What is the chance that I threw away $90 for nothing?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Applied to Stanford a couple weeks ago. Wondering if I paid $90 to receive a rejection letter XD.</p>

<p>Please use a scale of 1-10, 1 being "you'll get in the day hell freezes over/admission officer was definitely abusing substances when he let you in" and 10 being "10 times better chance than the average Stanford applicant (I wish)."</p>

<p>Female, Asian, Michigan resident
Prospective major: chemical engineering
Took Econ AP, Chem AP, English 11 AP last year
This year taking World AP, Calc BC, Bio AP, and English 12 AP</p>

<p>Took ACT once - 34 comp/35 reading/33 sci/32 math/34 eng/8 writing
SAT Chem 800/Math II 800
No volunteering hours (I know, such a humanitarian)
4.03 weighted GPA (honors are not weighted at my school, only AP's)
AP scores: Chem 5/Micro 5/Macro 4/English 5</p>

<p>EC's (kinda weak =/)
9th - soccer
10th - none
11th - chem club (co-president), environmental club, GSA (occasionally)
12th - chem club (co-president), environmental club</p>

<p>Awards
AP Scholar, national merit commended, USNCO finalist w/ honors (top 150), random unimportant school academic awards</p>

<p>Essays
Quite passionate </p>

<p>Rec Letter 1: pretty good, my teacher said I was one of his best ten students in nearly 30 years of teaching. Although, the letter kinda made me sound like some high-achieving intelligent robot rather than a real person with personality. Guess that's why we have the essays.</p>

<p>No idea about rec letter 2 since I did not get to read it.</p>

2

<p>What are your safeties?</p>

3

<p>No one can tell you whether you have a 40% or a 60% or whatever of getting in… It’s not a waste of money if you really want to go there. Your ECs are pretty lackluster, but the rest seems fine. You’ve certainly accomplished a lot, so you’ll probably end up somewhere marvelous, even if it’s not Stanford. Where else have/will you apply? None of us have read your essays, nor do we work in Stanford’s admissions office, so if you’ve already applied, posting on here won’t do much to calm your nerves.</p>

4

<p>high-achieving intelligent robot</p>

<p>That’s a great description of my reaction to your application as you’ve told us about it. You take tests well, probably study well, and seem to have no life or genuine interests except getting into college. Competitive schools see lots of applications like this. Some people get in and some don’t. I don’t think your chances are great.</p>

5

<p>Try McGill or U Toronto; these two schools don’t look at ECs unless you’re on the fence. Plus there are lots of “high-achieving intelligent robots”, as you put it, at these two places, yet these people get an educational quality similar to Stanford.</p>

6

<p>As others have said your chances are no so great. You are an asian applicant with good grades and scores but no ECs (you have so little is essentially none). Look for schools that focus on raw numbers and not anything else like ECs.</p>

7

<p>Yeah I’m just really hoping my essays put me out of that “robotic” mold. :confused:
I think they’re a bit risky since I wrote them as if I were talking to my best friend rather than a real essay, conversational in tone with a bit of humor. I know some admission officers will be put off by that.</p>

<p>I honestly love Stanford (I’ve visited!), and its the only HYP level school I’m applying to because the others just don’t attract me. Thanks for being honest… but fingers crossed, I guess :P. if I’m not accepted, their loss. Not really. Mostly my loss.</p>

<p>My safeties are Michigan (in-state) and Georgia Tech (I know they focus on grades alone).
I have few EC’s but I poured countless hours into one particular club (Chemistry Club) by coming up with experiments and preparing them, making sure they’re safe enough for everyone. And I’ve sacrificed a lot for that club XD (i.e, nearly blinding myself by accidentally blowing something up and hot acid flying everywhere). I spend 2-4 hours a week on this club.</p>

<p>@Wordworker
I think I made it quite clear how passionate about chemistry I am in my essays and my teacher made that pretty obvious in his letter too. I’m just hoping the guys who read my essay don’t dislike Chem nerds. :)</p>

8

<p>@Sophia7X The thing is 2-4 hours a week with it being your only EC and something you did not start until junior year is not so great. Speaking from personal experience (though I am not going to apply to Stanford) I have two clubs that I put that long into (one of which I have had leadership positions two out of three years and am favorite to be president of next year), yearbook which is at least 4-5 hours a week (though part of is it in school), a class that is 5 hours a week outside of school, around 3 hours of community service a week (sometimes less during the school year/more during the summer/averages to that) and several other ECs including a selective leadership program and board positions. These are the types of profiles that are sort of average for top schools, sometimes they are more focussed, but there is always a lot. Most top applicants are spending at least 15 hours a week in ECs and have community service and leadership as a part of that. Your essays might help if they are great, good luck, numbers wise you are fine, so we will see…</p>

9

<p>Only a little over a month to find out. :slight_smile:
If I get in, free cookies and hugs for everyone.</p>

<p>Time passes way too fast, it feels like only yesterday I was a junior!</p>

<p>Edit: I’m wondering if Stanford is like Cornell where females have 2-3 times a chance to engineering compared to males, lol.</p>

10

<p>What is your actual GPA (I mean the unweighted GPA)? That would help us to assess your chances, also. Every school weights differently, so most colleges unweight the scores and look at them or unweight them and then re-weight them using their own formula. YOur weighted GPA could mean all A’s but 3 A minuses at one high school, all A’s but 4 A minuses and 1 B at another high school, etc, and that is far different from a student at a non-weighting high school (like my son’s) who gets all A’s in every class, AP, honors, or regular, and cannot exceed a 4.0 GPA. So in short, what is your unweighted GPA (or if you don’t know, how many non-A grades do you have and in what classes)? Many of the selective colleges look at GPA and rigor of classes just as hard as SAT/ACT scores.</p>

11

<p>My school doesn’t report unweighted nor does it rank.</p>

<p>But I’ve received 2 B’s in freshman year each semester (so 4 since we calculate GPA by semester). The classes were Honors English and Honors Algebra 2.</p>

<p>Sophomore year, I received 1 B in honors English.</p>

12

<p>No you defnitley have a chance I also wanna get into stanford too but im only a freshman</p>