Please chance me even though I have a boring title I really need your help! *run-on*

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey, guys. Before we begin, I’m asking for total honesty. Some of these schools- a few of them really selective- are schools I don’t feel pulled to as strongly as others, and if I can’t even get in, let me know so I can save $75 and all that heartache.
Happy chancing!</p>

<p>Race/Gender: African American Female (first gen; I’m a child of immigrants who are nurses, and I belong to a large family so I need financial aid)
GPA: 3.8ish UW, 5.4ish W out of 6
Class rank: 23 out of ~450 </p>

<p>SAT
CR:800 M:750 W:770
Total:2320 (note: took twice; first time I got a 2190.</p>

<p>SAT II
none yet. Ach.</p>

<p>AP (scores aren’t out till July, but I’m guessing based on practice tests)
US History: 4 (or 3 if the graders hate my essays)
Computer Science A: 5
English Language: 5</p>

<p>Senior Schedule
AP: Calculus BC, English Literature, Government, Economics, Spanish Language, Studio Art: Drawing (self study, because it’s not available at the school), Computer Science AB
Honors: Physics I
Regular: Communications Applications (required by our “awesome“ school district) and Creative Writing (because I’m not a GPA grub)</p>

<p>ECs
Speech and Debate- 4 years. Elected President for 08-09, treasurer 07-08.
Art Club- 2 years. Running for VP in 08-09 (elections in the fall).
TSA- 3 years. President for 08-09.
Business Club- 4 years. Vice President now, will run for same next year.
UIL Teams- 2 years. Love it, just discovered it this year. Similar to academic decathlon but you can compete in specific events, rather than everything.</p>

<p>Painted and designed a mural for our high school- the first one, because our school is new. Worked… maybe 30 hours over a few weeks?</p>

<p>Some awards and honors:
Honor Roll-like thing
Lettered in Academics, Debate, and UIL
National Merit and National Achievement Semifinalist status, guaranteed by score.
Most Outstanding Art Student Overall in 07-08
Award of Excellence in Houston Rodeo Art Contest
Artwork displayed in District Administrative Building
Degree of Outstanding Distinction and All American Academic Award (both hard to get, please believe I worked my “posterior” off for these)
Dozens of awards from invitational speech/debate tourneys
3rd place at UIL State Meet Writing Contest (Also the Regional and District Champion)
State Competitor for Speech and Debate
State Competitor in TSA
1st place two years in a row in a School poetry contest (that’s something, right? Right?)
1ST place Texas Book Festival Fictional Writing Contest (actually tough)
Other things I’m too tired to list, and things I could win next year…</p>

<p>I’ll get recs from my Spanish teacher and English teacher who’ve both taught me for more than a year each. These will be reasonably good, maybe great. Counselor rec will be pretty good, I think.
Essay: I think they’ll be good. I mean, I write. I really don’t think this will kill me. If anything, my GPA will send them running… away!</p>

<p>Summer- taking an online programming course, POE in summer school so I can take a second year of comp sci, and a job so I can afford to pay these huge app fees!</p>

<p>My favorite schools:
Praying to just get in: Yale University, Stanford University, Pomona College
Praying for generous aid (“safety/match” types I love): University of Rochester, U of Richmond, U of Redlands, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, and the ubiquitous U of Texas Austin</p>

<p>So, what do you think?</p>

2

<p>you’re a fickle bunch. and now, i’m irritated.
bumpity-bump.</p>

<p>hey, what does it mean when someone says 10 char after they write bump?</p>

3

<p>You can ask for waivers of application fees when you apply. If that works you can apply to most of the schools on your list. You can ask your school counselor about the fee waivers. It seems like if you need a lot of financial aid then you should apply to more schools than usual in order to be able to compare financial aid packages. </p>

<p>Your qualifications are very good. I’m not familiar with all the schools on your list but they seem pretty different from each other. So I am wondering what criteria you used to come up with your list of safety/match types. Did you base it on them giving out generous financial aid? </p>

<p>Also, what are you thinking about majoring in when you get to college. You have a variety of EC’s so you might want to pull them together into a memorable “theme” for your application. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>Also, I think 10char is because there is a minimum number of characters required for a post.</p>

4

<p>I agree with dsultemeier–especially about your criteria for safety/match types (just curious). I know Rice is need-based or something…is that how you chose?</p>

<p>I think you’ve definitely got a good shot at your schools, especially with your SAT scores. Yes, your GPA is a <em>bit</em> low for Yale/Stanford/Pomona, but that low. Plus, the fact that you are first generation and African American will help you since competitive schools are on the look out for intelligent minority students (which you certainly are).</p>

