Junior looking to be chanced @ dream school.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Would be great to be chanced for Wharton/UPenn. I will apply there ED.

Here are the stats!

Grade: 11/Junior

TESTING
ACT: 34 composite, 08 writing - Have only taken the ACT once, and plan on taking it again in June.
SAT II: Plan on taking Chem and Math 2, scores around 750 are reasonable for me.

CLASS STATS
Rank: 5/584
GPA Weighted: 4.57 (will not hit 5.0 cap by ED application, but will stay top 5, probably will have a 4.73 or 4.74 on ED app.)
AP Classes: Calc BC, Chem, Lang & Comp, Music Theory, APUSH <-- I’ll take the AP tests the end of this school year. Probably 4-5 on all of them.

SENIOR CLASSES
I’ll take Multivariable Calculus, AP Stats, Linear Algebra, AP Physics, AP Gov, AP Lit & Comp.

EXTRACURRICULARS
-First chair violist since beginning of junior year
-Accepted into all-state honors orchestra
-Multiple 1 ratings at state level solo competition
-Lead attorney for my city’s youth court

PLANNED ECs
-I am working on starting an Economics club, as Econ isn’t offered at my school but is a primary interest for me
-Working on setting up an internship between myself and my city in the area of finance
-Plan on getting a few other top ratings at state

OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES
-My father was dealing with liver disease throughout my HS career and passed away this year, it has been very difficult to achieve at the level I want to in addition to processing this emotionally and helping my mom
-Family income is under 100k per annum

Like I said, my goal is to go to Wharton. I will be applying there for Early Decision. Would also be awesome to be chanced for somewhere like UChicago, Georgetown, Columbia, Washington in STLouis, and MIT.

I know the “If you are looking to be chanced at an Ivy…” sticky post, but if you can’t chance me @ Wharton/UPenn, then some of the other schools would be awesome.

Thank you so much. The anxiety has been killing me lately and I think this might help.

2

Georgetown match, U chicago match MIT- low reach, columbia- low reach. None of these schools are guaranteed but if you write about your father’s liver disease in your personal statement then you have about an 88-93 percent chance of getting into all the schools you listed. Best of luck.

3

Interesting!
Thanks kf34. I appreciate the feedback.

4

Bumping.

5

Wharton: High Reach (It’s essentially at HYPS’ selectivity level now)
MIT: High Reach (Ditto)
Columbia, UChicago: Reach (Chicago is VERY essay-dependent; nailing the essay would drop it to a low reach/high match)
Wash U/Gtown: High Match (If you’re Catholic, Gtown favors you slightly and they might even drop to a match)

I’m not sure enough about what you’re looking for to recommend any safeties, but if Wharton is your first choice then Michigan-Ross (Not a safety, but a Match) and Babson (Safety) should be on your watchlist.

Edit: Actually, Wash U might be a low reach, I’m not as aware about their admit stats.

6

@tgltgl - You are a strong candidate for all of those schools, but just due to the nature of them all, I would put you as a reach for all of them except perhaps Georgetown where I might say high match. Doesn’t mean you won’t get into one of those schools. Again, you are a strong candidate, but the Ivies are a reach for anyone, and UChicago, MIT, and WashU are pretty darn close.

7

The above statements are correct. I just want to caution against writing about your father - though I’m sure you can write a compelling essay about it, it’s kind of overused. I would speak to your GC regarding this, as my opinion would he to write a brief summary of the circumstance in the additional info section of the common app, this way you’re still telling colleges about the incident without making it the focus of your app.

8

np tgltgl

9

Thanks so much for the replies, all.

What could I do to become a more compelling choice for these places?

10

I mean what does it take to be a match at Wharton.

11

Honestly, you should think about should not to MV Calc or Linear Algebra and doing more normal AP’s. You’re missing lots of them and yet you’re putting off more by doing MV and LA. Things like AP Psych will help just as much and generally allow you to keep your grades easily considering that you want to do 4 math heavy classes(stats, MV, LA, and physics). Also, your ECs are lacking but I’m sure you know that already… Great scores and GPA tho! Mind if I ask what your unweighted GPA is?

