What are my chances for these schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Objective:

SAT I (breakdown): 1570 (800 M / 770 RW)
ACT (breakdown): didn’t take
SAT II: 800 Math II, Physics, Chemistry
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.93
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School does not rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): Chemistry (5), Statistics (5), Physics 1 (5)
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: ERWC, Government, Economics, AP Biology, AP Calculus BC, AP Computer Science A, AP Human Geography
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): as listed on common app:

  • National Science Bowl @ Washington, D.C - 4th out of ~4,500
  • Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music - Distinction in Grade 5 Music Theory
  • Sandia National Labs Science Bowl @ Las Positas - 3rd out of 12 regions
  • Tests in Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science Problem Solving Nationals - 3rd out of ~500
  • National Merit Semifinalist

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): as listed on common app:

  • Varsity Science Bowl - Captain & Chem Specialist
  • Academic Challenge Club - Vice President
  • TSA TEAMS - Chem Specialist
  • Tech & Robotics Club - Member
  • Taekwondo - Fourth Degree Black Belt (11 years)
  • Eskrima - 5-Year Stripe (5 years)
  • Judo & Jujutsu (5 years)
  • Tamil High School Credit Program

Job/Work Experience: none lol
Volunteer/Community service: Science Bowl Coach, STEM tutor
Summer Activities: Wrote a pretty cool research paper of statistical analysis of NBA performance in terms of offense and defense. Competed in a few competitions that I listed in the “Major Awards” section
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Can’t rate my own essays, but my common app essay is about my love for chemistry. I know, I know, bland topic, but I tied in my culture into it and some unusual things. I think it came out pretty good. I’m trying pretty hard on my supplements and doing my research, but writing has never really been my forte. They should come out better than average (maybe 8/10 max?).
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): I actually got to write one of them. That one should be like above average. I don’t know about the other three.

Teacher Rec #1: History teacher (got to write this one)
Teacher Rec #2: AP Physics 1 teacher, advisor of my club, coach of science bowl team, should turn out okay.
Counselor Rec: Probably garbage
Additional Rec: From my taekwondo master! I’ve been in his school for twelve years, so I hope he had something good to say!
Interview: interviews don’t really matter I’ve heard, but I’m pretty outgoing and just not hands-down antisocial. Sometimes I trip over my words, but it isn’t a huge issue.

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Chemical Engineering
State (if domestic applicant): California
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Charter
Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 50k - 75k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): nothing at all!

Where I’m applying:
UC Berkeley (4)
UCLA (3)
UC San Diego (3)
UC Davis (2)
UC Irvine (2)
UC Santa Barbara (2)
Cal Poly Pomona (1)
Cal Poly SLO (1)
Cal Poly Long Beach (1)
MIT (5)
Stanford (5)
Princeton (5)
Caltech (5)
UPenn (5)
Cornell (5)
Columbia (5)
Carnegie Mellon (4)
Northwestern (4)
Rice (4)
UMich (3)
UMinnesota (3)
UIUC (3)
Purdue (2)
UT Austin (3)
UDelaware (2)

5 is reach, 1 is safety. Let me know what you think, and if you have any advice for me I’ll be glad to hear it!

2

SLO does not offer Chemical Engineering and several of their Engineering majors have low acceptance rates <10% so I would consider it a Match not a Safety.

You are a very competitive applicant for the California UC’s but you should still consider UCB/UCLA Reach schools especially with a low acceptance and so many very qualified applicants.

Best of luck.

3

Thanks! I didn’t realize that, I guess one less app I have to submit then.

4

Also, crap, I’m not sure how to edit, but I go to a large public school, not a charter school. We actually send around 50 people to Berkeley a year, but not as many to ivies/ SM.

5

You are a great candidate, but do you really want to apply to 6 reaches? Just that the apps are so time-consuming. Good Luck!

6

Hi oscar! I’m actually considering scrapping Caltech, as I don’t think I fit there very well, but yes, I am applying to a lot of reaches :)>-

Good news is that I’m finished with MIT and almost finished with Stanford and Columbia, so at least I’ll have those out of the way, right?

