Please Chance Me

Applying to College
1

<p>For:</p>

<p>Duke (Early Decision)</p>

<p>UPenn
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Swarthmore
Stanford
UCLA
UC Berkeley
USC
Georgetown
Boston College
Boston University
Emory
Dartmouth
Princeton
Brown
NYU
Northwestern
UChicago
William & Mary
UNC - Chapel Hill
Notre Dame</p>

<p>Korean Male
4.35 GPA (weighted)
3.78 GPA (unweighted)
Rank 8/1001
2220 SAT (700 CR 760 M 760 W)</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math II 720 (Retook this month, awaiting score)
US History 750
Literature (Awaiting Score)</p>

<p>ACT:
34 Composite (36 Math, 35 Science, 34 Eng, 32 Reading)
I'm retaking it this month</p>

<p>AP:
4 Euro
4 Psych
5 US History</p>

<p>National Merit (Commended)
California Scholarship Federation Member
Junior Honor Guard
Stauffer Award Recipient
AP Scholar</p>

<p>Psych Club Co-Founder/ President - 2 years
Key Club Senior Representative - 2 years
Book Club Vice President - 1 year
Physics Club (might be president) - 2 years
German Club - 3 years
Korean Club - 2 years</p>

<p>Boys State nominee
Taught a math class at a local middle school for 2 years (Think Together)
Helped disabled children ride horses (Ride Your Horse Therapeutic Riding Center)
Working to pass my city's first public health law (Downey Fresh Air Coalition) - Secretary</p>

<p>Schedule:</p>

<p>freshman:
Honors Geometry
Honors Biology</p>

<p>sophomore:
AP Euro
Honors Chemistry
Honors Algebra II</p>

<p>junior:
Honors English
Honors Trig/Pre-Calc
AP Psych
AP U.S.</p>

<p>summer at UCLA: ECON I</p>

<p>senior:
AP Chemistry
AP Lit
AP US Gov
AP Calc AB
AP Micro-Econ
Honors Physics</p>

<p>Please try to be as in-depth as possible! Thanks in advance!!! :D</p>

2

<p>UPenn
Cornell
Stanford
Dartmouth
Princeton
Brown</p>

<p>Why apply to any of these schools when they are as hard or harder to get into RD than Duke is RD? I think you’re wasting your time because if you don’t get into Duke ED, I doubt you can get into Ivies RD. You have a pretty good shot at Duke ED as long as you write good essays, get good recs, etc.</p>

3

<p>As of now, Duke is as hard if not harder to get into than Penn and Cornell. I’m applying to some Ivys and Stanford because of that one in a million chance that I do get in. I’m not expecting to. I know I won’t be at ease knowing I didn’t apply to any. It’s just a personal thing :P</p>

4

<p>sorry man, but koreans just arent really what colleges are looking for now, asain males have it the toughest. those are a lot of good colleges, im guessing south carolina is your safety?</p>

5

<p>I know. South Carolina…? That’s University of Southern California. I don’t really have any “safety” schools, but the ones that I think I can get into are Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, USC, and Boston University. Maybes for Notre Dame, Berkeley, UNC, William & Mary, Georgetown, and Emory.</p>

6

<p>Duke (Early Decision) low reach ED but realistic shot (Rejected, applied RD- Eric is right on the money above)</p>

<p>UPenn low to mid reach (Didn’t apply)
Cornell low reach (Didn’t apply)
Carnegie Mellon high match (Didn’t apply)
Swarthmore low reach (Didn’t apply)
Stanford high reach (Rejected)
UCLA match (Accepted, we’re in-state)
UC Berkeley high match (Accepted and attending)
USC match (Accepted)
Georgetown unpredictable (Didn’t apply)
Boston College match (Didn’t apply but his sister attends this school)
Boston University low match (Didn’t apply)
Emory high match (Didn’t apply)
Dartmouth mid reach (Didn’t apply)
Princeton high reach (Rejected)
Brown mid reach (Didn’t apply)
NYU match (Didn’t apply)
Northwestern low reach (Waitlisted)
UChicago mid reach (Didn’t apply)
William & Mary high match (Didn’t apply)
UNC - Chapel Hill high match (Didn’t apply)
Notre Dame high match (Didn’t apply)</p>

