Rising Junior, RI Resident, Environment or Philosophy, 4.0/1570

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US permanent resident
  • Rhode Island
  • Boarding private high school
  • Female/Asian/Catholic

Intended Major(s)
Environmental Science/Philosophy

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • 4.07/4.3 (unweighted)
  • No class ranking (about 3%, 90 people in our grade)
  • SAT: 1570

Coursework
AP Calculus AB and BC 5
AP English Language and Composition 5
I’m already in Advanced topics in math during sophomore year.
My junior year course selection: Environmental Science (regular), Theology (Regular), American Literature (Regular), AP United States History, Advanced Chemistry, AP Statistics.
I son’t have any foreign languages.

Awards
Dean’s LIst 2022-2023
Social Justice Watcher 2022 Fall Environmental Justice Third Prize

Extracurriculars
Allstate Choir Ensemble, School Choir Soloist and Jazz Band Sep 2022-Present
• Perform in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium as one of the sopranos in the Allstate choir ensemble.
• Lead performs in the school auditorium as the main soloist of Abbey singers and Jazz band.

Art Portfolio with a theme on material science and environment Oct 2022-Present
• Create an Art Portfolio based on my science grant dedicating to address man’s role in nature and algae’s role in the ecosystem.

Biomaterial Science Grant Dec 2022-Present
• Utilize Ulva Lactuca from Narragansett Bay to create sustainable biomaterials.
• Conduct research and experiments to explore new materials for future use.
• Plan to expand the grant into a workshop accessible to faculty and students on campus.

Guest speaker invitation coordinator Mar 2023-Present
• Organize a lecture from Dr. Hastings from Brown University’s Department of environmental science on the nitric cycle in Narragansett Bay.
• Encourage high school students to take action and make a difference in the environment through learning with knowledgeable professors.

Brown Pre-College: Material Science June 26-July 7 2023
• Conduct hands-on experiment on treating various types of materials, including composites, metals, polymers and ceramics.
• Design an eco-friendly installation from wasted fishing rod.

Eco-friendly Fashion club founder and leader Oct 2022-Present
• Collect and repurpose waste and recyclable materials to create unique clothing pieces.
• Promote environmental awareness through art and fashion.
• Lead a team of volunteers to organize eco-friendly fashion shows on campus.
• Organize one fashion show per term, three shows per year.

Eco-friendly music festival founder and leader Dec 2022-Present
• Reduce plastic waste on campus through recycling plastic water bottles and remaking them into festival merchandises.
• Fundraise for environmental awareness initiatives through student lead bake sales, recycled plastic accessories sales, canvas painting contests and eco-friendly frisbee utilizing recycled discs.

Ecotopia (NGO) Outreach Dec 2022-Present
• Lead an NGO comprising students from multiple schools across New England.
• Provide educational resources such as videos, posters, and essays to promote environmental awareness among teenagers.

Science magazine editor in chief May 2023-Present

Environmental Science Club leader May 2023-Present
• Manage the campus’s recycling program.
• Organize overnight by-the-bay camps on campus and charity rides to raise environmental awareness.

Cross-Regions Students led Band Founder and Leader June 2023-Present
• Write Songs that focus on social phenomena.

Musically Marked Eastern Region Vice President June 2023-Present
• Incorporate students across the world, including up to 80+ students and 20 states.
• Fundraise for children in need through online and in-person musical performances.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Affordable to all colleges

Schools

  • Safety BU, BC, Vanderbilt
  • Likely Umich, UVA
  • Match UCLA,UCB,USC, Duke, Cornell
  • Reach Brown, UPenn, Columbia, Yale, Harvard
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They’re all reaches in theory but your bio is unreal so surely you’ll get into one.

You should talk to your school counselor.

Your test won’t be seen by the CA publics.

Going to such a small school, are you ok to transition to such a large one vs an LAC,

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Since you just completed your sophomore year it seems you took your SAT earlier than is customary. Have I understood this correctly?

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Unfortunately, I don’t think I can transfer anymore. Thank you so much though! I have strong adaptability cuz I’ve changed to different schools and regions.

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Yes, I’ve took it early

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No. I was saying they are all very large schools and you come from small. Will this be a problem.

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If it was me, I’d consider adding a public safety/likely that I could be confident would not yield protect and has a much higher overall admission rate than your current safety/likelies. Hopefully you won’t need it, but I am pretty sure Michigan (out of state) and your Boston privates have like a 20% (or lower) admit rate these days, UVA is like 12%, Vanderbilt 7%.

Since you mentioned Philosophy, a couple obvious choices are Pitt and Rutgers, which are both Top 5 graduate programs in Philosophy. That doesn’t mean you should prefer them over your reaches and matches, but that makes them obviously defensible choices.

I note Pitt is an extremely popular “likely” in my circles, for a variety of reasons–rising prominence as a research university, urban location, cross-registering with CMU which is immediately adjacent, the usual Honors College and merit scholarships, and rolling admissions (which means you can apply there and get a very early answer, but it is typically allowed under the exceptions of the SCEA/REA policies of places like Yale and Harvard).

Just something to consider.

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This could be a problem. You haven’t taken any foreign language classes in high school? Most, if not all, of your list will want 3-4 years of high school foreign language for applicants.

Except for foreign language, you have an amazing profile and will be competitive for admission for the schools on your list. But your list is miscategorized. They are all reaches due to their admission rates.

