URM, but bad GPA

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey everybody, so I've updated my list of schools (put on some more realistic choices IMO) and was wondering what everybody thought.</p>

<p>Gender: Male from San Diego, CA
Race: White, Vietnamese, and Abenaki Native American
School: Large Public, known for grade deflation
Rank: Not sure
Weighted GPA: 3.66 or so
Unweighted: 3.45 :(</p>

<p>SAT: 1970 (620 V, 640 M, 710 W)
SAT II: Just took today</p>

<p>Taken 6 AP's and 1 college class, and my schedule is:
AP Art History
AP Environmental Science
Orchestra
Political Science 101 (College)
AP English Lit
Discrete Math </p>

<p>Essay: I've been told it's "powerful" and "outstanding", but I think it could have been better. </p>

<p>*My main EC's are that I've been extremely involved with orphanages in Africa, including two trips to 4 central African countries (Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda) to work with the orphanages. </p>

<p>*I also have a huge amount of music EC's, ranging from first chair doublebass in orchestra (I submitted a supplement) to performing a recital at Northwestern.</p>

<p>*I've been a camp counselor at a family camp for disadvantaged families since I was in 8th grade.</p>

<p>*I've had 2 jobs: one is at a tea shop that I still work at (17 months, 20 hours/ week) and the other was at a multimillion dollar finance firm (4 months, over the summer, 30 hours/ week) Over the summer I had both jobs going.</p>

<p>*President of Animal Rights Club and Invisible Children Club</p>

<p>Okay, now for my college list:
Dartmouth College (ED) (submitted)
Amherst College
Wesleyan University
Middlebury College
Oberlin College
Lewis and Clark College (EA) (Submitted)
Colorado College (EA) (Submitted)
Colby College
UC Santa Cruz</p>

<p>So that's pretty much my tentative list. People have said that I should apply to more selective schools, but I don't know. Are there any schools that you think should be on the list?</p>

<p>Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate any input.</p>

2

<p>i think your sat scores are below dartmouth's standards. and the gpa as well. excellent ec's though.</p>

3

<p>Native American though! :O</p>

4

<p>Yeah, I've definitely realized that I am a "below-average" candidate for Dartmouth. However, looking at their Collegeboard stats, they seem to accept a large amount of people with <3.5 GPAs. Surely not all of those are athletes, right?</p>

<p>And Dartmouth does like to accept an unusually high amount of Native Americans (and the Abenaki tribe is from New Hampshire haha)</p>

5

<p>I think your in</p>

6

<p>You have a big advantage because you are Native American.</p>

7

<p>good chances</p>

<p>yes</p>

8

<p>So, you guys really think race has that big of an influence on decisions?</p>

<p>Now what about Amherst? I figured I had a worse chance of getting into Amherst than Dartmouth.</p>

9

<p>Could anyone elaborate a little bit? It would be so appreciated :)</p>

10

<p>You have a better chance getting into Dartmouth than Amherst because you are applying to Dartmouth ED. Admissions to Amherst and Dartmouth are both very similar. Amherst has great financial aid (no loans, all grant aid starting next year) and is reaching out a lot to URMs, but competition will be fierce this year. Have you considered retaking the SAT?</p>

11

<p>Yes I will probably retake the SAT, but unfortunately it won't be going towards Dartmouth. However, I am taking the ACT this saturday (would have taken it last week but the fires here in San Diego shut down my testing center). I really hope that I do better on the ACT, because I will be able to send that to Dartmouth.</p>

12

<p>How do you do both ED and EA?</p>

13

<p>Early Decision says that you can only apply ED to one school, but can submit any other applications that you like. Early Action is non-binding. That's why you need to sign an Early Decision agreement that says that you will withdraw all other apps if admitted.</p>

14

<p>So then what's the difference between ED and SCEA?</p>

15

<p>I'm not very familiar with Single Choice Early Action (I know Yale does it because my friend just applied SCEA) but I think its probably the same thing as Early Decision but non-binding (he say's he still wants to apply to Brown). So basically you can apply SCEA to only one school, but you don't need to attend if accepted.</p>