Occidental College Chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey All,

Occidental College in Los Angeles is my top choice and I will be applying Early Decision. Do you think I have a shot?

My Stats:

GPA UW: 3.3
GPA W: 3.6
CSU GPA: 3.7

SAT: 1930
CR: 640
W: 630
M: 660

*My GPA during Freshman year was decent. Sophomore year was ok. This year I worked hard to get a 3.8/4.3. This means that I have a solid upward trend, if that counts.

Courseload:

Freshman:
-Global 9 Honors
-English 9 Honors
-Biology Honors
-Geometry
-German
-Orchestra
-Media Art (Graphic Design)

Sophomore:
-English 10 Honors
-Global 10 Honors
-Chemistry Honors ** Did rather poorly. (78)
-Trigonometry ** Did awful. Voluntarily retook course. (66)
-German
-Orchestra

Junior:
-AP US History (91/100.3)
-AP English 11 (89/99)
-Trigonometry (89)
-Physics (94)
-IB German (94/104) (Student of the year in this class, even though I’m technically not in IB.)
-Networking (95)

Senior (Upcoming):
-AP Gov
-AP Econ
-Pre Calc Honors (Finally doing great in math again)
-AP Physics
-AP Lit
-IB German
-Orchestra
-Computer Science Course (Teacher Assistant)

EC’s:
-Track & Field Athlete for 4 years. (1 JV / 3 Varsity) (Indoor & Outdoor Seasons)
-Cross Country Athlete for 3 Years. (Team Captain)
-German Club
-German Exchange Program during next year.

*Self taught programmer and Web Developer… I’ve coded several popular online games, which had 680,000+ monthly pageviews during peak popularity. Made ~$7,000 in the process. I know the principals of Object Oriented Programming, database access, good practices, ect.

-Coteaching a Computer Science course next year.
-President of the Computer Science Club.

Awards:
-Beacon Award (Physics, Junior Year)
-IB German Student of the Year (Junior Year)

Volunteer Work:
-Coded the website and content management system for a local political candidate from scratch. Volunteer for the campaign on a weekly basis.

Other:
Major of Choice: Physics
Minor: Computer Science
Income: Low… EFC is 0.
Ethnicity: White

2

Your GPA is low for Occidental College. Plus, your CSU GPA is irrelevant since Oxy is NOT a state college. It’s a private university.

3

Occidental would be a Low Reach due to your low unweighted GPA. Your SAT score is in the ballpark. Outstanding essays, EC’s and LOR’s will have a positive impact on your chances to possibly make it a Match school.
Good Luck.

4

Your GPA is a bit low, but it’ll be your personal statement that’ll be your trump card. You definitely have something very unique and admirable with all of that computer programming, you should be very proud of that! Your course work is nothing to scoff at either. Spend a lot of time on the application and make sure your essays and recommendations truly are outstanding. After that, I’m sure that you’ll be a match/low reach. Good luck! It’s a great school. My school’s class of 2015 valedictorian (he had a 4.8 or something) is going there, lol.

5

Awesome, thanks for the input! I hope to visit the school sometime in August for a tour and interview. Would an interview help my case at all?

@Gumbymom @JPhilly99

6

An interview would definitely help :slight_smile: good luck!