Match/chance me: trying to decide between ed upenn or rice

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US domestic permanent resident
  • State/Location of residency: texas
  • Type of high school: public
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: asian

Intended Major(s)
bio/biochem/finance/econ/mathematics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA : 5.4/6.0
  • Class Rank: unranked but top 15%
  • ACT/SAT Scores: taking sat in aug, goal is 1550+

Coursework

  • 11 honors + 16 APs by graduation
  • up to calc bc & stats
  • spanish 4 = ap spanish language

Awards

  • bronze presidential volunteer service award (9)

  • award of excellence in orchestra (9)

  • award of service in orchestra (10)

  • Gold presidential volunteer service award (11)

Extracurriculars

  • Music club founder/president (11-12)

  • nonprofit board member (10-12)

  • thrift store with 1k following and raised over $1000 (11-12)

  • calligraphy club officer (11) + president(12)

  • co-founder of Instagram handle introducing news w 400 followers (11th-current)

  • Orchestra/viola (9-12)

  • All district orchestra (9) & all region orchestra (10-11)

  • National Honors Society (10-12)

  • korean translator (10-12)

  • volunteer: 500+ hours

  • Korean School Teacher (8–10) stopped b/c covid

Essays/LORs/Other

  • getting tutor to help with essays, very strong essays.
  • LOR: calc ab teacher & lang teacher. stood out in both classes, one of the few students who participated in online school.

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • willing to pay up to 40k, depending on school but definitely in need of financial aid

Schools
*ED Rice university(in state, but don’t like the weather) or upenn(love the campus, but lower chance)

  • Safety: University of texas at dallas
  • Likely: University of Texas at Austin
  • Match: University of Virginia, Emory
  • Reach: Vanderbilt, Rice, Upenn, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale
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Congratulations on your achievements so far. Will you be auto-admit to UT-Austin?

I can’t chance you, but UVA and Emory are both reaches, so spend some more time identifying match schools, especially if you aren’t auto admit to UTA. What major will you apply to at UTA?

Now on to cost and affordability. Have you run each school’s net price calculator to see if it will be within your $40K budget? Do that, along with your parents, and let us know the results.

https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/rice

https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/upenn

Note the NPCs may not be accurate if your parents are divorced, own a business, or own land beyond a primary home.

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I concur - UVA is not a match OOS. Emory likely not.

Money is most important. I’ve not seen a 6.0 weighted GPA or 16 APs.

While I don’t understand your profile, a match might be an SMU type school or strong public such as Florida or Georgia.

Good luck.

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First of all, congratulations on having such an excellent academic record. I’m sure you worked very hard, and it certainly shows in your grades! You have a lot to be proud of!

Hard to understand how a 4.0 UW with tons of APs puts you only in the top 15% of a public school where the kids didn’t even show up to online school. If you’re really only in the top 15% of a public school from Texas, with those ECs, I honestly think that Penn and Rice both are long shots for you, even if applying ED. Could it be that you are more highly ranked in your class than you realize? And yes, I know, your school doesn’t rank, but still, your school must send out something to the colleges with your letter letting them know approximately what percentage of the class has what GPAs, something like, "10% of the class have GPAs of 4.0-5.9, and so on. If you’re really only in the top 15% of the class, then I don’t think your chances at any of your matches and reaches are good.

Rice is a private U, and as such, there is no “in-state” advantage. Whether or not your family will get need-based money depends upon the family’s finances. You’re well-positioned to get merit money at lesser schools.

I think your safety and likely are probably on target. UVa and Emory are reaches, not matches. And your reaches are very high reaches to dream schools.

If you’re perfectly happy to go to a UT school, that’s great, and you can rest assured that you will get into one, the family can afford it, and all will be well. But if you want to go to other than a UT school, you need to figure out whether your family would qualify for aid, whether your family can afford 75K/yr, whether you need to chase merit money at lesser schools (flagship state U’s in the south and southwest, or lesser private schools that would give you a lot of merit money to get you and your stats to go there).

And if you were going to apply to one of the two ED, I think your chances are about the same at both (meaning not impossible, but pretty low), and that you should apply ED to the one you like best, if your family thinks they can swing what the school is likely going to demand.

Rest assured that if you wind up at a UT school, you’ll do incredibly well, make your mark there, and have a bright future. And any other school would be lucky to have you.

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thank you for all the information! I only put emory and uva as a match because I thought it wouldn’t align with acceptance rates with the other reach schools. Online school this year was a combination of different schools in the district, so there was a low participation rate. However, my school is very competitive and I am not in the top 10%. I believed that my gpa and coursework alone would be a heavier deciding factor rather than the class rank. Please let me know if I am wrong and which schools would align with my stats! Thank you for your feedback.

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You are correct that the GPA will carry more weight - but at some schools rank does carry.

I still don’t understand how you can be on a 4.0 and have a 6.0 weighted. Weighted should still be vs. a 4.0 - but will be higher due to APs. I concur, there’s no way you could be 15% if you have 16 APs - unless you are getting Bs in them. But then your weighted wouldn’t be over a 4.0.

Can you explain your weighting system? Hard to get to that #colleges-and-universities:washington-university-in-st-louis

With a high unweighted GPA, if money is a concern, Alabama, Arizona, U of South Carolina, Miami of Ohio, Arkansas - schools like that would be home runs with lots of really smart kids (not paying a lot of money)!!

