schools of all ranges!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I'm a junior right now and I started off pretty lackluster to say the least. I've since stepped up the game and am making waves, but I'm not sure it's enough. also I'm a white male living in a state that has lower end education in general. </p>

<p>Sophomore year I took the ACT twice, the SAT, and the PSAT. Scores were 31,30,sodepressingiforgot, and 17, respectively. </p>

<p>Junior year I took the December ACT and the PSAT and got a 34 (36M,35E,32R,34S) no studying and 222 respectively. There's a pretty clear jump.</p>

<p>Likewise my GPA is skyrocketing and so is my class difficulty. Freshman year I took CP world history and some other bad electives. My UW GPA was still 4.0 coming into this year and W was around 4.25.</p>

<p>This year I'm taking all AP classes. calc AB+BC, physics C M+E&M, APUSH, lang, stats, and my only non-ap class was hon latin 3. Current gpa is 4.39 but expect 4.50 if I get all A's...hopefully. top 10% of class but top 5% would be lucky.</p>

<p>Again, huge leap. I got all A's in my first semester classes including a 100 in calc AB/BC and a 99 in physics mech. Our valedictorian got a B in physics mech, and also I was one of four juniors in that class.</p>

<p>I have two glowing math teacher recs. They both asked <em>me</em> if they could write them and one is a well-respected teacher. I have basically no humanity teacher recommendations and I'm worried that'll backfire. I'll probably ask my current apush teacher.</p>

<p>I also can't write essays to save my life. I was excited when I got a 5/9 on a synthesis essay he graded "easy". Safe to say those will hurt my application a lot.</p>

<p>I also have some awards accomplishments:</p>

<p>Two top 10 trophies from mu alpha theta nationals 2014</p>

<p>Several officer positions including current VP's and some former things. Also one state-level position.</p>

<p>Several local competitions, some much bigger.</p>

<p>Attended a governor's school this last summer.</p>

<p>3 State championships in a well-respected CS (team) competition. </p>

<p>So I'm not winning any international Olympiads (I took AMC 10 last year and got around [awful] - will not be putting on any apps), but I'm far from failing 9 classes. Could anyone chance me for:</p>

<p>Vanderbilt
Georgia tech
UNC Chappell hill
Berkley
Dartmouth</p>

<p>I of course have safeties including one decent school I'll be taking DiffEq at next year/summer/asap. I don't know what to major in but probably a hard science like engineering. I'm just trying to get a feel for what I can do. Thanks.</p>

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<p>I would work HARD on those essays. I feel like those will be your deciding factor. Since you say your state has “lower-end” education, I’ll assume you definitely don’t live in NC. Which means, unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to get into. I must say that you’re definitely competitive for an OOS spot, though. I could be wrong, but I think you have a pretty good shot at UNC and Berkley. I know a girl that recently got deferred with a 27 at Vanderbilt, so I could definitely see you getting accepted if things go well. Basically, I think you’re a very qualified applicant, but sometimes things happen. I think you will definitely get accepted to at least one of those schools, but it’s important to remember that they’re all highly selective and sometimes odd things just happen.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1722473-my-final-chance-thread-chances-at-uva-w-m-wake-forest-vcu-and-fordham.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1722473-my-final-chance-thread-chances-at-uva-w-m-wake-forest-vcu-and-fordham.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Being from a state at the “lower end” of education may actually be a positive for you. Highly selective schools are always looking to increase diversity. In this way, a student with good scores/GPA like yours from a rather obscure state (Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia, Mississippi, etc.) are likely to be chosen over a student with the same stats from a well represented state (New York, California, Texas, Massachusetts, etc.).</p>