Hey guys, as a high school senior who has applied to quite a few universities, I’m worried as hell and I’d love some “chance me” insights to change how I should think about this entire ordeal. I will greatly appreciate it if you could spend a moment to go through my stats.
Unweighted GPA: Unknown, school doesn’t give out GPA (Canadian school), but I am a full diploma IB student with an average of 5 out of 7 in all of my classes. Actual grade is 33/45 on the IB Scale. Had an average of around 86% in grades 9-10. IB transcript stated that a 33/45 is around a 93%.
SAT score: Nov 2013 Total: 1790 CR 570, Math 720, W 500, Essay: 06/12
ACT score: Oct 2014 Composite: 32, English 28, Reading 35, Science 34, Math 31, Writing 10/12, Combined Eng/writing 28.
SAT II scores: SAT Math II 730/760 (First and second try), SAT Physics 730/760 (First and second try as well, it’s a coincidence) Both SAT and ACT exams are first tries.
Senior year courses:
- IB English SL
- IB Mathematics SL
- IB Chemistry HL
- IB Geography HL
- IB Biology HL
- IB Spanish SL
No APs.
Applied majors: Chemistry, Biology (physiology), and Biochemistry depending on the university, my main aspiration is in chemistry, but I’m fine with any other listed ones.
Extracurriculars:
Canadian student, so I’m not overly familiar with the American forms and terminologies of extracurriculars. I’ll list what I’ve listed on my college applications.
- Built a farnsworth nuclear fusion reactor with a friend as a summer project, entered the regional science fair and won an "Outstanding engineering project" award in my age (senior) category. Sugarcoated this as the "project leader/co-founder" when entering my ECs.
- Co-created (with my brother) two iPhone/android applications and published it on the iPhone appstore and the Google Play store.
- Founder/leader of the school's App/programming club. Club has been running since September after the launch of our second app (which explains the delay).
- Violin learner for >7 years, passed the music theory and level 8 violin examinations
- Golf player (no sports teams or varsity, recreational) for >5 years
- Symphony orchestra second/third violinist
- Did a research project at a university and wrote an essay on it in chemistry for my IB Diploma program, had a great experience and wrote about it in my essays.
- >100 volunteer hours.
- Volunteered with my city with over 50 documented hours within, initiated several citywide events with them and is currently on the steering committee of a major city event.
There are other things that I have withheld because they are central to my identity and I wish to remain anonymous, I can provide them upon request but I’d like to keep them off of this post. That being said, this information should be enough for rough estimations.
Essays:
Generic essay, failure, event central to identity, etc.
- Wrote about the process of building that nuclear reactor: how initially I thought it was simple to build one because I understood the concepts and theories behind one, but only to learn that it was way more complicated. We ended up succeeding but had to go through an extra 8 months learning the additional theories behind the reactor (power supply, vacuum chamber, etc). Wrote about how introspection (to avoid arrogance) was important to me
Cultural/diversity essay
- Wrote about my old background being extremely homogenous and thinking that everyone had the same opinions, which harbored a black and white perspective on opinions: there is a “correct” one and a “wrong” one. Then I moved to a more culturally diverse area and during an in-class discussion, realized that opinions that differ can both be “right”, which created tolerance to different ideas and realizing that other perspectives can also synthesize opinions that are “correct” as opposed to my traditional thought that there must be a right and wrong opinion.
Why us? “Groveling” essay
- I only had to write this for UW Madison, so I wrote about my researching experience in the summer because I’ve always been interested in chemistry. I learned that I loved doing research and wrote about how research oriented UW Madison is (it is!). Included a few stats about the dept. and uni as proof that I have done some research, I integrated them into the essay. My mom also went to UW Milwaukee so I wrote about how that exposed me to UW Madison.
Recommendations:
3 teachers, two of which I frequently talk to about thinking processes and stuff, so they should know me pretty well, I also asked my chemistry teacher because he was directly involved in my research project over the summer. 1 principal (there’s only one in our school), she wrote a letter and I loved it.
American colleges I’ve applied to: Based on order of concern/importance/desire. Canadian universities, though significantly cheaper, aren’t exactly on my radar or concern for some reason. 
I have to pay out of state/International fees for american colleges. Would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me if they are reaches/safeties/matches etc.
- University of Wisconsin - Madison and University of Washington (First choices)
- University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
- University of California - Santa Barbara
I applied to both UWs in early December. (Before the end of the first week)
Reach (impossible reaches):
- University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
- University of California - Los Angeles
- University of California - Berkeley
- Northwestern University
- University of Chicago
- University of Pennsylvania
Miscellaneous:
3rd gen college student, high household income. One of the highest ranked public high school in my region. (these will probably all hurt my chances heh)
I have applied to all of those universities except from U chig and U penn, both of which will be submitted in the next few days (due in 1 day!!) but I’m not caring about it as much as I should because I’m pretty sure I’m not getting in anyways. They’re all Commonapp universities so applying them should be easier. Any thought would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
