My Last Chances Ever (Cornell, G-Town, BC, etc), Will Chance Back If You Give Thought

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>My final chances...until med school, perhaps. I have a somewhat unusual application, so I'm looking for some opinions.</p>

<p>Ethnicity: Mexican/White
High School: 134th in United States (about 10% of us get into Ivy Leagues/equivalent or better)
Major: Neuroscience/biology
GPA (lower numbers explained later, but they still are here): 3.4 UW, 4.02 W, downward trend, then moderate jump in Senior year, about 12% rank, but school does not rank. This is obviously my most problematic stat. Since my school does not rank, colleges will see a chart explaining what percent each weighted gpa corresponds to. For this year, colleges will see that 3% of the class has weighted gpas from 4.5-5 and 11% has weighted gpas from 4-4.5, so technically they will not know my rank, but they have an idea. Sorry if that's confusing, but I try to explain as thoroughly as possible.
SATs: 2220 superscored (680 CR, 750 M, 790 (12 essay) W), 2190 (650 CR, 750 M, 790 (12 essay) W) for highest single taking. Note how the Writing section likely skews the results.
SAT 2: Biology: 720, Math I: 740, Lit: 620
AP: Psychology: 5, European History: 4, Macroeconomics: 4, Government: 4, Physics: 3, Calculus: 3, Language: 5</p>

<p>Courses (One of the heaviest loads available):
Freshman year: H English, H World History, H Algebra 2, H Bio, Latin 2, Intro to law, Comp Graphics
Sophomore: H English, H Am History, H Latin 3, H Analysis, H Chem, AP Psych
Junior: AP Language, AP Economics/Government, AP Physics, AP European History, AP Calculus, Latin 4
Senior: AP Literature, AP Latin (Literature), AP Environmental Science, AP Statistics, AP American History, Law Seminar, Ceramics (required art course)</p>

<p>EC:
-Key Club (Officer - in charge of website creation/management and organizing events)
-Latin Club (Officer - help with all Latin club projects)
-Tennis Team (Captain - Senior Year, likely only doing club tennis in college)
-Table Tennis Club (Founder/President)
-Latin Honors Society (tutoring)
-National Latin Exam Gold Medalist for 4 straight years
-REPP (Ridge Encouragement for Political Participation)
-Participated in state-wide math contests
-Science club all four years (biology, chem, physics state competitions - no significant awards)
-Minor independent research on neuroscience (read books/attended seminars, nothing submitted/published)
-Economics Club
-Serve dinner at a retirement home (weekend job/300 hours over 2 years)
-Worked at the town pool (75 hours over 1 year)
-Volunteer at the VA Hospital (320 hours over 4 years)
-Volunteer at homeless shelter (160 hours over 3 years)
-Various volunteer activities from Key Club outside of school, including Homeless Shelters, creating a prom dance for senior citizens, setting up various fundraisers (estimating about 120 hours over 4 years)
-Minor tennis awards
-National AP Scholar with distinction</p>

<p>Letters: GC- amazing, me and her share a connection with our interests, she always talks about how much I have matured and think in a logical manner; Teachers- 1 great, 1 mediocre (my two favorite teachers chose randomly since so many students asked, of course I did not get chosen.)
Essay: Good (unique, to me at least, it has to do with my philosophy about life, and my central focus of helping the elderly and it somehow relates to my major, not going to say it is one of the best essays ever written, but I still feel it is unique), supplements are probably average for their standards.
Hook: Half-URM, somewhat unusual circumstances.
Issue: My parents got a divorce that affected my Sophomore and Junior gpa a lot, which devastated me for a while. My guidance counselor is explaining in her letter how the divorce hit me really hard economically/socially at first, but ultimately led to my more mature and logical approach to life (which it really did).</p>

<p>Colleges (does not include low matches/safeties)
-Cornell (sent letter of interest explaining how they are my first choice; applied to CALS)
-JHU
-College of the Holy Cross (legacy, father/grandfather)
-Brown
-Tufts
-BC
-Colgate
-Carnegie Mellon
-Georgetown
-UVA
-Rutgers - in, honors</p>

<p>If you read through all of this and give a thoughtful response, I will do the same for you if you desire. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Sorry, a really thoughtful response is too much work. You'll get in to somewhere selective, somewhere where you belong. Don't sweat the small stuff. Good Luck!</p>

3

<p>Yeah, I agree. GPA is just one piece to the puzzle. Every other stat you have is great. So don't worry about it you will get into quite a few of those schools. =]</p>

4

<p>-Cornell: I think that you have a really good shot at it. I guess that this is your first choice and you seem to have the stats and other info to do it!
-JHU: Same as above, but a tad easier to get into.
-College of the Holy Cross: Should be a safety for you.
-Brown: Pretty good shot, like 50/50 which is high for Ivy appicants.
-Tufts: You'll be fine.
-BC: Same as above.
-Colgate: Same as above
-Carnegie Mellon: About the same difficulty of JHU, not fantastic chance, but good.
-Georgetown: Slight challenge like CM and JHU.
-UVA: In.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the responses so far. I would die if your predictions were true mcvcm92, but when I look at my application, I don't see too much that catches the eye. I mean, my SAT is high for a minority, but merely an average CR/M, and obviously my gpa is way low. I put a lot of work into my leadership/volunteering, but there is not much of a focus. Any other opinions are greatly appreciated.</p>

6

<p>The only schools here I'm familiar with here are the Ivies and perhaps JHU (my cousin goes there). I think you can get in. Your schedule was very rigorous. If you reported yourself as URM (that would have helped, and if I could I would have done it -- unfortunately I have 0% URM). You have a lot of awards and extracurrics going for you. I hope that you were somehow able to convey how much time and effort you invested into each of them in your application. You might be concerned about your GPA, and if I didn't have the counselor pulling for me, I would be, too. But if you have her letter vouching for you, your GPA won't hurt as much. Hopefully it works out though!</p>

<p>If you feel like you can chance me
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/646996-chicago-yale-harvard.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/646996-chicago-yale-harvard.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>i don't know why you took math I....</p>

8

<p>Neither do I...</p>

9

<p>Other than GPA, everything is generally outstanding.
If you did not get into at least half of those schools, I would be disappointed.</p>