Sophomore humanities major chance me

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I’m a high school sophomore so I know it’s very hard to chance, but any tips or advice would help.

Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: Houston, Texas but I go to school in Connecticut
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): small boarding school in CT, pretty competitive
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Asian (Chinese/Viet), Non-binary
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): LGBTQ, kind of? first-gen (my parents never finished their diploma)

Intended Major(s) - English or history.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.9/4.0 (finals are not out yet)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.4 -ish
  • Class Rank: n/a, my school does not include them
  • ACT/SAT Scores: PSAT not out yet, SSAT from 2-ish years ago was 2223

Coursework
*my school does not do APs but CL (college level) classes instead.

Freshman year
Biology - yr. avg. A
Latin I - yr. avg. A-
English - yr. avg. A-
Algebra II - yr. avg. A-
World History - yr. avg. A-
Drawing I - avg. A

Sophomore year
(I’m taking the most advanced history class for my grade.)
CL euro - current avg A- but A with finals
Adv. Precalculus - current avg A- but A with finals
English II - current avg A
Adv. Chemistry - current avg A
Adv. Latin II - current avg A
Painting I - current avg A

Junior year planned:
CL Eng III
CL chem OR a year of psychology
CL calc (not sure AB or BC yet; need to see this summer if I take math camp)
Adv. Latin III
CL US history
CL Art

Senior year is still up in the air-- sorry!

Awards
School honor roll all last year (3.5+ GPA) and getting high honors this year (3.75+ GPA)
Debate - 5th place at a tournament, states finalist
I’ve also started submitting to some writing competitions (NYTimes, Bennington, etc.) so I will see how those go.

Extracurriculars
LEADERSHIP/ECs
Newspaper - I’m 1 of ~9 staff writers for my grade and a columnist for my school newspaper and I have written every issue, also very close with most of the editors and I am shooting to become an editor next year.

Debate - I’m one of the debate captains in my debate team this year and 1 of the 3 sophomore debate captains. I’ve also been to states level competitions but nothing like intl or nationals as I started debate last winter.

CLI leadership - I’m one of 21-23 sophomore female-identifying students to participate in a yearlong seminar institute for leadership and women’s empowerment. I’m the only non-binary person in that group and I am (afaik) one of the only people to try and complete an additional capstone project with the leadership center this year.

LGBTQIA - I am one of the co-presidents of the LGBTQIA club and one of 2 co-presidents for the LGBTQIA affinity group.

DEIJ intern - I’m an intern for the diversity, equity, and inclusion office at my school. Basically just an internship but it’s school-sponsored. I’ve also spoken at conferences like the Pollyanna diversity conference, and I am 1 of 6 attending the SDLC summit for NAIS this year.

CLIPP (?)- an extension of the leadership institute that I am applying to next term to lead for, not sure if I will get it yet but I am pretty confident as I have been active in the program since last year.

Antique store - I currently work at an antique store in town on the weekends. Doing everything like cleaning, etc. basically. I’m one of the only 2 people to have a job this year during the school year which sets me apart from others I suppose.

Tour guide - I do tours for prospective students at my school.

I’m also doing stuff with community engagement ,tutoring, etc. but those are very misc. so I will not spend too much time including them. I’ve probably clocked somewhat close to like 50-65 hours though.

I am also doing a radio show for my school about true crime.

Essays/LORs/Other
Not out yet but I’m very certain they will be good; I have people in mind for recs and I am staying w my same college counselor and same advisor for the next few years so they’ll know me really well. I’m a pretty strong writer so essays probably won’t be a huge issue either.

Cost Constraints / Budget
I will probably need full aid if not most aid. The highest my family can contribute is about 10k at most.

Schools
*I will most likely need scholarships and aid at all of these schools.

  • Safety * - N/A
  • Likely * - N/A
  • Match -
    UC Berkeley,
    UT Austin,
    Rice (might be a reach idk),
    Tulane
  • Reach -
    Upenn
    Columbia
    Johns Hopkins
    UChicago
    Stanford
    Northwestern

I’m also looking at schools in the UK so University College London (UCL), Oxford, and St. Andrews are also there for (somewhat) consideration—although I do not believe there is a high chance for me to take that path.

any tips for summer programs? recommendations? colleges I should look into? anything would be appreciated. thanks.

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Cross Berkeley (and all UC schools) off your list - out-of-state costs will be more than 6x what your family can afford.

Rice is a reach for everyone. (The same as Hopkins or slightly tougher.) Tulane could be a match if you applied Early Decision but should be considered a reach otherwise.

If you’re at a competitive boarding school, the guidance staff there should be very accomplished at assessing your prospects at competitive schools. Volunteers on CC will have a harder time gauging how colleges will view your record in the context of your particular school’s academic offerings and grading system. The thing to be sure of, though, is that your counselor at school is also focusing on optimizing financial aid. They may be accustomed to working with a population of students who aren’t very price-sensitive.

You are focusing on top-tier universities. As an aspiring humanities major, is there a reason you’re not looking at full-need-met liberal arts colleges?

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For many with this background, LAC’s feel like a 4 year extension of boarding schools.

That said, @aquapt is absolutely correct - the college counseling office is excellent and can give much better guidance on matches for you than anonymous people in the web.

But you seem on the right track. Good luck.

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Just a heads up that if you want to apply to any top ten UK university you’ll likely need APs - no way around that unfortunately.

