Is this Sophomore on track for T20s and OxBridge?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • Southern California near LA area
  • Non-Competetive, IBDP High school
  • Male, MESA, Arab (I usually will not select white unless it includes “arab” underneath it. If it doesn’t then I select other simply cause I don’t identify as white)
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): Dual citizen and an “Immigrant” (I spent a large portion of my life in Lebanon but moved back to the US during Arab Spring. Not actually an immigrant cause I was born in the US to obtain citizenship here and then immediately moved back to lebanon lol)

Intended Major(s)

Either Physics and Business or Mathematics and Business.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: I’ma be honest, by the time I graduate it’d be a total of 3.5-3.6 including Freshman Year, excluding it I’m confident I can get like a 3.7-3.8
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.0 Including freshman year, excluding it it can be at like a 4.6-4.7 (IB SL, IB HL, IB TOK, Honors, and AP Courses all get +1 added to their GPA. I’m taking almost entirely honors courses
  • College GPA (for transfers): I’m taking a semester at a local community college, can hope for a 4.0 but idk. This will most likely be added onto my HS GPA cause that’s what normally happens.
  • Class Rank: Currently 222/515 but I’m confident I can get up to top 30 at my school (I told y’all it was extremely uncompetitive)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: For obvious reasons, unknown. Current predictions are saying in the 1400+ range and I’m confident I can get an SAT score above 1500 by the time I take it next year.

Coursework
Freshman Year: 2 Honors classes, 5 Full semester classes without weight, 1 Semester class, 1 semester class that doesn’t count to my GPA (Straight Bs this year)

Sophomore Year: 2 Honors classes, 2 AP Classes (AP Bio and AP World), 1 regular class, 1 class that doesn’t count for my GPA (Above maximum rigour, at my school you can’t take my math class [alg II Trig] and AP Bio until Junior year)

Summer of Sophomore year: Trying to get Chemistry, Game Theory and Design, An exercise course, and French I at my local community college. All of these classes add to my GPA

Junior Year: I’m going full IB DP at my school. Junior year I’m taking:
HLs: English Lit (Required), History of Americas (Required), Math AA, Physics (Maybe, this class is based on demand. If there’s no demand for Physics HL then I will have to drop down to Physics SL which will really break my heart lmao)
SL Classes: Physics (maybe), Spanish, TOK for 1 semester and AP Gov for the next

Beyond this idk, if Physics HL is not offered, I may actually just enroll into a physics programme into my community college instead. I’m a big fan of physics

Awards

Award my school gave cause I raised 1000 dollars for Syrian refugees.
Other than that, in the future, maybe AP Scholar, National Merit, and a couple of MUN and Deca Awards

Extracurriculars
1: Owner of a record label which has a total of 7 artists signed to it (Starting Freshman year)
2: MUN Freshman year, when I moved schools I created another MUN class Sophomore year
3: Trying to create a DECA or a campus improvement club Junior and Senior year
4: Class council at my old school
5: Aiming to get president position Junior and Senior year
6: Recorded a total of 3 rap albums, I haven’t released them cause I’m a perfectionist
7: Wrote a total of 3 books, same as above
8: I’m currently writing a paper on the probability that re-arranging a shape’s net will result in you being able to make another closed shape. It’s not going well but hopefully I can publish it by Junior year
9: Raised 1000 dollars for Syrian refugees Sophomore year

Haven’t done much else but I’m confident I can figure out more things to do by the time Junior year rolls around. I plan on joining my school’s Math Counts team and the Academic Decathlon maybe.

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays: Haven’t done them yet but I’m confident
LORs: I just moved schools so I can’t say how good they are but I’m confident
Other: I moved schools. My first semester of Sophomore year was a god damn nightmare cause I moved in the middle of the semester and I was living in an apartment with really unreliable internet and electricity making it near impossible to submit anything on time. After that was over my grades significantly improved. As for freshman year dip I don’t have anything to say about it besides Depression and some environmental factors made it extremely difficult for me to stay focused on anything.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Most of these schools are need-blind and offer financial aid.

