located on the imfirst website as well as getmetocollege.org. Those experiences will help you with the expense of visiting colleges and get on a college’s radar. For example Carnegie Mellon will cover your airfare to visit them during special visit days. </p>
<p>USC which has an excellent engineering school is having a special visit day this Spring for first gen students. Be sure to write them to get an invitation to it. </p>
<p>Remember your CAL Grant A benefits only apply to California colleges so you want to have some more Cal schools on your list. </p>
<p>Be very wary of 3-2 programs as reasonable engineering options. Few students want to leave their friends of three years to attend a different college to finish the engineering portion of the education, and pay for an additional year on top of it.</p>