<p>UW : 89/100
W : 96/100
Rank : School does not rank, at least top 15% if not 10%
ACT : 32, just retook and aiming for 33 or higher
SAT II : Math 2 770, Chemistry 690 (retaking). Also taking Lit (~700?) and Korean (~800)
Income : Around $30,000
AP : Chem (4), Macro (5), Eng Lang (5). Taking World Hist, Gov, Psych, and Eng Lit this year.
Competitive Public in NJ
Top 5 most rigorous (most amount of ap credit courses taken) in school. All honors/AP</p>
<p>ECs:
School Mascot : 4 years, Varsity Letter
Co-Founder of an intramural sports initiative : 3 years (co-president)
Model UN : 4 years. Award winning delegate. Numerous leadership awards
Debate Team : 3 years. Junior Varsity, usually 1st or 2nd seat.
Freshmen Mentoring Club
Theater : 2 years. Wrote 3 plays that were performed live. Competes in NJDFL in 2 public speaking categories.
Student representative of the GT program to the district.</p>
<p>150+ Volunteer hours at a large hospital
Intern at the Legislative Office of NJ Assemblywoman (won't name for privacy issue)
Intern at a large tri-state Korean newspaper (Had an article published, 2nd page)
Attended Center for Talented Youth
School's Gifted and Talented Program : 4 years.
Gave a keynote speech at a Korean War memorial event</p>
<p>Awards:
AP Scholar
Academic Award for GT program
About 3 or 4 awards for Model UN</p>
<p>1st generation college student
1st generation immigrant from South Korea
Large upward trend in GPA from Soph to Jr year.
Will have very good 1st marking period grade for updated GPA</p>
<p>I like my essays a lot, my friends and teachers do also.
According to my teachers and GC, my recs are splendid.</p>
<p>Do you think I will be a finalist?
I have selected 8 colleges, will I be matched?
1) Princeton
2) Columbia
3) UPenn (My Assemblywoman works there, my school sends many kids to Penn)
4) Tufts
5) UVA
6) Brown
7) Dartmouth (I am confident that my peer eval is going to be amazing)
8) Amherst</p>
<p>Sorry for such a long post. Good luck to everyone who is applying!</p>
<p>Um, yeah. So I’d say a definite shoo-in for finalist. Probably a good match candidate too but you just never know.</p>
<p>You definitely have a chance.
When did your family move to the United States?</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses!
My family moved here when I was in 4th grade.
I was the only one who spoke English (from the lessons taught in school similar to how Americans are taught Spanish) so I was responsible for being the head speaker of the house.
My dad works as a janitorI wrote my essay on helping my dad and learning a lot about the adult life in process.</p>
<p>I hope you guys do well too. I have become very optimistic about my chance as a finalist!</p>
<p>Your stats are high for QB and your awards in MUN etc are great. Half the applicants become finalists so that’s a no brainer. You’ve ranked all Unis and only one LAC. Unless you are in love with all those schools I’d look into adding some LACs. Brown is very different from the other schools you’ve ranked, have you researched the colleges? Ranking 8 schools definitely gives you a higher chance at being matched. No one can really predict but you certainly fit the profile of a Match recipient and your essays sound great. Good luck!!!</p>
<p>Mascot, are you a native Korean speaker?
If you are, and if you indicated that your home language is korean,
to be honest, taking Korean as your language test is actually a bad idea…
but, a bad ‘idea’ not a ‘screwup’ definitely,</p>
<p>I am a native speaker. I am taking korean in case I can use it for placement for some colleges I’m thinking about for RD.
I did research a little further about LACs and I really began to like the idea after talkng to some of my friends who visited them. Now I am thinking about Williams and Swarthmore also. I like Brown for the opportunity to create my own curriculum, I think it fits me and my diverse interests well. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Thank you everybody who responded and good luck to all!</p>
<p>Mascot, I do wish good luck for you,
but, admission officers will think that you are eh, ‘cheating’ by taking ‘foreign’
language test, which is Korean. Several years ago, a Cornell Korean undergraduate wrote a book and said not to take Korean lang SAT II test. What native Korean speaker wouldn’t get 800 in Korean test?
adcoms won’t look at it with nice eyes.
Just being honest. Well that wouldn’t hurt you if you were not a native speaker.
It’s not only for Koreans. Native spanish speakers Spanishes or Hispanics are highly unrecommended to take Spanish Lang test.
