I'd appreciate your input...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Okay, here's my profile:</p>

<p>Objective:</p>

<p>SAT I: 2350 (CR 780 | M 770 | W 800)
SAT II: Literature 800 | French not yet taken (750-780, hopefully)
GPA (out of 4.0): 3.3 W | UW GPA not released by school</p>

<p>(I should mention that my school's grading system is a little weird and my W GPA is actually lower than what I imagine my UW GPA to be. Oh, and my weighted GPA is calculated on the same scale as my UW GPA, but in a different way.)</p>

<p>Actually, I just tried to calculate my unweighted GPA by year and this is what I came up with:
Sophomore 3.36 | Junior 3.15 | Senior 3.69 (I already have my grades as I'm on a gap year.)</p>

<p>Okay, moving on.</p>

<p>Rank n/a (I’m probably somewhere in the top 40-50%, but my school doesn’t calculate rank in any way, shape, or form.)
No APs as my school doesn't offer them. Everyone takes pretty much the same classes and the curriculum is quite rigorous.</p>

<p>Awards: a special award at a national essay competition for high-school and college students; perfect scores on some boring state exam thingy that you don't care about. I ticked the box that said "level of recognition: national" for both, fwiw.</p>

<p>Subjective:</p>

<p>Extracurriculars: a lot of art-related activities, including designing various flyers, invitations, and posters for school; I once tried and failed to make an animated movie; psychology club (meeting organizer); I helped translate a psychology textbook into English for the benefit of the English-speaking psychology teachers at my school; school newspaper; creative writing club; ecology club; reluctant participation in the school musical</p>

<p>Job/work experience: n/a</p>

<p>Volunteer/community service: helping the school librarians; volunteering at a community center of sorts</p>

<p>Summer activities: n/a</p>

<p>Essays: I should probably get on that...</p>

<p>Teacher recommendations: one from my favorite English teacher, who taught me for two years, and one from my history teacher in junior year (I had a B in her class), who tolerates me despite my underachieving ways; both of them know me well, so their recommendations should have some substance at least.</p>

<p>Counselor rec: haven't read it; probably says something along the lines of "nice personality, shame about the grades."</p>

<p>Other:</p>

<p>Will need bucketfuls of financial aid.</p>

<p>Will probably major in philosophy and/or history and/or art.</p>

<p>International, female, private school.</p>

<p>Will submit an art portfolio.</p>

<hr>

<p>Do you think I have any chance of getting into:</p>

<p>Reed
Vassar
Mount Holyoke
Whitman
Sewanee
Union
Trinity U
DePauw U</p>

<p>(I'm also applying to UChicago, but I'm very aware of how laughable a reach it is.)</p>

<p>And to forestall your remarks, I'm not impressed by my GPA either. I was a slacker in high school, plain and simple.</p>

<p>Okay, fire away. I can't promise I'll return the favor, though, as I'm kind of pressed for time right now. Sorry :(</p>

2

<p>Your SAT will go far with most of these schools. If your essays and recs are good you’re golden for all except Vassar and UChicago.</p>

3

<p>Bucketfuls of financial aid? And your an international. That’ll really hurt you.</p>

4

<p>@north_face Thanks for the reassurance! I hope you’re right.</p>

<p>@meteman Yeah, I know :(</p>

5

<p>I hate to be so crass, but bump?</p>

<p>Any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>

6

<p>I think you’ll be fine with Sewanee, Trinity, and Depauw. The others are borderline because of your GPA. Your EC looks good but do you hold any leadership positions?</p>

<p>Chance me back? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1058177-how-do-i-fare-against-these-several-schools-ill-chance-back.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1058177-how-do-i-fare-against-these-several-schools-ill-chance-back.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>Thanks for commenting! I have to say I agree with you. Based on my school’s Naviance, I’m almost certain I’ll get into those three. Let’s hope I’ll get into at least a couple of the others as well. (Our only Whitman admit–it’s not a popular school with my classmates–actually had a lower GPA than me, too, but I can’t draw any conclusions from just one case.)</p>

<p>I chanced you back, by the way :slight_smile: But I’m not sure how helpful my impressions were, unfortunately. Oh well, these threads aren’t supposed to be taken seriously anyway.</p>

8

<p>actually your SAT I and SAT II scores could be the deciding factors for several schools on the list, I wouldn’t rule any of them out. But those three schools Sewanee, Trinity, and Depauw should be a lock.</p>