7

Hi @DieLit

Stats: Great job
ECs: fairly average, talk more about Science Bowl in essays
Awards:
ABRSM is a fairly common award that can be achieved at a fairly young age. I would not list it on the Common App
The rest are pretty good, just elaborate

Chances: I think your estimates are write except for SLO.

8

Your estimates for reach/Match/safety is pretty accurate. I would whittle down your schools to around 12 - you’ll get bogged down too much with essay prompts. With your stats, I would use the lower UCs as safeties, and eliminate the CSUs and all the 2, and maybe keep only a couple of the 3s. Lop off a couple of the 5s as well.

I might go something like this:

6 UCs
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Caltech
Penn
Northwestern
Michigan

And call it a day.

9

Hmm @GoBears2023 I was thinking about eliminating ABRSM, but I’m not sure what I could replace it with. In 2015 I did win first in state for the TEAMS competition, but that was a while ago and I’m not sure if I should mention it. Also, I could mention the AP Scholar award or NHS but those are both pretty useless I think.

@ProfessorPlum168 your points make a lot of sense! I’m applying to the CSUs just as safeties since I don’t have to write any essays for them, and the 2s I could probably be better off without. However I still want to keep Columbia on there since I’d really like to attend, and Cornell as well for the engineering program. But thank you so much for the advice!

10

I’m guessing you go to Mission San Jose or a similar school. Numbers are in line for all of your schools, meaning that you might get into all of them or get rejected from the reaches and ‘settle’ for Cal.

Take out the CSUs as Professor Plum says but your list otherwise looks OK.

For pure Chemistry, I might add Emory to your list. Not sure if it has ChemE, but Vandy is a school that should be considered since you have the raw numbers and not many Californians, especially Asians, think of it as an option.

11

i guess the large public school sending a bunch of people to Cal was a giveaway ?and yeah, I’ve looked into emory, but I really would rather just go to Georgia Tech for the better program. also, Vanderbilt doesn’t sound like a bad idea! Thanks!

12

Las Positas gave it away since that’s closer to Fremont.

Make sure your essays are solid as you are aware that all the Bay Area pressure cookers (Mission San Jose, Saratoga, Monta Vista, Lynbrook, Paly, Gunn) are going to have applicants with similar numbers.

The one thing you have going is that you seem pretty humble and open to advice from CC posters. A lot of high achieving kids will start arguing if a poster mentions that odds may not be favorable. You are looking over things realistically and that will serve you well at school and in the future. Good luck!

13

Ah the equation slightly changes. I’m associated with a nearby school and I can tell you, our school sends people to all the Ivy’s but not a single one to Stanford in the last couple of years. They should be the ones investigated and not Harvard. So don’t hold your breadth on Stanford.

14

@ProfessorPlum168 my son’s high school is one of the pressure cookers mentioned above and this year there were 3 kids who got into Stanford but nobody got into Harvard. Although all the other Ivies were well represented.

I’m not sure my son’s high school is in the lawsuit, but the salutatorian of my son’s gradating class was a multiple Harvard legacy (both parents, 1 set of grandparents, older brother) and ended up being rejected in REA. Ended up going to Cornell instead.

15

If my memory is sort of correct, Mission San Jose, Monta Vista, and Lynbrook are part of the Harvard lawsuit. All 3 schools are majority Asian with high scoring kids.

@DieLit hopefully you make it in your top choice. You have some varied interests/are well rounded and you seem to be a student who doesn’t brag about his achievements.

16

You’re very competitive and have a decent shot at most of those schools! There’s not much you can do now, so I’d just crank out those essays.

17

Thank you all for the advice! I tend to take a more realistic view on things, and yes I will be working very hard on my essays.

One question, how do you know which schools are involved in the Harvard lawsuit? I haven’t researched much about it myself (personally I think AA is acceptable to a certain degree), but I still would like to know.

Thanks again!

18

@DieLit see my post #14. I believe those are the big 3 of Bay Area/Silicon Valley schools mentioned in the lawsuit.

Gunn, Paly, and Saratoga aren’t mentioned in the lawsuit since the demographics aren’t skewed towards Asian majority quite yet.

See the link from the Harvard Crimson. Monta Vista and TJ in Virginia are mentioned.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/4/25/high-schools-subpoena-admissions/

19

Mention AP scholar, not NHS.

20

Mention AP scholar, not NHS.