What are my chances at these schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m kind of new to this forum. I’ve been looking around for the past few days trying to figure out what this whole thing is about. I’ve found it to be quite helpful, actually. Since it’s the summer and I’ll be applying for colleges my senior year, I thought I’d get some sort of an idea as to where I stand.
Here are the schools I’m applying to:
NYU
UPenn
Stanford
Washington University
University of Kentucky
Northwestern
Yale
University of Chicago
Vanderbilt
University of Louisville
Duke
Johns Hopkins University

SAT I (breakdown): 1530 (770 math & 760 reading/writing)
ACT (breakdown): Did not take
SAT II: 740 Biology, 770 Math II, 760 US History
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.92 UW 4.33 W
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank, but has an honors system. 4.15+ is considered to have valedictorian status. So technically… I’m one of a few valedictorians. It is a competitive school though, 300+ students per grade.
AP (place score in parenthesis): Human Geography (5); Biology (5); Seminar (3); US History (5); Gov. (5); Physics (4); Lang (5); Macroeconomics (5); Microeconomics (5); Calculus BC (5) AB (4); Chemistry (4)
IB (place score in parenthesis): None.
Senior Year Course Load: AP Psychology, AP Research, AP Physics C Mechanics, AP Statistics, Multivariable Calculus, Anatomy
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): None really lol
Extracurriculars (place leadership AND awards in parenthesis):

Student government (Class President 9, 10, & 11; Will be running for my fourth term senior year)
[9-11] KYA Mock Kentucky General Assembly
[9-11] KUNA Basically MUN, but held by the YMCA just like KYA
^^ Both of these clubs are a part of the Y-Club at my school. (In leadership positions 9,10, and 11; President of the club year 11)
[10-11] Speech and Debate (Won several district competitions in both during year 10 and 11, won some state competitions in each as well 10 and 11, and made it to nationals for congressional speech and one 3rd place 11)
[9-11] Science Olympiad (Won 1 silver medal at state 9, won 2 gold medals at state 10, won 1 gold medal at state 11)
[9-11] BETA Club (Officer, 11)
[10-11] NHS (Officer, 11)
[10-11] Tennis (Varsity 10-11)
[9-11] Ski Club (Just for fun, probably won’t even be able to fit this on my app.)
Job/Work Experience: I’ll find a job this summer lol
Volunteer/Community service: 150 hours of community service. 40 of those are from Pakistan, which I helped renovate a school while my family and I went to visit relatives.
Summer Activities:
Summer going into year 10: Internship/Volunteer work at large hospital downtown (50 hours)
Summer going into year 11: Louisville Science Pathways (LSP), a competitive research internship program (25 students accepted and lasts 8 weeks long with 30 hours of research each week)
Summer going into year 11: YMCA Conference on National Affairs | CONA (25 students chosen from the KYA conference, pretty selective)
Summer going into 12: YMCA Youth Governors Conference (I will be attending this summer. Only for those who won Secretary General during the conferences. This is a national event and takes place in Washington D.C.)
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Going to start drafting this summer. They’re probably going to revolve around KYA, KUNA, Debate, and Speech. Those are the EC’s I mainly focused on.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): I have great relationships with my teachers. I’m expecting recommendations to be pretty good.

Teacher Rec #1: My Chemistry teacher
Teacher Rec #2: My Physics/Calc. teacher
Counselor Rec: I was class president for 3 years so I know both the counselor and the principle pretty well. Is it possible that I could get my principle to write my recommendation instead of my counselor? I’m sure his would be far more detailed.
Additional Rec: My professor/mentor for my summer research internship.

Applied for Financial Aid?: Not going to apply for financial aid. Would this increase my chances? My parents make 500k+ so I already know I won’t be receiving any.
Intended Major: Unsure. interested in either microbiology or BME.
State (if domestic applicant): Kentucky (I hate this state. Oh, what I would give to get out of here)
Country (if international applicant): USA USA USA
School Type: Public. We were ranked #17 in the nation for our AP program.
Ethnicity: Asian - Pakistani
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 500k+
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): umm… idk. The first one in my family to attend an American university… if that counts.

Strengths: GPA, SAT, AP’s, EC’s
Weaknesses: I’m not a good writer. I’m really going to need to revise and constantly rewrite this essays…

All in all, I would just like some feedback on how it looks so far, and what I can do to improve.

2

Also, sorry if this was incredibly long. I just wanted to be detailed enough so that people could make an accurate assumption. I realize that “chance me” means almost nothing, but I like the feedback. Thanks in advance to anyone who chooses to respond. It means a lot.