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability) Local community college
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable) University of Southern California (nepotism), American University of Beirut, Roger Williams University (RI), Not much else tbh.
  • Match: None right now lmao besides maybe Pepperdine.
  • Reach Ivies, (Especially Brown), UC System (Especially UCLA), OxBridge, and Carnegie Mellon (maybe)

If you’re wondering why UCLA, Brown, and OxBridge it’s all for shallow reasons. UCLA cause I’m arab and I know there’s a large arab population there, Brown cause I come from Rhode Island before I moved and I really like providence (Plus open curriculum is pretty damn dope considering the weirdo things I be doing), and OxBridge cause I do not like the U.S lmao.

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You may have potential but, as of yet, your potential seems unrealized. I am referring to things such as:

If you feel you can be in the top 30 and the school is, in your assessment, uncompetitive, then why is your rank currently so low? Have you been slacking off thus far? Or what happened? And why do you think you can climb so high in the rank so quickly? Are you now making some drastic change to your study habits? If so, that’s great, but remains to be seen whether or not you will actually do that and how forgiving t20s might be about your slow start.

Being a perfectionist is not going to be an acceptable excuse to colleges. Anyone can write a book. Anyone can write 3 books. Far fewer people can get them published. Can you? If so, that could be impressive. If not, then it will not really enhance your chances at a top school.

If it’s not going well, why do you think it can or should be published? I don’t understand this at all.

How likely is this? What steps are you taking NOW to make this happen?

So, as I said, maybe there is some good potential in here, but so far, it hasn’t fully played out, so no way to say what your chances will be because no way to say if all of these things you hope will happen will actually happen.

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I am thinking that you might not be aware of just how competitive admissions are at the “top 20” universities in the US, and also at Oxford and Cambridge.

There are about 35,000 high schools in the US, if you include both public and private high schools. MIT in a recent year had about 34,000 applicants. If you are the #1 or #2 top student in your high school overall and in math and sciences, then you are relatively close to being an average applicant to MIT. They accept a bit more than 1,000 undergraduate students each year.

At least the really top ranked universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Caltech, Chicago, Stanford, and a few others are not much different from MIT in terms of competitiveness for admission.

There are a lot of very good universities in the US. There will be plenty of universities that would be a good fit for you. From what you have said, it does not sound to me as if you are on track to be competitive for a “top 20” university. However, I think that there will be other universities for you to consider.

I would be cautious about jumping too far ahead in your class work. I think that you want to try to pull up your grades and that this may be more important than jumping ahead into more advanced classes.

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You’re a sophomore - so the answer is who knows.

You’ll be asked to prove about your record label.

At this point, with a 3.5 - 3.6, forget your reaches, but your likely USC is a no.

But it’s way too early.

Be the best you that you can be. Create, impact and follow your passions. Take the most rigorous schedule you can that does not overwhelm you.

And check back in a year.

One can’t assume - I’ll be a 4.0, I’ll be this, I’ll be that.

I cannot say where you’ll be - but USC is not likely for anyone and you’re just beginning.

Let’s see what you produce in your life - your field is still open and you’ll have many options - but what they’ll be it’s too hard to know now.

PS - while your maturity seems a bit - well - not - your reasons for UCLA and Brown aren’t bad - and well I don’t get the Ox Bridge comment. There are other schools in these areas - and you discovered Roger Williams…so that’s good.

Be a kid now and make an impact.

Good luck.

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I agree with DadTwoGirls that you are not on track for T20 schools. And USC is not a “likely”school for you at this point either.

While it is OK to apply to these schools, you need to realize that they are probably out of reach and you will need to build a realistic list of schools. As you are only a sophomore, you have plenty of time to do so.

Spend your time now focusing on your classes and finding extracurriculars that you love. It sounds like you have a passion for music and writing. Keep up with these things.

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1: Because having straight Bs isn’t all that uncommon in my school. Most students are straight B students but going above that is rare

2: I do have plans on publishing an album and a novel later on, but as of right now due to financial constraints and once again perfectionism, I haven’t. I plan on having the album and novel being a part of my CAS for IB

3: Because it’s precisely not going well is why I should work hard to publish it. I want to get as far as possible to solving this problem and if I can’t go far, then I want to publish it to help others to potentially get farther than me. I have no clue what application this problem will solve but I know that it’s something I want to be solved in my lifetime

4: I already have a plan. My school does not offer a Junior prom which is something my old high school did. As a result, I plan on making my entire campaign riding on getting a Junior prom and aiming for a cheaper prom as well as a large portion of my school is too poor to afford the 100 dollar prom ticket.

