Please Chance Me For Political Science at Various T20 Schools!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi everyone! I just started on the college admissions grind and wanted to get some preliminary advice before I really dive deep into getting apps and stuff figured out. I genuinely would appreciate any advice/comments that people can give specifically with more target and reach school recommendations! Thank you so much!

Basic Info:

Upper middle class lgbt chinese female at a very large and competitive public high school (not gonna say which state)

No hooks, except legacy at northwestern

Stats:

SAT Subject Tests: Math II (800), planning to take Chem and USH as well

ACT: 35, 35M 35W 36R 35S

GPA: Unweighted 4.0, Weighted probably around a 4.7/5.00

No class rank

APs (this includes ones I am taking this year and next year so I don’t have scores yet): Euro (5), Bio (4), APUSH, Lang, Chem, Chinese, Calc BC, Stats, Calc 3, Macro, Gov, Psych, Lit, Physics 1

National Merit Semifinalist most likely

Extracurriculars:

Model UN: Currently holding an executive board position. I have won numerous best and outstanding awards at the local and state level and won outstanding delegate at an international model UN conference two years in a row. Also head of planning multiple statewide MUN conference with around 300 ish people attending.

Nonprofit I founded: taught public speaking in both debate and presentation settings to middle school students. Through the past 2 years, I have worked with over 200 students directly to mentor them through year long programs. This summer, I created a summer intensive program that focused on providing the service to low-income neighborhoods and in the fall, I will be working with a local school to provide class to first generation students and adults who will be able to further their understanding of english through public speaking

Internship at my state congressman’s office this summer: Focusing on creating a project analyzing the impacts of education inequality and how to increase civic engagement with young people.

Debate: Currently holding a very high position on executive board, and in the past I’ve earned multiple team and individual awards at the state level for congressional debate. Our team is really big and this year we had to expand to a new style of debate which is going to be implemented by me and a couple of other people, so i guess that shows intitiative

Mental Health Forum: Last year I planned this mental health forum at our school that had a lot of community engagement and over 200 people attended, with a presentation from a local nonprofit.

I have a couple more state-level awards from other clubs like FBLA but I haven’t really been engaged as a leader or member in those clubs and mainly did it for the competitive aspect

My list of Schools:

safeties: UIUC, Michigan, Boston College

target schools (please help me come up with more!): Umich, USC, NYU?

reach schools: Duke, Northwestern, UCLA

dream schools: Stanford, Brown

2

Your stats are fabulous. But.

“ not gonna say which state”

Your state does matter. You can’t have both UIUC and Michigan as safeties for example, as you can only be instate for one. Even then having a state flagship as a safety unless you’re an auto admit is debatable.

Budget? (If you’re out of state, UCLA is full pay.)

You don’t have any real safeties on that list imo (unless I missed an auto admit factor). USC and NYU have mid-low teen admit rates and are not real targets for anyone either, no matter how good your stats.

3

What was the point of including lgbt in your stats?

4

Northwestern is not a reach. As a legacy, you will likely get in, especially during ED round. LGBT will help at some schools, not all

5

hi there! I know it doesnt really make a difference, but I just decided to add it into my basic introduction as it is a big part of my identity and i’ve seen others add that they are lgbt as well

6

By “Michigan” you mean MSU, right (since you have Umich)

Boston U is not a safety, unless more than 90% of the students from your school with similar stats were accepted. Otherwise, based on BU’s acceptance rate, it would be a low reach or high match

Umich, USC, and NYU are all reaches, unless you are a resident of Michigan, in which case U Mich is indeed a match. However, NYU and USC are reaches, since acceptance rates to these are around 15%.

Based on acceptance rates for students with your stats, UCLA is more of a high macth than a reach. the acceptance rate of students whose unweighted UC GPA is 4.0 is around 39%.

Duke and Brown have, essentially, the same acceptance rate, so they would be be reaches (though you are very competitive for both).

My question is why these colleges for political science?

You really should have Georgetown, Princeton, and George Washington.