<p>For SAT2’s I’d recommend (if you haven’t decided already) that you take Literature (you seem to do well in English!) and maybe Math 2 (if you’ve taken Precalc that is, otherwise Math 1 works well). You might need a third one for Rice, I’m not sure.</p>

<p>Heh. I always wanted to know what “10char” meant! :slight_smile: As to the “fickle bunch” part, remember that this is a board and that people tend to look/lurk more than they post. ;)</p>

<p>Good luck with applications and financial aid and everything! :)</p>

5

<p>Perhaps you could look into the Questbridge scholarship, since Stanford, Yale, Pomona, and Rice are among their partner colleges. The scholarship is specifically for low-income students.</p>

<p>[QuestBridge</a> National College Match Program](<a href=“http://questbridge.org/students/index.html]QuestBridge”>http://questbridge.org/students/index.html)</p>

6

<p>thanks guys.
(yay, i hit 10 char)
answers: thinking about majoring in computer science, actually. but i don’t think i qualify for quest- my parents make over $100,000- which means i’m looking for merit aid.
<em>sigh</em> colleges don’t seem to care that most of the money goes to the business they’re starting, or that i’m one of four kids. they’ll just look at the income and give me bad aid.</p>

7

<p>It looks like you are in the top 10% of your class and UT-Austin has a very good CS department. So you have an excellent safety there. </p>

<p>I think for financial aid they do take into account the number of children in college. So it could depend on how old your siblings are. </p>

<p>I was curious as to why you chose SMU. It has been many years ago but I went there as a scholarship recipient because my parents’ income was low. However, too late I realized that the other students had large allowances and spent lots of money on clubs, restaurants, sorority/fraternity dues, clothing, etc. So I felt really out of place and transferred to UT after a year. SMU does have a beautiful campus and the academics are good. But I would caution you to visit and make sure you will feel comfortable with the social scene. </p>

<p>How did you come up with U of Rochester, Richmond and Redlands for your list? For CS I would suggest looking at Carnegie-Mellon, U of Illinois, MIT and the other “tech” schools. You could also check out some of the “tech” schools (such as RPI) where the males vastly outnumber the females. You might have a better chance at getting merit aid there. The downside is that you will be a double-minority (? not sure how to say that) being female and URM and I’m not sure if that will fit you socially. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

8

<p>Also, it would be helpful if you could ask your parents how much they can contribute per year or overall financially to your college education in terms of cash or loans. Then you can develop a realistic back-up plan in case you do indeed get caught in the middle between being over-income for aid but not having enough money to pay for it.</p>

9

<p>basically, i love comp sci, but i don’t think i’m great at it. good enough to make a living, good enough to be upper middle class when i’m grown- but i’m no up and coming bill gates (or bill-ette gates.)
i like the idea of carnegie/caltech/mit/other techie schools but i also love creative, artistic things and i’m not positive these schools would give the outlet i need.
i chose smu because i wanted a good scholarship and i needed a good option in texas so that i wouldn’t be forced to move across the country if i change my mind next year. rice, because i love thhe people and the rice village area (academics are a bonus.) and the three u of r’s are gorgeous schools with a good shot for aid and places where i might have a chance to excel. i’ll admit that while i like my reaches, i’m afraid of being caught up in the crush of relative mediocrity. i mean, watching the movie 21 gave me an inferiority complex. i might not be able to handle that kind of pressure.
thank you, thank you.
note:
my parents can’t afford to give much. my (admittedly farfetched) goal is to leave college with a great education and less than $10,000 student debt.</p>

10

<p>Ha, You are unbelievable. Good luck in the big leagues, because you are so in to almost all, if not all, of those schools.</p>

11

<p>oh. thank you, madden. that’s cool. can you just join the admissions staffs now, please?</p>

12

<p>Ha, I think I will when I retire from my Job in like 40-50 years(yeah future plans!) I will give kids a break. If you can just wait a couple decades…</p>

13

<p>Yay, another UIL state person!</p>

<p>I think you’re amazing. Great extracurriculars. (Lol, I almost missed the “Art” in “Houston Rodeo Art Contest”, and I was like, “And she rides horses???”) That, compounded with first-gen and URM status, should make you really competitive. I wouldn’t worry too much about the rank thing-- percentage-wise, you’re still in really good shape.</p>

<p>Haha, I’m so jealous that you placed at Ready Writing state. I went to regionals and got stomped… But I don’t care since I’m Lit Crit state champ. :D</p>

14

<p>you’ll definitely get into yale/stanford</p>

<p>but also apply to harvard, etc (sometimes they do silly things)</p>

15

<p>good job in lit crit- but i thought you couldn’t do lit crit if you did ready writing- cross scheduling and all that. but awesome anyway. i want to be champion!</p>