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I know there are plenty of good universities in the U.S, but I still have an obligation towards my family to make it as high as I can and I will absolutely try my best. I’m currently not overworking myself and I know I am not by seeing how I’m managing to run a record label while taking a bunch of higher level classes at my school lmao. Like many other people who are diagnosed as being gifted, I often struggle at academics when the classes are easier which is why I struggled so much at my freshman year of high school as I was unable to take any honors level courses due to me struggling so much in middle school (thanks pandemic)

When I had the ability to take classes that were at my level, I discovered that I actually do have the ability to succeed in my classes, but classes at a level “below me” were extremely difficult for some reason that I cannot describe. That’s why I’m so confident in my ability to succeed in high school despite a low initial GPA as now that I have the freedom to select the most difficult classes I can, I’m actually able to enjoy my classwork.

If I’m not on track for the T20s right now, what do you encourage me to do? Although I know not much can be done about a poor freshman year GPA, I’m confident that the colleges would be willing to overlook a poor first semester of sophomore year due to me not having access to reliable utilities, something that would most likely cause anyone to have a dip in their GPA.

Should I perhaps take another set of college courses Junior year? My school partners with my community college so whenever I take a semester at that college, it counts as a year in my new school so I think that having effectively 2 extra years to boost my GPA could help alleviate my initial freshman GPA even more. I’m just not sure if I want to spend my summer Junior year that way though.

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As I said in the document, the reason why I put “USC” as likely is because of Nepotism. I cannot say much cause I don’t want this to be discovered in the future and actually ruin my chances there but I can say that I have some important people there who said they were willing to put in a lot of work to get me in. That’s why I put USC as a “likely” instead of “reach” as without those people that were willing to do that for me I probably would put it into “reach” instead (or not even include it on the list. Tbh I’m not too thrilled about USC as all the things I’ve heard from my family are negative. Although I haven’t done much research on it yet so idk)

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A few years ago I read the biography/autobiography of Carl Jung “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”, which is a very interesting book. He said something similar. He found most of school too boring. He started to shine when he finally got to more difficult stuff.

Someone I know well has a similar feature that they just get better when the classes get tougher (I hope it continues because they are in very tough classes right now, studying for a Doctorate).

Also, the pandemic was quite tough for many, many students.

There are some very top schools that will not consider your freshman year of high school as long as you did not flunk anything. I am pretty sure that the Universities of California are in this group, which is fortunate for you since you live in California (if I read your original post correctly), and also because they include such excellent universities. McGill and Toronto and other universities in Canada are also in this group. I have heard both ways about Stanford, but I think that freshman year will matter less there if it matters at all.

I think that you need to dig down and make an effort to excel in your current classes. Take classes that make sense for you. Then see where you are in about 1 1/2 years.

You might also want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. You could find it with a google search, but I will include a link:

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I’ll be blunt. I don’t see you having any realities chance of getting into these schools.

No, nepotism is not enough. Both my kid’s grandparents attended USC and were donors. My son was offered an option as a transfer student. He had excellent grades, very high test scores, and lots of rigor. USC is a safety for no one except a recruited athlete.

Big red flag. If it’s not competitive, you don’t have a great reason for not being at the top already. This is your biggest obstacle, IMO.

All students went through the pandemic. The best students still managed rigor and high grades, despite the challenges. There are plenty of schools out there, but I don’t think reasonable options include T20. Maybe Oxford is possible IF you get fantastic IB scores. Oxford tends to be a bit more willing to accept Americans than Cambridge does.

Focus on matches and safeties. Anything above that is icing on the cake.

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Reflect a little on what you are saying here. You are talking about schools that get 60K application and take 5% of applicants. Throw out recruited athletes, Quest Bridge, recruited Cello players, mega donors and debaters and your are nor down to 3%.

Are you in the top 3% of your school? Then you have a shot? Are you in the top 10% and have great test scores and some interesting ECS and Leadership? Then you have a shot
Are you in the top 20%? Not looking good, but maybe you have some presigous national level awards, you have a strong upward trajectory, you have great essays and LORs.

