What are my chances? Senior in HS

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’ll be applying as Public Health, Psychology, or something in linguistics depending on the school. I will also be Pre-Med.

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): didn’t take
SAT II: Math II- haven’t received my score yet, 690 Bio (E)
ACT: First sitting–> 28 composite, 29 english, 27 math, 32 reading, 24 science
Second sitting–> 32 composite, 35 english, 28 math, 32 reading, 31 science (HUGE improvement)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.76
Weighted GPA: 4.07
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): My school doesn’t rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Environmental Science (3), AP Euro (3), AP Calc AB (4), AP Biology (4), AP Calc BC (5), AP Calc AB subscore (5), Taking AP Psych and AP Studio Art-Drawing this year

Senior Year Course Load: AP Psych, Sociology/Law in Action, AP Studio Art-Drawing, World Literature, Civics/Economics, Sports Medicine, Multivariable Calculus (through a community college; finished with an A), and Farsi (through an outside heritage language school)

Subjective:
Clubs (place leadership in parenthesis): Environmental Awareness Club (VP of Food Recovery this year, Commissioner for two years), Student Senate, Peer Counseling/Peer Tutoring, California Scholarship Federation, Persian Club

Sports: JV Dive freshman year, none after that (probably won’t include this in my application)
Job/Work Experience: none
Volunteer/Community service: 170+ through a selective hospital internship (had an interview and all that good stuff), 20+ recycling and food donation for my school
Awards: Received from a county fair competition 2nd place colored pencil (2015), 1st place+best in class oil painting (2016), AP Scholar with Distinction (2016), my school’s honor roll (2016) … Should I put any of these on my application?

Common App Essay: My peer editors told me they loved it and that it was very unique. I would rate it 9/10
UC Essays: Peer editors also said they loved them. I would rate them 8/10
Teacher Recommendation: would say 9 or 10/10 APES Teacher who is also my environmental club advisor: known him for 3 years and he knows me well; he told me he’s especially proud of the letter of rec he wrote for me so I bet it’s good!
AP Calc BC teacher: probably 8/10 had her last year and made it a point to be a good student in her class, she adores me for getting a 5 on the BC test and tutoring her geometry students
Counselor Rec: 8/10 probably. We have a good relationship and she knows me fairly well

Other:
State (if domestic applicant): CA
School Type: Super competitive public school
Ethnicity: White (Middle Eastern)
Gender: Female
Hooks (Athlete; first generation college, etc.): Is being Iranian/Afghan a hook? Otherwise, I have no hooks

Schools I’m applying to: Northwestern (1st choice), UChicago (2nd choice), Brown U, Northeastern, Boston U, UCI, UCSD, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, University of Washington in Seattle, and SFSU (safety)

I’ve visited: Northwestern, UCI, and UCSD

2

I will go cold:

They don’t care about “huge improvements” in test scores, although they do care about improvements in GPA/grade. Also 4 point rise in ACT doesn’t look like a “huge improvement” when your test score is still far below average for those schools of your choice.

Your GPA are comparatively lower than average for Northwestern, UChicago, Brown U, UCB, etc. and barely on average for most other schools of your choice.

Your ECs don’t really look special either, holding a VP in one club only.

Also, having no work experience will hurt you as well.

I think you can put in the first two awards you wrote down, but the other two are very typical, so don’t.

Apparently you don’t have any hook. Being an Iranian/Afghan is never a hook.

Overall, you don’t stand almost any chance at Northwestern, UChicago, Brown U, UCB, and all the other schools you stated but SFSU seem to be reach schools for you.

3

@HardOREasy Yikes. I chose to focus on clubs that were important to me instead of being the president of 10 different clubs. How is having no work experience going to hurt me? Not every student has the time for a part-time job. Either way, I believe my hospital internship will be looked upon as work experience since I basically do the work of a CNA without pay. Also, I’d appreciate it if you would cite your sources so that I can see exactly you’re pulling this information from.

4

Have you calculated your UC gpa? Looks like you are a bit low for UCB but should be in range for the others. A 32 is not “far below average” for anywhere. Your reaches are gonna be reaches and I wouldnt get too excited about them but you’ll get into at least 4-5 of the schools on your list.

