Need more matches and safeties

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Please recommend any school that might be suitable for me, especially those that can be considered as good matches and safeties.</p>

<p>All the school currently on my list are reaches: stanford, john hopkins, columbia (father's grad school), uchicago and pomona</p>

<p>Hispanic male, low-income family
Attends one of top public magnet school in Chicago
Rising senior
GPA: 4.8 (W) / 3.9 (UW)
School doesn’t give rank, but my class is pretty small (~130) and I should be in the upper decile
ACT Composite 31 – Breakdown: 35M, 29R, 28E, 27S
Will take the NEW SAT on october, shooting for 2200s(High math ~800 and hopefully 700 in reading and writing)
Have only taken the OLD SAT during 9th grade
SAT Total 1310 – Breakdown 720M, 590CR
SAT IIs: Math:750, Chem: 740 and possibly one more in november (should I retake math and chem? I can definitely do better)</p>

<p>Hardest workload possible, all honors APs only since junior year (school wouldn’t allow me to take APs as sophomore, but allowed students that had received high school credit in elementary school and got to skip courses)</p>

<p>Straight As except for a c 1st semester in freshman algebra and a B in American Lit sophomore year</p>

<p>Junior:
AP Chem –4 , AP Stats –4 , AP Latin Vergil –4 </p>

<p>senior year schedule
AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Latin Lang, AP Spanish Lang, AP Euro, AP Environmental (couldn’t take AP Bio)</p>

<p>College classes:
-Molecular biology 1 at U of C, grade B
Might finish sequence if school will allow me to drop one class</p>

<p>-Independent study in hispanic immigration to Chicago (sociology) at U of C
-Now working alongside a partner in focus group oriented project on minority participation in research studies, hope to get it published before end of the year.</p>

<p>ECs/Honors:
-Latin Team Captain since 9th grade, Regional Champions and 3rd place in Illinois League for -three years.
-Math Team (10, 11) – Ranked in top 10 in city/state math league
-Track Team (10, 11)
-Chess Team (9, 10)
-NHS (10, 11)
-University of Chicago Summer Program for High School Students (name-Collegiate Scholars)
-Editor in magazine published by above program’s newspaper
-Volunteered over 100 hrs in U of C Hospital for two summers
-Worked as TA in SESAME program for re-educating algebra/geom./trig to elementary school teachers
-Tutor and assistant at public library
-Play guitar for about 4 years, been playing non-school related shows for about 2 years - don’t know if it counts as an EC
-Have received numerous awards in national and state Latin competitions, including JCL National Latin exam (“Cum laude maxima”, medusa mythology, etc.) don’t know if they count for anything
-National Hispanic Scholar
-National Merit Commended Student (Are these two worth mentioning?)
-Received Kodak Young Leaders Award
-National Latin Honors Society
-Just accepted into a medicine mentoring program at U of I at Chicago </p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>You're an excellent candidate. I would recommend not retaking your SAT IIs, as your scores are already high and retaking will look incredibly anal on your part. Your National Hispanic Scholar and National Merit Commended Student honors are worth mentioning, yes. No clue about more match schools; I always feel a little uncomfortable making those types of recommendations.</p>

3

<p>I would imagine you will have good chances even at your reach schools. This is a little cynical, but check into who is trying to up URM/Latino enrollment.</p>

<p>As for matches and safeties, it looks like you like mid sized, urban schools. Check into Trinity, Syracuse, Union, Vanderbilt, Emory?</p>

4

<p>Yes, but he's a Latino who's father went to Columbia grad schools and went to a top magnet, some schools will not give many URM points here. I would apply to schools that aren't getting many apps from top hispanic candidates, LACs in places like Maine (Colby, Bowdoin), the South and MW.</p>

5

<p>I don't think of Trinity, Syracuse, Union, Vanderbilt, and Emory being all that comparable. :/ Isn't Syracuse really large? Union's not exactly urban, either.</p>

<p>I agree that you might want to look at places where the Latino deal will help you more, assuming you don't trust the rest of your record enough. Middlebury and Connecticut College are always after Hispanic students, and Macalester is only 3% Hispanic and loves diversity.</p>

<p>Among larger research universities, I'm fairly sure Carnegie Mellon is looking for Hispanic students right now. Rochester is a good place to look (4%). Take a peek at GWU and maybe Tufts, as well.</p>

6

<p>Uh, I used to think that, zagat, till I saw a similar URM with well educated parents & $$$$$$ from my area. Great GPA, mediocre SAT-- lots & lots of choices.</p>