Below top 25%??? You better have won the olympics, have 10M do donate, appeared on the cover of time magazine, or built a working cold fusion reactor in your basement.

Remember what T20 is? is a list concocted by a magazine. You are not looking for the best college according to USN, you’re looking for the best college for you. There are 3000+ colleges in the US and there is not much difference between a college that is 15 or 150.

What are you looking to do after college? Job? Grad School? Law School? Medical School?

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And I know that, that’s why I’m so interested in taking classes at these top schools because while they’re all interchangeable when you go up to the top 50, there are some things that I’m interested in that frankly other top 50 schools just don’t have (as I said, Brown has an open curriculum and is in Providence, one of my favorite cities and UCLA has a large arab population, something I’ve wanted to have for a long time).

I also know that academically, because of freshman year grades I’m not doing too well, that is also why I am trying so hard to figure out ways to make up for them. I know that a large portion of the T20s (at least Stanford and UC System and maybe Princeton according to some) do not look at freshman year grades.

When those grades are excluded, I am in the top 20-10% of my class. When those grades are included, I’m only top 50%.

I also believe that I have interesting ECs and Leadership. Maybe I’m being too prideful but I highly doubt the number of students who create record labels at 14 years old and apply to these T20s is an extremely small number. I’m willing to bet less than 20. My major strategy right now is to create a series of ECs and roles that display that even though I had some struggles freshman year, once that was over, I managed to do incredible things. Of course not making a cold fusion reactor in my basement, but things that such a little amount of students do that my competition on the EC end is significantly lower than for most

Either way, to answer the last question: Most likely research but I don’t want to close any doors (which is why I have business as one of my majors). I already said I wanted to solve a problem with nets but there are a lot more problems I want to solve that haven’t been solved yet (such as whether or not time is discrete). I also know that when it comes to the kinds of problems solved, I really do need a T50 education as going for a doctorate at a local community college is just not possible for obvious reasons)

Lastly, I want to know what would be possible for me to improve about my application. I’m ultimately asking for critique and what I can do to improve my chances while I have time. I know I cannot change the past but at least my future can be influenced (the reason why I made this thread)

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1: By nepotism I mean that I have multiple people who are a high enough rank in USC that if they say “I’m willing to put in the effort to get you in” means that the chances of me making it in are high. If these people tell AOs to reserve a spot for me, the AOs will most likely do it. Of course, I cannot say who as once again I don’t want to be caught up in a scandal or anything, but just know that unless I do something REALLY bad, I will most likely make inside of USC.

2: My reason for not being at the top is my freshman year GPA as I’ve stated multiple times. I know my rank right now is an obstacle but I do not think any AO can see how your rank has changed over time, only the final result, and I’m willing to bet my final result is at least in the top 50-30. As for why my freshman year GPA was poor, I don’t have a great reason unless I want to tell the AO that I had a crazy ex who falsely accused me of doing something really bad to her and causing me to now have to focus on not being thrown in jail. I think you and I both know telling any AO that is a recipe for guaranteeing that I won’t make it inside lmao.

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By all means then, go to USC.

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I am only going to address UCLA in this post. Since you are a CA resident, then UCLA makes sense in regards to affordability, possible fit and the fact that Freshman grades are not included in their GPA Calculation. However, all grades and courses will be reviewed for admission.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UCLA is need blind which means it does not consider your ability to pay in their admission process, but you should run the Net Price Calculator to determine if the FA estimate would meet you and your parents college budget.

UCLA is the most applied University in the US and had 149,815 applications for the 2022 Fall Freshman class with an admit rate of 8.6%.

2022 GPA statistics for admitted freshman students
GPA Median Middle 25% - 75%
Weighted UC GPA 4.58 4.40-4.73
Unweighted UC GPA 4.00 3.95-4.00
Capped Weighted UC GPA 4.27 4.21-4.33

As another poster stated, you have potential but focusing on the elite schools is the wrong approach when applying to colleges. You need to spend the time in the next 2 years to identify schools that you will have a likely admission first before zeroing in on the Reachy schools.

I am sure your parents would love to see you get a great education but there are more than the top 20 schools where this can happen. What happens if you do not get into any of these top schools? As a CA resident, you have 9 UC’s, 23 Cal States and numerous private universities that will get you to your end goal.