3

Louisville is your safety. NYU is a match. The others are reaches for everyone but you are in the range. You may want another match school of two.

4

@TomSrOfBoston I would say University of Kentucky is a safety for me as well, wouldn’t you agree? That’s kind of how I organized/decided my list. What other match schools would you recommend?

5

Right, didn’t see Kentucky. Other matches would be Boston University, URochester, CWRU…

6

Alright, thanks. I’ll look into them and figure out whether or not I like them. Open to more responses though.

7

Your academic qualifications are very good. If anything I would have suggested retaking the SAT for 1550+ or taking the ACT and aiming for 34+ (which are both completely unnecessary in your case). I’m glad you have taken subject tests since that will definitely help you in the admissions process. I think your ECs demonstrate your intelligence and talent, but are a bit generic and varied. Most applicants to the schools you have listed have done the same ECs as you, but in your case you have won some awards so that will definitely play to your advantage. I think your ECs are also a bit varied; you have many in the poly sci area such as debate and KUNA but you also have some in the STEM area such as NHS and SciOly, so you may want to work on strengthening a certain subject area that you will pursue in college. You said you are interested in microbiology/BME but your ECs mostly indicate an interest in poly sci or even law, so I would suggest you ramp up participation in STEM ECs. However, besides that, your profile looks pretty good.

NYU - match
UPenn - reach
Stanford - reach
Washington University - low reach
University of Kentucky - safety
Northwestern - reach
Yale - reach (may be low reach since you are interested in STEM rather than lib arts)
University of Chicago - reach
Vanderbilt - low reach (may even be a high match)
University of Louisville - safety
Duke - reach
Johns Hopkins University - reach

Good luck! I would appreciate it if you could chance me back here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1995754-chance-me-low-gpa-rank-cornell-rice-wash-u-ucla-etc-p1.html

8

@tripledouble2000 Thanks for your feedback. I’m most certainly not going to take the SAT or ACT at this point. The difference between 1600 and 1530 is negligible. I do not believe it will make that big of a difference when it comes down to either accepting, rejecting, or waitlisting an applicant.

Let me clear up some of the things I said: I realize that I put my major as a potential microbiology or BME, but that only applies to schools where I can’t change my major after being accepted. For the vast majority of these schools, I know that PoliSci and Biology/Microbiology are in the same school - so switching majors should not be that big of a hassle. For the most part, I’m going to be applying for a PoliSci major just so it can flow with my personal narrative. I don’t want the admissions board to feel like I’m all over the place and only did these EC’s for college admissions - because I most surely did not. I enjoyed each and every one of these, but I believe pursuing a career in these areas is going to be quite difficult and won’t help me in the long run. I’ve been interested in the medical field for quite a long time now, but there haven’t been that many clubs or activities that I, myself, have really found to be intriguing or available at my school.

I would have to disagree with you when you stated: “Most applicants to the schools you have listed have done the same ECs as you.” Yes, they have taken part in them. Although, the achievements that I listed were quite difficult and took more effort than you would think. I know that Secretary General at MUN is somewhat a big deal, which is why I would put my KUNA Sec. General status as equivalent to that.

Other than that I appreciate your response.

9

I understand that your SAT score is very good. In fact I even said that “I would have suggested” and then indicated that it was completely unnecessary for you to take the SAT or ACT again. I was by no means suggesting that you should retake it. Just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you for clarifying that you will apply with an intended poly sci major. I’m not sure it is your BEST option to apply to this major with the intent of changing it to microbiology or BME, since I am not sure how it will affect you in college (how many years it will take you to graduate, if you will even get the major, etc), but I appreciate you clarifying this because I do think you will have greater success applying to these schools with a poli sci major since your ECs are mostly centralized around that. As for your interest in medicine, I think it will actually be an asset to apply to med school having completed a BS in poli sci because not many applicants do so, and it will help you stand out from the crowd. That said, if you want to study microbiology, by all means please do; if you only want to study it because it will help you get into med school (not because you like it) I would suggest you actually major in poli sci since you will either way get the training and help you need to apply to med school from pre-med advisors.

I also agree with you that not many people have the same achievements you do (which I, again, did state earlier), but I still think many people do SIMILAR ECs and are able to achieve something on the national level in those ECs like you did. I myself know at least a good 20 people in my school alone that have won awards at the international DECA and Speech & Debate competitions, who, like you, also plan on applying to similar schools. That is why I suggested you try to get involved in something unique. Of course, your achievements will still look very impressive to colleges so I wouldn’t worry about anything if I were you.

Sorry if my first response was not clear enough.