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Unless you are at a highly competitive, admission-by-exam-only school, similar to what Boston Latin used to be, or Bronx Science, or Stuyvesant, then top 15% at an open admission public school, even in a very good district, is not Ivy level. Every public school that has to take all comers is going to have a significant proportion of kids who aren’t serious students, so even in the best of districts, you can figure that only about 25% of the students are hard-working, high-achieving. Many valedictorians with perfect standardized test scores do not get into tippy-top schools, or even other Ivies. Being in the top 15% from a public school that is not an exam school is not that high a rank, and the top schools will know this. They have to be able to differentiate among all those 4.0UW applicants from your school. The school will send out something that reveals what “channel” you are in, in some way that enables the colleges to recognize your approximate rank.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t apply to top schools. You should. But you have to spend more time focusing on choosing your safety and true match schools, because that’s very likely where you’re gonna wind up getting in. Then choose some low reaches, and some high reaches. And perhaps Penn or Rice ED as your dream school. You are allowed to decline if they accept you, but with insufficient money.

If money is an issue, if you’re in that sour spot where your family has an income in the 100-200K/yr range, or owns rental property, or farm land, or a business with real assets that could be mortgaged, you may be unpleasantly surprised that the school expects your parents to pay more than they are able to. Luckily, in-state UT tuition is a bargain. And if you want to do your parents (and hence yourself) a favor, add in applications to places where you might get a lot of merit money, as others have recommended.

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my district’s weighted scale is a little different than most schools. A 5.0 weighted would be a 6.0 weighted at my school. So my 5.4 weighted gpa would be 4.4 on a 5.0 weighted scale. Also, I am not top 15 percent because, my school is very competitive and 5 to 7 ap classes per year is the norm. Also because I went to two different high schools and their weight system is different. the 5.4 is what the colleges would consider with both schools. However, my official gpa currently is a little below 5.4 because of the credit differences at my new school!

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UVA OOS acceptance rate was 17% for Class of 2025, Emory’s overall acceptance rate was 13%…so both are reaches. Given that you aren’t top 6%, I hesitate to call UT-Austin a likely…what major will you be applying for there? Do any other UT campuses appeal, aside from your UTD safety?

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i haven’t really considered where uva and emory stand in the safety/match/reach categories before writing this post because I added them last minute. Thank you for letting me know they’re reaches and not matches. I only lived in Texas for a year and while I lived in Virginia for many years, I always thought UVA would be a match instead of doing further research especially given the cirsumstances of this year.
To answer your question, I haven’t thought too much about in state schools other than UT Austin, UTD, and Rice. Especially given that I would like to attend college in the East coast because I like the enviornment and weather there much better. I will most likely apply to the biology major at UTA.

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I am in the 100-200k spot :((
I’ve only thought about prestige and not the impact of student loan until you guys brought it up. thank you for your input!! I will be looking into more safeties/match schools.

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Too early to make a list of target/match or safety schools since you do not have an actual SAT or ACT score.

Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, & UPenn are unlikely if not in the top 10% of your class since you have no “hook”.

If you break 1500 on the SAT, then WashUStL might be a solid ED option if affordable.

If you plan to major in finance, then the list of schools changes drastically as you should be aiming for direct admission to a school of business. Indiana University Kelley School of Business should be given consideration. University of Richmond is also a solid choice for business as is SMU.

For biochem, consider WashUStL.

Safeties should be large state university honors colleges which award automatic merit scholarships based on an applicant’s GPA & standardized test score (ACT or SAT).

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Nah, not really. If a students has an UW GPA of close to 4.0, the most rigorous class set, and great LoRs, I do not think that they are going to start sifting through to see whether they are in the top 5%, 10%, or 15%. They are going to go on to awards and ECs.

Not that it matters. 80% of the “Ivy level” applicants are rejected anyways.

@kate231 Looking at your profile, I would say Rice. However, I am not sure that either would be the best college for you. I would actually recommend that you look at Northwestern as your ED.

Otherwise, I agree with the others - Emory and UVA are reaches, and UT Austin is not a likely, since you are not in the top 6% of your class.

I also agree with @tsbna44 and others. Based on your income level, your family will find affording any of your reaches to be a challenge.

You should go merit-hunting. With your GPA, you would likely qualify for all sorts of merit money from many colleges.

You should put ranking and prestige aside, and consider which college will allow you to graduate without taking out loans.

Basically, within your family’s income range, they would likely have a difficult time paying the amount of money that most of the colleges on your list would consider to be their EFC. It would likely be around $30,000-$40,000 a year after financial aid. On the other hand, there are colleges which you could attend for a lot less or even almost nothing. With your profile, many colleges would be willing to not only consider you for large merit scholarships, but you could negotiate lower costs at some of them.

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I don’t think it makes sense to recommend OP consider applying to NU ED, if the NPC is unlikely to be affordable.

Until OP runs a few NPCs and shares the results, we can’t provide recommendations to this level of detail…OP might very well be merit hunting as you say, which would preclude applying anywhere ED, especially at schools that may be unaffordable like NU.

OP, here is NU’s NPC, I linked to Penn and Rice NPCs above: Net Price Calculator

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OP does not have any actual SAT or ACT score so “large merit scholarships” are unlikely at this point.

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Arizona - GPA only.

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