9

<p>your gpa seems a little low, but considering your scores most colleges will realize the scaling system, whatever it us…depending on how much they factor in your scores, i’d say reed, vassar, and mount holyoke would be matches to low reaches, just depending on what matters more (i don’t know the other schools so i can’t say anything about them). once again i don’t really know what your gpa means, but your sats should help you out a lot. good luck! :)</p>

<p>chance me back?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1057918-please-tell-me-if-im-right-safety-match-reach-will-chance-back-links-2.html#post1066143050[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1057918-please-tell-me-if-im-right-safety-match-reach-will-chance-back-links-2.html#post1066143050&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

10

<p>Thanks for commenting! I chanced you back :)</p>

<p>My GPA doesn’t mean anything good, unfortunately. It’s essentially a 3.3 whichever way you look at it, and although my school doesn’t rank (small mercies!), it would be immediately apparent to most of these colleges that my 3.3 is nothing special. (Not to mention that some of them probably have very meaty files on my school, mostly comprised of previous applicants with higher grades.)</p>

<p>But it’s no use crying over spilt milk. I’ll just have to work with what I have and hope for the best.</p>

<p>Again, thanks for commenting!</p>

11

<p>you should get into just about all except vassar and Uchicago largely thanks to your SAT score,</p>

<p>what i’m wondering is why you didn’t apply to the UC’s? they place a lot of emphasis on SAT scores, i don’t know about whether they offer financial aid though, or was it because ur looking @ east coast only?</p>

<p>don’t be too worried, you’ll get in the majority =),
just make sure those essays are awesome :D</p>

12

<p>Thanks for commenting!</p>

<p>Well, the truth is that the UC system is very unpopular with my school. Almost nobody applies to those universities; I imagine this is because we’re all internationals (my school is not in the US) and the UCs don’t offer a lot of aid to internationals? I don’t know, I never even considered them, to be honest.</p>

<p>And anyway, I’d like to go to a liberal arts college or similar; the atmosphere appeals to me more.</p>

<p>Maybe I should have looked into some of the UCs, but it’s too late now anyway. But still, thank you for the suggestion!</p>

13

<p>Um, are there any other opinions? I know this thread is largely pointless as far as definitive data collection goes, but I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts.</p>

14

<p>Reed- high match (btw- Portland is awesome!)
Vassar- definite reach
Mount Holyoke- match
Whitman- high match
Sewanee- match
Union- high match
Trinity U- match
DePauw U- match
U Chicago- reach</p>

<p>Good luck! You have awesome SAT scores! It sounds like your education was fairly rigorous, but your GPA suffered. Also, I’m not seeing a ton of EC’s.</p>

15

<p>Thank you for replying! I agree, I don’t have many ECs. Hopefully, my application will imply depth over breadth instead of laziness. (Because I enjoyed every single one of my activities.)</p>

<p>And yeah, I’ve heard tales of Portland :slight_smile: I definitely wouldn’t mind going to Reed.</p>

<p>Thanks for the realistic chances!</p>

<p>…Anyone else?</p>

16

<p>Positives:
AMAZING SAT SCORE it will definitely help you. it shows that you have intellectual potential</p>

<p>I wonder why your gpa is low though? Given your intelligence, it should be higher.
Colleges will look through your application, wondering what could possibly have caused this inconsistency.</p>

<p>Your EC’s indicate that you are a generous person, and your writing style confirms that you have good character. Character does count, so show it in your essays.</p>

<p>I have to say that as an international applicant, anything can happen, so make sure you have a lot of safeties. Otherwise, you have a chance at all of these schools. I personally think vassar would be a good fit for you.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

17

<p>Wow, I hadn’t seen your reply, PEMFuelCells! Thank you very much for your input, and for the kind words :)</p>

<p>To answer your question, I mostly did my own thing in high school, which entailed reading up on subjects that interested me without really caring about my grades. I’ve been very honest about that in the additional info section of my application–and I have no idea if that’s a good thing or not! But hey, at least I didn’t try to feed the adcoms some taurine feces about overcoming adversity when I’ve done no such thing. Unfortunately, I was simply too independent a student for my own good; I realize now that I should have tried to do better in school.</p>

<p>I’d love to go to Vassar, but we’ll see. I’m not too optimistic about my chances there, but frankly, I’d be happy at any of my schools.</p>

<p>Anyway. Thanks again!</p>