Except that you are good. BTW, what placement do you mean?</p>
<p>Thank you for the tip! I don’t think I will submit it after all. I was told by someone that in some colleges, sat 2s are used for placement in foreign language classes. Some colleges expect a certain proficiency in a foreign langiage by graduation (his words). I figured I could chose korean for my foreign lang as I have been terrible in spanish and french (I’ve tried learning both) and know that I certainly can’t do them in college.</p>
<p>Make sure that info is correct.
Mail the admission officer or foreign language department in the school. Some people, even
peopel in admission office can give you wrong info.</p>
<p>I just found out that my ACT scores came out and I got a 34 (superscore 35)! I have also submitted my college list. Now it is
- Princeton
- Yale
- Columbia
- UPenn
5 Tufts
- UVA
- Amherst
- Williams</p>
<p>Any match chances?</p>
<p>“Your stats are high for QB and your awards in MUN etc are great. Half the applicants become finalists so that’s a no brainer.”</p>
<p>I am not trying to be Debbie Downer, but I don’t think becoming a finalist is a no brainer. My son applied last year and was not selected as a finalist. He had a 32 ACT, 33 reading, 33 writing and 34 math. He is URM (African American) and had many ECs and awards and his essays were very good. I just think that all kids who apply to QB should have a Plan B ready in the event they are not selected. If you aren’t selected, are you going to apply SCEA somewhere. If so, where? Do you have waivers for the test scores you are going to submit? I think QB is a great program and you should apply if you fall within the parameters of the program. BTW, even though my son was not selected as a finalist, he was accepted at Yale SCEA, chose to matriculate at Yale and is very happy there. :)</p>
<p>momofmusician, I didn’t mean to be cavalier about QB finalist chances, but with an almost 50% acceptance rate and OP possessing all three qualifiers (race, very low income and first gen) plus his impressive stats and EC’s, one is tempted to think that’s a ‘shoo-in’ as Zamiota said. </p>
<p>I’m surprised to hear that your son was not a finalist, since according to the data you provided he is exactly the kind of student QB is seeking (and clearly he is an outstanding student; his Yale SCEA acceptance is more than enough corroboration of that). I’m sure you and he were surprised too at the time, though it may seem long ago and somewhat inconsequential now. At the Yale QB conference last spring, the QB CEO told a group of parents that some students with lower stats but greater financial need would likely be chosen over students whose financial need was closer to the threshold (and apparently every year they have a few kids apply whose family income is way too high - I thought that was kind of funny bc that application is a lot of work, right?!) Anyway, very good advice to OP and others to have a back up plan, and to consider REA or ED somewhere as those odds are actually higher than being matched at a lot of QB colleges. My D is also AA and Yale is at the top of her list of ranked schools but finalist notifications don’t come out until later this month so we’ll see how that all plays out in the next few months…</p>
<p>Hope I didn’t offend - my intention was just to be helpful and supportive to the OP - sometimes QB kids are lacking in confidence (and sometimes don’t have support at home or school). You must be incredibly proud of your S.</p>
<p>honeybee63 - No, I wasn’t offended in the least. When my son was not selected as a finalist last year, I would say that we were both very taken aback. I think that both he and I thought that he was a shoo-in. So, when he wasn’t selected, we were a little stymied. You only had to look at the stats of the students selected for the match program to see that he was on the higher end for both test scores and GPA. However, having worked several part-time jobs, I was on the higher end of the SES in 2011 and 2012. So, that may be why. My son never really asked why, he just made several changes to the common app for Yale as it was always his first choice, applied SCEA and the rest is history! 
</p>
<p>I never wanted my post to be seen as discouraging someone. I think that QB is a great program!! I would encourage everyone who thinks they qualify to apply. My motto is you never know if you don’t try/apply. Even though my son was not selected as a finalist, many QB schools contacted my son requesting that he apply to their schools and waiving the application fee. Also, for the students who are not selected as finalists or are not matched during the match round, don’t lose hope!!! Many students are accepted to QB partner schools in ED Round II and RD who are not matched initially. Also, these students receive basically the same FA package that they would have received during the Match process. </p>
<p>I hope that you hear great news on the 22nd!</p>
<p>So if I’m in the <20k group with high a good test score (33act) would you say i’m a shoo-in?</p>
<p>negativekarma, mom’s experience ^^^ should caution us all that there is no such thing as a shoo-in! But your low income and high scores are what QB is looking for so just keep working through the process. Right now you are working on supplements for your ranked schools right? So just throw your heart into those! And after 10/22 you can regroup and see where you are and how to proceed. Good luck!</p>