Good luck!

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I agree that this will be an issue since the UC’s require 2 years but recommend 3 years. The UC’s also require a year of a Visual Performing arts course. Will you meet that requirement?

As noted, the UC’s will not consider your SAT score for admission nor merit scholarship but only use it for course placement.

You have a wonderful resume but the UC’s are very GPA focused and both UCLA and UCB are Reach schools due to their low acceptance rates.

UCLA’’s College of Letters and Sciences admit rate was 10% where Philosophy/Environmental Science are housed. For UCB, the admit rate for the College of L&S was 12% where Philosophy is housed and 23% in the College of CNR where Environmental Science is housed. You cannot apply as a double major to the UC’s so you need to select a 1st choice major and then add the 2nd major later.

The UC’s only use 10-11th a-g course grades in their GPA calculation so you still have another year. They will consider all 3 UC GPA’s in their admission review but UCLA/UCB emphasize the Unweighted and Fully Weighted.

Note OOS HS Honors classes do not get the extra weighting in the calculation so only AP/IB or DE courses taken 10-11th grades will be weighted. Here is the calculator: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

The OOS admit rate for UCB was 8.6% and UCLA was 8.9%. If you want to attend a UC, then I would look at UC Davis for Environmental Science which had 59.8% OOS admit rate and a highly rated Environmental program.

Best of luck.

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@Yuuu_zey Keep up the environmental spike. That is precisely what the Ivies are looking for and in combination with your stats puts you in a good position. Spike, Leadership, independence, commitment and service. This is the profile that many college counselors point to as cracking the Ivy code.

Is it fair to assume that you will pick one of the Ivies (Brown) and apply REA? If so make sure that you apply to UVA and UMich EA and you may want to consider an ED2 option like BC or Vandy. Be careful with BC and BU for RD because they yield protect against being an “Ivy Safety”. When you REA your counselor should have a good idea from the AO if you are likely to get further consideration from deferral. Your likely outcome from IVY REA is acceptance or deferral as I can’t see your app getting immediate denial. Just my 2 cents.

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Only Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have REA. The rest of the Ivys are ED, which is binding.And according to Brown’s website, they don’t give an admission bump to ED applicants.

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As an aside to your main question, I would encourage you to pursue more prizes/scholarships as there are quite a few that value your environmental/sustainability work. The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes came to mind immediately because you don’t need to wait until senior year.

Although scholarship essays are usually a bit different in nature than application essays, it gets you in the practice of writing essays and more generally starts you thinking about stories and meaningful experiences.

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As Gumbymom pointed out, without foreign language and an art (Do you have one? You have mentioned an art portfolio, choir, and band - were any of these linked to a class? If so, you likely met the requirement, If not, you likely haven’t.). So without those minimum requirements the UCs are a nonstarter. If you can meet those reqs, I think you have a strong a profile for UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources (my daughter is also planning to double major in environment and philosophy, by the way).

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@Momofthree24 REA precludes application at any other schools unless they are state schools. I am not sure about the others but I think they are less restrictive. The stats on Brown say other wise as the acceptance rate was much higher in ED, but it is the OPs decision on where and how to apply. I was simply pointing out that if OP applies REA/ED at an Ivy it can be limiting and schools like BC and BU have terrible acceptance rates in RD even for top stats kids.

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From Brown’s website:

“ Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.”

The ED admission rate is higher because most of the athletes are admitted ED and their acceptance rate is close to 100% because they’ve all completed academic pre-reads and have coach support. And there is an amount of self selecting which leads to a higher acceptance rate.

And there are some exceptions to the SCEA rules for applying to other private schools.

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Just to give a concrete example, here is Yale:

Applying to Other Colleges and Universities

If you are a Single-Choice Early Action applicant to Yale, you may apply to another institution’s early admission program as follows:

  • You may apply to any college’s non-binding rolling admission program.
  • You may apply to any public institution at any time, provided that admission is non-binding.
  • You may apply to another college’s Early Decision II program, but only if the notification of admission occurs after January 1. If you are admitted through another college’s Early Decision II binding program, you must withdraw your application from Yale.
  • You may apply to another college’s Early Action II program.
  • You may apply to any institution outside of the United States at any time.

That’s a lot of exceptions!

I think the basic idea is they don’t want you applying normal EA I or ED I to any other private university in the United States. Other than that, you can find plenty of non-RD options, including EA II and ED II where available at US privates (with the understanding if you get a deferral and apply ED II and then get in, you are bound to go to the ED II school).

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From OP’s list, I think you’re able to apply to USC EA since that is a requirement for their scholarships. So there’s another exception right there. Always best to check with each school though.

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I understand what Brown’s website says and that is what most say but the truth can be different. I understand that ED at Brown includes athletes etc… but if you strip those out the number of applicants is far fewer in ED, in addition it is my understanding that if you get defferd in ED you get a first read before the RD applicants. The counselor can also provide guidance from AO if they are likely to get a good second read. My view is if there is a particular school that you want the benefits of going early outweigh the limitations imposed by REA and ED. We are choosing REA at Yale knowing that it will not really improve chances but should be a canary in the coal mine and there is no other school that D24 would choose to ED to at the expense of the chance of going to Yale.

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Why no foreign language? This is a significant deficiency in your otherwise stellar record.

Do you speak a language other than english at home? Could you take an AP exam in this?

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If you would like to continue to develop your college list, these sites may be of interest:

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