What are my chances for UChicago, Princeton, Caltech, and Columbia etc.?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

What are my chances for acceptance to schools like UChicago, Princeton, Caltech, Columbia, Duke, Penn, Northwestern? Also any ideas for more safety/match schools? I am currently a junior and I will be applying next year.

Intended Major: Mathematics or Dual Major w/ Computer Science
Asian
Male
Parents have high income. ( > 200,000)

UW GPA: 3.96
Weighted GPA: 4.69 (about as high as possible at my school)
ACT: 35, retaking and hoping to get 36
SAT: I’m taking in June, but I think I’ll be getting around 1560.
Class Rank: n/a
SAT II: Math II (800), Chem (750), US History (740)

APs: AP Human Geography (5), AP European History (5), AP Calculus (5), AP Statistics (5), AP Microeconomics (4), AP Physics I, AP Physics C, AP Chemistry, AP US History, AP Computer Science,

Senior Year Classes (Not completely finalized): Honors Latin 4, AP Biology, AP Physics II, AP Literature, AP Macro, AP Environmental Science, AP Gov.

ECS: Varsity Scholars Bowl (10-current, runner up at state this year), FBLA (10-current, 1st Place at state, qualified for nats), AIME Qualification (top 5% of best math students in country), 1st place KU Math Awareness Competition (Math Competition at my state run by state college.). DECA (11-current, qualified and attended International Career Development Conference). NHS, SciNHS, Math NHS (Hoping to run for president), Latin NHS.

Community Service: LEGO Robotics (helping young kids build lego robots during the summer), Harvesters (food drives), Helped organize carnival at local elementary school.

Summer Programs: AMSP Math summer program (9, 10), Not really doing anything this summer.

Recommendations: Pretty good, one from Calc Teacher who really likes me and other one undecided, probably from physics teacher.

2

Also, this summer I am going to be doing Boys State and I will try to get elected for a position.

3

William you have a profile that is very similar to a lot of other asian males. Unfortunately you are in a category that is extremely competitive. Having top grades and scores are not unique. So you’ll need to demonstrate something else about you that stands out.

All of the schools that you listed are lottery schools, with single digit accept rates. Definitely have a broader list of schools. I would suggest that you pick one of the reaches and apply early. Several of the schools listed above give a notable bump to ED applications: UChicago, Duke, Penn, Northwestern. Not so much for Princeton and Caltech.

4

All of the schools you listed must be considered reaches for any unhooked applicant. With acceptance rates under 10% there are not enough spots for all of the well qualified applicants. Be sure to create a well balanced application list that also includes match and safety schools that you would be excited to attend – those schools are out there if you search for them.

5

You probably should get your second recommendation from a non-STEM teacher.

Also, retaking the ACT and taking the SAT isn’t super necessary for you, unless you didn’t do terribly well on one of the sections of the ACT. If you feel the urge to test again, your efforts are probably better placed trying to improve your SAT subject test scores.

Some of the things you list probably shouldn’t be included on your apps. These include helping organize a carnival, AIME qualification, being in NHS, etc. These things aren’t impressive relative to other applicants at these schools. Furthermore they come off as resume padding.

You seem too interested with awards and accomplishments, and not interested enough with activities and real academic/intellectual/other interests. Try to emphasize more what you do and are interested in and less what recognition others have bestowed upon you.

You said you aren’t doing much this summer. Try to change that. Do something interesting that will enhance your apps. Also, make sure to write good essays. Start practicing this summer–it will pay-off.

Hope this helps!

6

Agree with all of the above comments.

Your 35 ACT is strong enough. Maybe Caltech will be excited about a 36 ACT score, but the 35 ACT is sufficient for your other listed schools.

You need to add some safety schools such as large publics which admit by numbers.

7

Re: Being too interested in awards, I’m just like listing those out from a resume standpoint. I’m not really sure how I can emphasize my passions in my resume.

Do you guys think I can become a competitive applicant if I am able to write good essays about my passion for math?

8

Call me bitter but whatever. You have absolutely no guarantee of getting into these schools no matter what you do. I find this whole “What are my chances” thread to be ridiculous. I had my own dreams crushed this March with all of my applications came back; it was one of the most emotionally destructive months of my life. I was rejected by EVERY single private school (applied to 8 btw) including but not limited to Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, and MIT. MIT was my dream school so that hurt the most but also knowing that I am nothing to college admissions officers but a “standard” and well rounded applicant. I had almost all the same honors and awards as you, high achieving valedictorians get nowhere if you’re from a midwestern high school. The kids who were accepted to an elite university from my school (Stanford and UChicago respectively) were both black. I’m all for affirmative action, but as a white girl, I was at a disadvantage and you are at a further disadvantage as an Asian male. The kids who DO get in aren’t as driven students and the college admissions system is broken (one of which I had all my classes with but he never bothered to show up half the time). Screw the system and the forums it creates and just enjoy your senior year. Find a so-called “safety school” because you’ll probably end up there in all honesty. More people are applying every year and if you haven’t created a company, nonprofit, or solved world hunger good luck to you.

9

@williamhamilton You are as competitive as most top applicants to these schools. That’s the good news. The bad news is that means that you have a 90% chance or higher of being rejected from each of those, and at least a 50% chance of being rejected from all of those. As a CS major, your chances drop even further.

Another bit of good news is that most of the best CS programs are at large public universities like UCB, UCLA, UMichigan, UIUC, Purdue, etc. If you are a resident of CA, IL, MI, IN, MA, etc, you likely have an excellent in-state public option which will be less of a reach for a high stats Asian kid, while having a better CS program than most of the schools on your list.