<p>^^^My S’s outcome is in parenthesis next to your school and your chances^^^ see below:</p>

<p>Your stats are almost identical to my S, who is at Cal this year as a MechE major. Your w GPA is a little lower than his and that may be due to one or two less rigorous classes taken or that your school didn’t offer the classes. Your rank is similar to his decile. Your CR score is higher than my S but your math scores are lower and your ECs are not as strong. You have the prestigious National Merit Commended and he didn’t. He had AP Scholar w/ didtinction and two subject awards (in math and physics) that you still may be in the mix for.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

7

<p>Thanks, jshain! Really appreciate the time you took to go through each individual school on my list. Is your son Korean? :O</p>

8

<p>White kid from South Orange County</p>

9

<p>Ah, okay. Thanks again :)</p>

10

<p>When the thrill of being accepted to some of these schools wears off (since you will get accepted to some of them), the harsh reality of “can my family afford” or “SHOULD my family pay $50,000 plus each year for me to attend” will set in. Since you are a CA resident (from Downey) it’s really hard to pass up a top-tier UC education, unless you get a really nice FA package from one of the private schools. Some of the private schools on your list are not very generous with (merit-based) FA, beginning with Boston College and NYU…</p>

11

<p>Very true. The only thing about UCs is that they have so many people. After attending an ECON class this summer at UCLA, I found myself not wanting to go there simply because the classrom atmosphere doesn’t cater to my way of learning. I might be generalizing though.</p>

12

<p>Whatever you end up doing, just do NOT go into lots of debt to go to college. It isn’t worth it and there are many who regret it for, literally, “the rest of their lives”. Don’t be one of them. Take care.</p>

13

<p>Eric</p>

<p>Real bottom line – you are qualified for any school in the US. However, it’s a numbers game. Your grades are excellent (placing you in the top 1% of your class), though the raw grade (<3.8) is a bit lower than the top top schools tend to take. I assume this is a case of your schools grading policy. Your SATs are excellent also, and would not knock you out of the box at any school. However, there are many students with a >CR than you have. This is just one factor.</p>

<p>Running through your list – there are a lot of schools here. Let me break them into categories – we can probably quibble about where I place a couple of them in any given year, and to the extent you feel I’m wrong, adjust the list accordingly.</p>

<p>UPenn
Dartmouth
Princeton
Brown
Stanford</p>

<p>These schools have impossibly low admissions rates. So, they’re a long-shot (which isn’t the same thing as a reach) for anyone. This being said – you’re in the top 1% of your HS class, and your SATs are excellent. Clearly you are academically qualified.So, I think it would be wrong to discourage you to apply to any school, so long as you recognize the odds. You should apply to any of these schools that interest. I would make no prediction as to whether you get into any one of these.</p>

<p>Duke
UChicago
Cornell
Northwestern
Georgetown (maybe – this school is notoriously hard to predict)</p>

<p>This is the next tier of selectivity. One would expect that if you apply to all of these (maybe add one or two more in this tier) that you will get into at least one – though it is impossible to predict for any one of them. This assumes your essays/recommendations are great.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley</p>

<p>I have no real experience at all with this school. Clearly excellent, but I don’t know which category it would fall into.</p>

<p>One would think you have an excellent shot at any of these schools. Again, there are occasionally surprising results. But one would expect multiple acceptances here. I feel that a couple of these are Safeties – and there may be others that are also safeties, but where I just don’t know enough about the school to say so.</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon
Swarthmore
UCLA
USC
Boston College
Boston University
Emory
NYU – Safety
William & Mary – Safety
UNC - Chapel Hill
Notre Dame</p>

14

<p>Thanks for the feedback, zephyr! Do you have any other schools in mind that are in the same tier as Duke, UChic, etc?</p>

15

<p>Any in the top 20 or so of the USN&WR report.</p>

<p>Wash U (St Louis), Vanderbilt, Rice, come to mind. UVa, Perhaps Michigan. I’m sure there are others that aren’t coming to mind right now.</p>

16

<p>Okay, thanks! Bump.</p>