Separate my college list into low/medium/high reach, match, or safety (I will chance back)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi guys, I’ve been posting a lot since I am going to be a senior in the fall. It would help me a lot if you guys could separate my list into low/medium/high reach, match, or safety and suggest other colleges for me. Also tell me which ones I may not quite fit. As of now, I am looking into majoring in English or creative writing.

Colleges:

-Brown (ED)
-Harvard (Legacy through my mom)
-Pomona (ED II if I don’t get accepted to Brown)
-UCB (In State)
-Northwestern
-WUSTL
-UVA
-Amherst
-Bowdoin
-UW
-Kenyon
-Cornell
-Hamilton

Here are my stats:

Objective:

-I attend a small public charter school (top 1% in California)
-UW GPA: 4.0
-W GPA: 4.6
-ACT: 32C (34E 30M 31R 34S / 30Essay) 33C SUPERSCORE (with 32 R) <-should I retake in fall?
-SAT II: haven’t taken but get 730+ on practice tests
-I take the hardest offered course load

AP tests: Lang (4)
APES (4)

*My school doesn’t offer APs, but we have to test into all of our honors classes (about 20% - 30% acceptance rate)

High School Schedule:

9th grade:
-Honors English 9
-Chemistry
-Honors Algebra II
-PE
-Art I
-Spanish I

10th grade:
-Honors Trig/Precalc
-Honors World History
-Honors World Literature
-Physics
-Spanish II
-Honors Biology

11th grade:
-Honors Environmental Science
-Honors Calc AB
-Honors American Literature
-Honors US History
-Spanish III
-Computer Science

12th grade:
-Honors Calc BC
-Honors Stats
-Honors Gov Econ
-Honors British Literature
-Honors Spanish 4
-Creative Writing

Subjective:

-ECs:

-FREERUNNING (like parkour or American Ninja Warrior)
-I practice around 15-20hrs a week and was recently hired by my academy to become a coach. I rank #1 between the three Freerunning Academies in LA and SD (they share 1 ranking system)
-competing in North American Parkour Championships in September (biggest competition in the western hemisphere)
-offered a spot on the Olympic Freerunning Committee (will hopefully be a sport in 2024 olympics)

-PIANO

  • I play around 3-4 hours a week, take lessons, and have participated in the national piano guild
  • I am in my school’s jazz band

-IMPROV/ACTING
-I’ve been participating for 5 years; I’ve been on the team for 3 years and will take over as team captain next year
-I’ve also been in some commercials and short films

-STUDENT GOVERNMENT/STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT
-elected high school body president as a freshman (I am technically still president since no other school election has taken place)
-11th grade representative

  • been an active member for all years of HS
    -fund raise for school apparel and school goods

-NHS (member)

-KEY CLUB (member)

-COMMUNITY SERVICE

  • through NHS and KC, I have done about 200 hrs of CS ( includes volunteering to teach kids freerunning and active beach cleanup)
  • done around 300 independently

-PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB (VP, President next year)
-Held an exhibition at the end of the school year

-ASTRONOMY CLUB
-also took college astronomy class and got an A

-WRITING/WRITING CLUB
-fouonder of writing club in 10th grade, president
-writing a novella over summer and will be self published
-internship with my city’s newspaper company

Thanks for the Input!! I’ll chance back if you share a link!

2

I am not sure about the rest, but you have a good chance at Harvard
Chance me back?

3

Great profile, you should get into a bunch of those.

That said, only one safety (UW) and no definite low matches. Kenyon and Hamilton might be the closest contenders.

Out of curiosity, why would they have stopped having student government elections 3 years ago?

4

No one has a good chance at Harvard.

5

@citivas I was elected in freshman year; the year after that, our school hired a new Vice Principal who liked the way student government was being run. I was spearheading the class and he didn’t really see a need for a change I guess (although that is quite unfair to other students). I don’t really want to milk this though because it may be a little bit of a stretch. Instead, I would like to mention that I was student body president and that I am currently one of the elected representatives of my grade.

6

@TomSrOfBoston Quite true. Do you know if legacy still holds weight during the RD round?