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You only have one full year of HS under your belt so it is impossible to chance you. That being said, you are off to a great start. Keep up the good work and make sure you get and stay involved in some activities that interest you outside of academics.

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Yeah I’m well aware which is why I said it is5 probable for me to go down the UK applications path— but just something to consider if i do manage to take APs next year I think. Thanks for the reminder though!

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I have tried but I just don’t know if a smaller college is right for me yet; I also haven’t had any contact with LACs so I thought it would be better for me to research them later on and see which ones fit. Lastly my family has a lot of hopes and expectations for “bragging rights” and the idea of going to a smaller college is unimaginable for them— I don’t personally see any problems with LACs, but I didn’t think I know enough to put them on my list yet. Thank you for the suggestion though.

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More rain on the UK parade: no meaningful financial aid at UCL or Oxford, and not enough at St Andrews.

One thing that people who do ‘chance me’ threads almost never do is tell what they are lookig for from a college. You have a list of familiar names- all usual suspects for independent school students!. An English/History student being sold on the core at UChic & Columbia scans. But what about the others? What do you think you want from your college experience- looks like urban might be a metric?

Further- and this will be hard- you are chasing $$. Your choices are either:

  • colleges that will meet your full need- so you need to run the NPCs on their websites to make sure that they agree with your parents idea of affordable. There are big schools that meet full need- you have some on your list and there are others- but you first need to make sure that the numbers work.

OR

  • colleges that want your stats enough to pay for them. Not sure how a 3.5-3.75 and a (projected) 4.0 comes out to a 3.9? Your school may not rank, but you can bet that those schools on your list will get enough info from the school profile to know whether you are at the top of your class or not. Anyway, from your SSAT you probably test well so you could have some a decent shot as some of the full-ride schools- but you (and your parents) would have to get your head around schools that you probably think are beneath you. There is legitimate pride to be taken in being so desirable a student that a university will simply give you a college education.
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our school calulates them by year for some reason?? like the GPA itself even changes every term it resets back to 0 at the start of winter/spring, etc.

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thanks for the clarification- but don’t count on that for college apps, esp at competitive schools. Except for a few schools that don’t count grade 9, they will take the average of all 4 years. Your grades are good- and (probably in the spring of Junior year) your school will probably introduce you to Naviance (or similar) to help you see how students with similar grades have done in college admissions.

Read this: Applying Sideways | MIT Admissions

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Your curriculum looks solid and since you’re at a good boarding school in CT, they’ll know what to advise you.
Do look into LACs some more - your BS will have ideas for you. You have time to “acclimate” your parents to the idea, especially if you can point out that some of these colleges may not be known in Texas but there sure are known among the big names on the East Coast.

Right now you need safeties but it’s difficult for you to figure out at this point. Everyone has dream schools, because it’s easy, it’s like making your Christmas wish list. It’s much harder to find 2 colleges you genuinely like because they share some characteristics with your favorite ones, are affordable, and are a sure-fire acceptance.

UT isn’t one because you won’t be part of the 6% cohort.
BTW there are 3 Honors programs you could apply to, Liberal Arts, Moody, and of course Plan II (one of the best Honors colleges in the country).

I would recommend you take Art/Art history and/or more history senior year, don’t skip Physics even at the basic level.
All in all, you’re doing very well.

Before you get attached to any college, run the Net price Calculator.

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Can you please clarify this? I checked and the in-state acceptance seems to be higher at ~30% and since I am living in Texas I am technically in-state—unless I misread something and it marks differently.

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This article lays out UT-A admissions:

Automatic Admissions Threshold Remains at 6% for UT Austin - UT News.

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You would be part of the 25% cohort which includes in-state residents outside the 6% cohort (whether by rank, lack of rank, or HS location), OOS applicants, non-Texas athletes, and internationals.
As a result, UT is a possible match or a reach, not a safety (more of a match at the moment due to your grades and your choice of Humanities for a major, since lots of applicants now apply to the same majors and crowd each other out.)

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UT only offers auto admit to the top 6% of each high school class. I’ve known many kids who were 7-10% rank and didn’t get in.

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If California is calling to you, an option in between a university and a stand-alone liberal arts college would be the Claremont Consortium schools in LA. The campuses are all adjacent and walkable, and the course registration system is integrated… so in many ways it’s like one larger campus with 7000 undergrads (and a couple of graduate divisions). Humanities offerings are phenomenal, and all of the schools meet full need, although each has its own financial aid formula.

Of the five schools, Mudd wouldn’t be a fit, because it’s STEM-focused, but the other four are all worth a look. I can’t tell from your post whether you could apply to Scripps. (They accept non-binary students who were female-identified at birth, and female-identifying applicants regardless of gender-at-birth, but not non-binary never-female applicants. Although students who transition once there can continue and graduate irrespective of gender identity, and it’s a very inclusive environment, especially with consortium students of all gender identities around all the time.) Academically speaking, any of Scripps/Pomona/Pitzer/CMC could fit what you’re looking for… and it’s definitely not the “Boarding School 2.0” vibe to which skieurope alluded. The student newspaper is joint among the 5C’s ( https://tsl.news/ ) so it has the critical mass of a university paper and operates at a high level of professionalism - there are recent grads working at NYT, WSJ, SF Chronicle, etc.

There’s also the Massachusetts 5-college consortium (and Mount Holyoke welcomes all non-binary applicants, fwiw), but those schools are more separate than the Claremonts are.

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Thank you so much! I Will look into these over break-- at first glance, they seem amazing. I will find out more about them! :slight_smile:

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