I’ll go ahead and do some of the ones you listed…

UChicago: Low/Mid Reach
Georgetown: High Match/Low Reach
Columbia: Mid Reach
WUSTL: Low/Mid Reach
MIT: Mid/High Reach

12

“I mean what does it take to be a match at Wharton.”
It is a reach school no matter what you do.

Anyway,
Wharton: Reach to high reach
MIT: Reach to High Reach
Columbia: Reach
Chicago: Reach
Wash U: Low Reach if you apply for FA
GTown: Decent chance to low reach

13

I figured I’d do MV and Linear because on Wharton’s site they state they want a strong background in math.

Two periods of my schedule go to orchestra and a math-related “21st Century Program” I’m a part of. It’s been tough to fit in the APs I want, but I’ve taken AP at every opportunity.

The first line of this post explains why I don’t want to take something like AP Psych.
I literally do not have the room in my schedule for it.

Forgot to mention I’ve been taking French classes over the summers at my community college, I’ll be taking the French IV equivalent this summer.

Would something like Boys State through the American Legion help? What other concrete things can I do?

14

Doesn’t explain why you won’t take psych. I just said I’d recommend you look at changing from MV/LA to Psych/things like it. Changing the classes would free time up… Generally when they say a strong background in math they mean calculus like every other highschooler. They aren’t expecting to see people going through topology to apply. MV/LA would be great but you probably should work on getting the normal classes before starting to focus. There are thousands of one sided STEM applicants with tons of math. Not to say that two more math classes would make you one of them, but it is something to think about.

Foreign language is great… in fact, almost every top school requires it to be admitted.

Concrete things… do things you enjoy that count. If you enjoy leading people do boy scouts. If you enjoy helping others volunteering… do stuff you enjoy.

15

Wharton, MIT, Columbia, Chicago admit rates <10%
Automatic reach schools whether you like it or not.

Do your best then pray!!!
You might get lucky.

16

Bumping for any other ideas.

17

@MandarinSin I don’t really see why he should take AP Psych when he already has AP Lit and AP Gov (+ AP Lang and APUSH) - I feel like the MV and LA would make more of an impression. He already has breadth so adding some more depth would definitely be attractive.

But I do agree w/ increasing strength of ECs. Though, it must definitely be very difficult given your family conditions - I’m sure colleges will take that into account (though don’t count on it too much).

18

@kirito69‌ MV/LA does make a bit of an impression;however, I think it gives the “very STEM heavy” vibe which may or may not be good.

I’m not really informed on it, but 5 non STEM AP’s does seem like much breadth. I’d think 7-8 would be good, most people at top schools seem to do around 8 non-STEM + BC and/or , Biology and/or Chem and/or Physics. He only has around 5 planned(Gov, Lit, Music, USH, and Composition.).

19

I echo @kirito69‌ 's point about it being better for the OP to take MV and LA over AP Psych, especially since Psych is generally seen as one of the easier APs. I also don’t think that there’s some sort of “magic number” of how many non-STEM APs you need to take in order to have breadth, especially since different schools offer different AP classes (i.e. good luck taking 8 non-STEM APs at my school, which offers a grand total of 5 APs, 4 of which are STEM).

20

My school definitely offers more APs, but I simply can not fill them in without dropping my visual arts (another breadth thing…) program or music program.

It looks like I will be taking MV/LA next year for sure. I will graduate with 5 APs from junior year, one from Sophomore (AP Euro, think I forgot to mention this), and 3.5 from senior year (AP Lit, Gov, Physics, Stats) for a total of 9.5 APs.

@MandarinSin I’m doing AP Chem now…I’ll have: Music, Lit, Gov, Euro, USH, and Comp for non-STEM things, and Stats, BC, Chem, and Physics for STEM…plus MV/LA. I want to go into a math-heavy field, probably financial analysis or other analysis work, why would I take crap I don’t care about when I have breadth through music?