What Are My Chances? Notre Dame, Cornell, WUSTL, Tulane, Vandy, BU

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

class of 2016

SCHOOL STATS
GPA: 3.90 ish…
school in suburbia.

BACKGROUND
1st gen. Asian in america
financial burdens including sister w/ disability.
fluent in Japanese and korean
Tennessean

SCORES
SAT score: n/a
ACT score: 30 [do you guys/girls think this is my weakest aspect right now ? ]
superscore: 32

NOTE
the reason that many of my clubs are only 2-3 years is because only recently have i had the opportunity to independently travel to my clubs.

AWARDS
Violin 15 years.
-3 years of best orchestra in state of tennessee and associated with Vanderbilt University and 2 years as assistant principal for 2nd violin and 1 year as first violin.there are student from KY, MS , and AL come to the rehearsals once a week.
-1 year in a different orchestra equally as competitive as the first one, also associated with Vanderbilt University (concert master)
-4 years in state’s orchestra competition and concert master.
-1st place in team Robotics in state - team
-2nd place in team Robotics in southern central America -team
-1st place in team Robotics in state (2nd time) - team
-southern central robotics American qualifier -team
-various math competitions awards top 10 -indiv
-JCL awards top 10 - indiv
-countless chess awards (state,national,international)
[-National Chess Champion in 2007]
-HOSA state qualifier - group

CLUBS AND WORK
HOSA (2 year)
Robotics (3 years)
Working at a restaurant (2 years)
Debate club (2 years)
chess club president (2 years)
Quizbowl (1 year)
Mock Trial (2 years)
photography club (2 years)
kumon instructor volunteer.
hosa (2 years)
Track (2 years)
Vice president of math tutoring organization(2 years)
Vice president of math tutoring organization (2 years)
NHS (2 years)
Beta club (2 years)
Beta club officer (1 year)
played violin for church every Sunday and Wednesday for 2 years.
dog walking business. (3 years)
teaching violin to 5 students (1 year)
guided new volunteers at Nashville public library.
200+ volunteer hours
started a chess club at local elementary school. (7 years)
creating website where people can learn.
gave speech on relationship between school sports and concussions.
play chess.
going to enter Intel Science Fair with SuperCapictor
learning python
played chess competitively for 9 years.

LETTERS
-letters i have a really good relationship with my chemistry and my calculus teacher and i believe that i should get a good recommendation letter
-college letter probably revolves around how violin/chess/robotics

AP’s
our school only allows us 1 AP during our sophomore year and i couldn’t take it due to my time schedule because our school only has 4 periods each semester…
1st semester:
no AP’s
2nd semester:
AP calc
AP physics
AP english
AP biology

SAT2
studying for math 2 and english

2

Your ACT is going to hurt a little. A super scored 32 is probably the bare minimum for some of those schools

BUT You have a great GPA. ECs, and have that 1st generation hook.

If you want to be seen as a strong candidate, I recommend a 33-34 superscored.

As of now:
Vanderbilt: Low Reach
Cornell: Low Reach
Boston (Assuming Boston University): Match
Notre Dame: High Match
Vanderbilt: High Match (In-state helps a lot)

Your best bet is to ED Vandy. I can bet you, you have a really great shot at Vandy!!!

Chance back :slight_smile:

3

Bump

4

bump

5

Those schools don’t superscore ACT.

What will help is the bounce coming from TN
And FirstGen

  • will you pursue Music?
6

@Klee16 Lol, Vandy&WasU place the hugest emphasis on test scores. IMO, Vandy is a low match.

7

Low match???

8

The middle 50% for ND, Wash U and Vandy is 32-34. Being in the bottom 25% makes these schools extreme reaches.

9

so…do i have a good or bad chance for vandy… i heard both sides… other than that. if i can raise my ACT score to like 33 i should have a significantly better chance right ?

10

Vandy DOES superscore the ACT (they said this at an information session I attended) though I’m not sure about the others. With its extremely low (~15%) acceptance rate, Vandy is not a low match for anyone, especially with a relatively low ACT score on their scale. However, their ED 1 rate is significantly higher than their ED 2 and regular rates, so if that’s the school you want definitely apply early! I think the biggest thing you need to do is make sure to only focus on the ECs that are most important to you because you present so many, a lot with minimal commitment, that your application will become muddled if you try to include them all.

11

thanks for the advice everyone. So to recap

notre dame, tulane, and boston are the ones that i will hopefully be able to get in righht ?

what about the other ones ?

12

Based on the profile ND is remote, Tulane looks OK and BC is in the middle.

13

@tomsrofboston what do you mean by “low match???”

14

The previous poster said Vandy was a low match. That is incorrect. It is a low reach at best.

15

what can i make it to a match then ? @TomSrOfBoston my act score ?

16

bump… and also, none of the schools mentioned above REQUIRE sat II per say, so should i still actually bother taking them?

17

sorry… but, i have seen that SAT II subject tests are “encouraged”… does that mean that they want your SAT II scores basically?

also… i was thinking of

university of michigan and emory… i think i can get into university of michigan

18

bump

19

@harrisonwe98 It would be wise to take SAT II to show that you have “mastered” in that area. Better safe than sorry especially if they colleges “encourage” it.

20

@harrisonwe98 you can’t make vandy a match. It has a quite low acceptance rate that makes it not a match for anyone.