@apocalypticc I’m sorry you were so disappointed, but, by applying almost exclusively to colleges with acceptance ranges which are less than 10% you set yourself up for failure. You are evidently a very smart person, so you should have been able to do the math and figure out that there was a very high chance that you would be rejected from every single one of those colleges.

Getting mad and bitter because kids who you assume did worse than you were accepted is both counterproductive and unfair. Your assumption that the kids who got in to UChicago and Stanford did so because they ware black is just that - an assumption. You assume that they did not qualify for acceptance but provide no proof, except for the claim that they are Black

I know that it hurts for a kid who has been the best in their class to discover that there are another 20,000 kids who are just as good, and who are all applying to MIT, but again, you are pretty smart and you should have realized that this is the case.

10

It is really, really hard to get your head around just how many exceptionally able students there are, and the exceptionally able are almost all chasing the same handful of schools. The depth of talent that applies to the tippy tops is breathtaking. What it takes to stand out in that pool of talent is astonishing.

Suggesting that race or ‘affirmative action’ is why a specific student got a place that you did not- at the very best- sour grapes. You don’t know what you don’t know about other students. MIT specifically says ‘we are trying to build A perfect class not THE perfect class’. They know that they turn down tens of thousands of extremely strong applicants every year. The ones who do get an offer are not ‘better’ people: they are a group of people that the AdComm believed would be good as a class.

Most importantly, no applicant’s ‘worth’ is measured by how they fare in the admissions process- either direction. Being disappointed about not getting the external validation of a super-fancy name is entirely fair: who doesn’t like to win the big prize?! But it is not a referendum on you- and it does not mean that there aren’t other options that will take you just as far in life.

And yet, I agree to some extent with @apocalypticc: you do set yourself up for disappointment if you decide that the only ‘win’ is if you get into one of a handful of schools who routinely have to turn down 90%+ of their applicants. All those students are just as smart, driven, capable and accomplished when they arrive at their Plan B - or Plan C- option. The sting of rejection (which is never, ever fun) hurts less if you have chosen Plans B & C in advance that you actually feel good about. Focus on that, and treat the tippy tops as a bonus.

11

Agree OP is competitive, in what he shows us. Yet to see: the rest of the thinking top privates will need evidence of.

I think it’s clear OP doesn’t understand yet what else needs to show. So put the effort into reading what the targets say and show.

Do not take carnival (or AIME) off, based on one stranger’s remarks. Since your formal ECs are all stem, these smaller things can make you seem open, a nice guy.

Youre in Kansas? Not a lot of Asian American applicants in stem from there.

12

@lookingforward Geographic diversity is a thing? I’m an Asian American from New Hampshire…does the seemingly rural state help at all?

13

@williamhamilton To continue my comment about looking at public colleges. Many CS programs, in both private and public colleges, have much lower acceptance rates than those of the rest of the university. So, while UIUC has an acceptance rate of 55%, and would be a safety for somebody who is applying as a biology major, the acceptance rates of its CS program are far lower, and it should be considered a reach for CS

So, when you put together the list of colleges to which you want to apply, shift everything “up”. So many safeties would be considered low matches, matches can be reaches, etc.

14

@squ1rrel: Geographic diversity doesn’t help unless you’re applying in-state public, where they’re often government-bound to accept a certain percentage per ethnicity.

@collegemom3717 and @MWolf: I just want to speak in defence of @apocalypticc and her apparently controversial post about in randomness of the college process. She wasn’t saying that those admissions decisions were based on race. Her point was about the unfairness, and she backed it with how one of the accepted students rarely showed up to class. She was screwed over by this process, as are countless seniors across the country, and rightfully so. I don’t think it’s right to call her mad, bitter, racist, and sour grapes over an experience that likely permanently impacted her life, when all she’s done is call out the system and its flaws.

To the OP: I agree with @TheSATTeacher in that your you need to separate your awards from your ECs. ECs are usually team-oriented, with fixed after-school meetings and the like. Your awards don’t define you, but the experiences and values you gained from your ECs do. I suggest placing a much higher emphasis on those than your competitions and qualifications.

15

Geo diversity does matter to top colleges. They won’t take all their kids from one hs, one pocket of an area, one city, one region of the country. There are some flagships that make a point of getting kids from all over their state. But it is not limited to publics. And it’s not about ethnicity, nor are their percentage mandates.

And OP does seem competitive. His was a question based on his efforts, not any “in general.”

Look at the Common App, @daunt18. Awards are listed in a section for that. The CA asks that ECs be listed in order of importance to the applicant. (And how he does that wil tell a lot about his understanding of what matters to the college.)

ECs are not always team oriented. Nor defined by meeting at school, after the bell rings. Much more is expected when one names some fiercely competitive colleges.

16

Applying as a math major or undeclared, rather than as a CS major, might give you a slight boost at UChicago, Princeton, Columbia, Duke, Penn and Northwestern, but perhaps not much at Caltech.

Your stats are good, and the rest depends on your essays. You need to stand out from your peers with equally impressive stats; showcase the breadth of your interests and your expansive perspective. If you would like to talk about your passion for math in your essays, perhaps explore the connection between mathematics and other disciplines, such as music, nature, social science, philosophy (Bertrand Russell was a philosopher and mathematician, for example). I suggest emphasizing your community service ECs (especially for Princeton). What did you learn from helping to run the LEGO Robotics, food drives, and carnival at local elementary school? Perhaps, describe specific events that have helped to build up the fine characters you most likely already have: empathy; integrity; sense of community. As a side note, Princeton also requires the submission of a graded paper as part of the application.