7

@ap012199 That sounds super odd. I would think other students would complain or even their parents if an administrator basically decides to just cancel student elections for years just because they like the current officers. Sounds like a banana republic; is your Vice Principal’s last name Putin by any chance? I definitely wouldn’t “milk it” as you say because I suspect app readers might find it odd too. Sounds like you’re playing it about right listing it but not emphasizing the circumstances.

8

@citivas Yeah, it’s super weird. We just got another new VP this year (the old one, which the whole school loved, left for financial reasons). The new VP is our school’s former 8th grade history teacher; he might bring back the student election process. If so, I’m going to run again.

9

Your ACT is above average (but not much above average) for UCB, UVa and Kenyon. For this and other reasons (great GPA, interesting ECs), these schools should be at least solid matches for you. The University of Washington would appear to be a safety. Of your remaining choices, acceptances at two or more would be likely.

10

Just primariy, don’t put this “(I am technically still president since no other school election has taken place)” on an application please lol

-Brown (ED) - For some reason brown is a btch about scores and I would personally retake the ACT, but in the end it might not do too much
-Harvard (Legacy through my mom) - Like honestly you’re a legacy, Harvard will let you in probs
-Pomona (ED II if I don’t get accepted to Brown) - I honestly love the concept of the multi school thing pomona is a part of, just don’t like the schools themself. Its easier to get into them than IVY but still hard. I would say mid to reach
-UCB (In State)- No Idead tbh
-Northwestern- I’ve heard about it, but no research
-WUSTL- No idea
-UVA- Hmmm they favor the heck out of Virginia kids, but they like to “aculturate” from other states so if a lot of people in your area apply, u might be screwed and vise versa
-Amherst- Same of northwestern
-Bowdoin- No idea
-UW- No idea
-Kenyon- No idea
-Cornell- Easiest Ivy to get into, and I believe you have a decent chance, so like a low reach
-Hamilton- No idea

11

@RoadTriptoCollege2017 yeah in my app regarding student body president I’m just going to say I was president for a year (I talked about this above with another user). About Brown… From where did you hear that it is a btch about scores?

12

-Brown (ED) - Low Reach
-Harvard (Legacy through my mom) - High Reach (I mean it’s Harvard after all)
-Pomona (ED II if I don’t get accepted to Brown) - Mid-Reach
-UCB (In State)- Match
-Northwestern- Match to Low Reach
-WUSTL- No idea of the one in St Louis but in Washington (Safety)
-Cornell- Low reach

Can’t comment on other schools cause I don’t have stats of them. I had some friends with similar scores with you get accepted (same major), so this is all I can comment on.

13

@ap012199 My friend who goes there said that. It could just be rumor, but that’s what I heard.

14

Okay I don’t pay much attention to English-y schools, since I’m more of a STEM person, but it looks like you have a very rigorous schedule if you can’t take AP, and you have strong ECs. I feel like if your mom went to Harvard, combined with all of your achievements you’ll have a good chance there (considering that it’s Harvard, you know?) Maybe a med match to low reach. I know that Kenyon is easier to get into than Harvard so probably at least a match there. If you have the time to practice and prep to retest, I think you should just to secure your already strong profile. If you could match me back that’d be nice :slight_smile:

15

For the UCs, you may want to look here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1903428-faq-uc-historical-frosh-admit-rates-by-hs-gpa.html

16

@18college1111 thanks for the input! Do you want me to chance you back?

17

Oh never mind, I already did.

18

I think for your list from northwestern down, those schools are all your low reaches. Your ec’s are great and test scores are great too, so work your butt off on your essays haha

19

Extracurriculars seem great. You definitely need to get the SAT IIs taken as they are required by a few of your schools. I scored like 750s on my pretests for them but all of mine increased by 30+ points (testing environment helps & the pretests seem much harder usually). I’d retake the ACT because a 32 is a little on the lower end for most of your higher-tier schools and besides, it couldn’t hurt.
Best of luck (totally jealous of your Harvard legacy:)

20

@pokemon1 , if you’re going to draw a line it wouldn’t make sense to start it at Northwestern but not UCB. Berkeley is no harder to get into on average that Northwestern, Amherst or Bowdoin. They’re all tough to get into, but statistically pretty equivalent odds.