5

Northwestern, Brown, Cal, and Chicago are reaches for you as they are for everyone. You have a fair chance at the rest with SFSU being a safety. SFSU sent out their first round of acceptances today, just an FYI. Good Luck

6

@notveryzen @uclahopefull Thank you both for your input!

7

Northwestern: http://enrollment.northwestern.edu/pdf/2014profile.pdf
UChicago: https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/page/profile-class-2020
Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts
UCB & all other UC schools: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance

Check these out, these will help you.

Also, When I said “Your ECs don’t really look special either, holding a VP in one club only,” I meant that, while you “chose to focus on clubs that were important to me,” your ECs were not reflecting that much of contributions to your clubs. It is very true that colleges do not like well-rounded students (“being the president of 10 different clubs”); however, if you were focusing on those few clubs that were important to you, it would have been better if you were holding some positions to show the colleges that not only you are focusing on the clubs that are of value to yourself, but also the degree of my contributions are very much that I’m on the board of directors, as well.


[QUOTE=""]
How is having no work experience going to hurt me? <<< Well, it is true that it doesn't technically "hurt" you. But by "hurting" I meant it in a way that you are not taking advantage of something that almost everyone else takes advantage of. For example, when colleges say Subject Tests are optional, certainly it is OK not to submit any. However, it definitely raises your chances of getting admitted if you do turn in with an exceptional score. Note that majority of the colleges you are applying to are considering work experiences (Just to name a few, check the links to CDS of Northwestern and UChicago below). Be sure to check CDS of schools as they show you what they consider, take as important and take as VERY important during evaluation. So, to rephrase about what I meant earlier, most of the applicants actually have work experiences to raise as much chances as possible, even by 1%; however, you being one of the few with no work experience will slightly "lower" chance, or not receive the small "extra" chance.

[/QUOTE]

http://enrollment.northwestern.edu/pdf/common-data/2014-15.pdf (Go to C7, or Find “Work Experience”)
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=327 (Find “Work Experience”)


[QUOTE=""]
Either way, I believe my hospital internship will be looked upon as work experience since I basically do the work of a CNA without pay. <<

[/QUOTE]

Yes, that IS a work experience. Note that unpaid internships are considered work experience, so make sure to write it on the application.

Sorry if I sounded offensive to you earlier. As I said (that “I will go cold” in the begining), I usually go cold on people because I don’t want them to have false hopes when they really can’t, and I don’t want to see them fall in depression or such after later getting rejected from colleges they had hopes for. That’s why I try to weed out the colleges that are deemed to be high-reach for him/her. But certainly, I am not a college rep and cannot give you a 100% accurate response, so feel free to ignore me.

Have a fun Christmas!

8

@notveryzen Yes, and perhaps “far below average” for a decent ACT score of 32 may have been harsh. The reason I said so is that in UChicago, 25th percentile ACT score is 32, Northwestern 31, Brown 33. Check the link I put in the top of the last post. The fact that he/she was standing on around 25th percentile just seemed a bit dangerous. That’s why I said it.

9

@HardOREasy I suspect there is a lot more correlation and a lot less causation with test scores than most applicants think. My kid had a 35 last year. He’s got a big group of friends, several of which had 36/2400 scores and a bunch more with 32s 33s, and 34s. When application season was done, virtually all of the perfect score kids got deferred, waitlisted, or outright rejected from all the top 10-15 school while several of the lower scoring kids did just great. I seriously doubt the top 10 schools are reading much into the difference between a 32 kid and a 35 kid.

10

@notveryzen Yes, you nailed it. Colleges do NOT like applicants who only spend their time on studying; they want active students who are not just studying-machines. That’s why a lot of applicants with 36s/2400s get rejected/deferred every year. Also, colleges review holistically when evaluating an applicant, so standing out in one area will never get him/her to success (unless good enough to be recruited).

However, as you know, test scores are among major factors considered important or very important by many colleges. You also know that they do weigh somewhat a bit, depending on college. So my saying is, although test score doesn’t necessarily determine chance of admission, if you want to get into an elite college, then your test score should also be high or above average unless you are certain that something else about you can make up for it; else, having low score will most likely hurt you.