You cannot make your stats fit a school, you need to find schools that fit your stats…

Best of luck.

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I think you have a lot of growing up to do. And, a lot of bridges to cross. That’s not how things work. Many grown ups will tell you **what you want to hear. What many experienced posters here are telling you is what you NEED TO HEAR.
At this point of your career, your class rank is poor, you have not taken standardized tests and a lot of your ECs are half baked. Focus on your studies and see where you are in a year or so. Good luck!

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Another blunt but honest feedback and everyone here wants to give you honest feedback and want you to be successful:

The answer is no.

  1. Class rank of 222/515 and you said that it was extremely uncompetitive. If you don’t even perform well in the “extremely uncompetitive” environment, how would you fare?
    You said that going above B is rare. Then make it happen. Make it that you are one of the few students who can get A in your school. I feel your excuse here is in conflict with your other explanation that you don’t do well because the classes are too easy for you. Which one is true? Classes too easy or going above B is rare? Only you can answer this question.
    IMHO, even top 30-50 in an “extremely uncompetitive environment” wouldn’t take you to the top list of T-20.
  2. Some of the “future” predictions might not happen. I believe most of T-20 applicants started taking AP classes in their freshman year and they usually are already AP Scholar by their sophomore year. DECA awards: that’s not guaranteed, isn’t it? You mentioned you are trying to create a DECA club - what have you done? Have you found teacher who wants to be involved? Have you found students with similar interest?
  3. You raise $1000 for Syrian refugees: good but might not seem too impressive if my calculation is correct: your class has 515 students - so let’s take ~500 students for each grade in your HS - that means 2,000 students. Not that impressive for the AO I can imagine (again I am blunt but honest).
  4. You own a record label - that’s not important. What and how well you do with that will be the important question. It’s the same as students founding nonprofit just to tick the box. The end question will be: how well they do? How it contributes to the entire applicant profile.
  5. Books and albums - better have them released and see how well they do. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean anything.
  6. You mention that you have interesting ECs and leadership but I would encourage you to see other T20 related forums admission and see who got deferred or rejected. Their ECs and leadership were much more impressive than yours).
  7. Essays: no one knows what constitutes great essays. What can be great for me, might not be for you. I always cringe when someone wrote “essay: great” or something similar.
  8. Grades: yes, some of the schools don’t look at FR year grades but they also look at the rigor. AOs in the specific regions know very well a lot of schools: what courses available, etc, so they know a 3.8 student in school A might be better than

If you have some people who can put you in USC, that’s great. But right now, I think you want to find the activities that you like, where and what you want to be in the future and incorporate those into your ECs or other activities. You’ll make things easier for your network at USC.

Improve your grades AND take more rigorous classes. There shouldn’t be any excuse that you don’t do well if the classes are too easy for you - AO won’t bother (if you put that in your explanation, you’ll look horrible) and your grade will not look competitive at all.

See what you can do in the next year and plan accordingly. See how far you can push yourself. Do research, see how other applicants in those schools and you can see how impressive they are: can you compete with them and do you really want to compete with them? See whether you really want to do it and if you have the willpower to do so.

Good luck!

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Oxbridge doesnt care about ECs

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For OxBridge (and most other UK/European unis) you apply to study one subject / subject area, and the actual course is highly structured. That means no Gen Eds and little (if any) course choice in 1st year, and course choices in later years are within your subject area. Admissions are based on 1) AP or IB scores in subjects relevant to the subject (more important than GPA, though they want a ‘competitive’ GPA); frequently an aptitude test (eg, the Physics Aptitude Test for physics at Oxford), and (for OxBridge) a subject-based interview. Oxford will want at least 3 relevant APs with scores of 5; Cambridge will want 5.

The UK/European model is not great for somebody who isn’t sure what they want to study.

Actually, you really do not need “a T50 education” to get a doctorate. State universities are well represented in all of the PhD programs that I am familiar with, and I currently have a gradschoolkid in a Top 10 PhD program who did not go to aT50 for undergrad.

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The OP’s assumption on this matter struck me as well. And I will add myself here - did not go to T50 for undergrad, went on to PhD program at UC Berkeley. This is a pretty common track. A few members of my cohort at Cal did go to top undergrad schools; most did not.

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