A good Match, Perhaps?

codexaenir · 06-30-2007, 02:15 AM

Basically a public school student, ACT:33. SAT:2160 ... Takes hardest courses (Many AP's)

SAT 2s: Math:800 Physics:800 U.S. HIstory:760

EC's include being on Excellent Chess team (State 3rd place, 2nd place) (Nationals top 25)

Teaching assistant for Kung fu class for kids, have been taking kung fu since age 11.

works for lion dance group, travels around the area doing many performances.

Math team

Ping-pong

Plays the piano

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Am thinking of:

Reach: Yale, Columbia, Cornell

Match: UChicago, Northwestern

Safeties: UIUC, UCSD, NYU

Are these choices good? Any suggestions for one more good match. I want to major in economics, btw

unalove · 06-30-2007, 10:32 AM

If you check out other threads, you'll see that liking both UChicago and Northwestern is difficult, though not impossible, as the schools have entirely different feels to them. UChi, Northwestern, and Cornell should all be high matches, I think-- you look like a good candidate for admission, but these schools are not by any means sure things.

If you want to stay in the midwest, the other standout schools there include Notre Dame and WashU. Hopkins might be another option-- anecdotally, I've seen that it's easier for non-premeds and non-IR people to gain admission to the school. I'm also a big fan of Tufts.

Hope this helped.

menloparkmom · 06-30-2007, 01:58 PM

Code, Unless you are a Calif resident, any of the UC's are a reach for OOS students. On average, only 10% of OOS applicants get accepted to UC's.

teenage_cliche · 06-30-2007, 02:52 PM

I don't really understand how you could consider NYU a safety.

RCMan13 · 06-30-2007, 04:50 PM

You left out one piece. Probably the most important one - your GPA.

Other than that your test scores are good enough that only Yale and Columbia are true reaches. Assuming that your GPA is good, Northwestern, UChicago, and Cornell should all be within reach. Cornell is no harder to get into than either of the Chicago schools, so I don't understand why that would be in your reach category while the others are in match.

Oh and the post above should be ignored. NYU is certainly a safety for somebody with those test scores. Tons of people from my school got accepted to NYU with SATs under 2000 and class rank under the 75th percentile.

teenage_cliche · 07-01-2007, 08:50 AM

RCMan13: I'm not saying that the OP couldn't get into NYU, I'm just suggesting that he not consider it a safety.

codexaenir: Do you have a part of the country you want in particular? And it seems as though you like bigger schools; are you ruling out smaller LACs?

Chedva · 07-01-2007, 12:09 PM

No school with an acceptance rate of 37% (NYU) can be considered a safety for anyone. At best, it's a match.

A safety is a school that one can be reasonably certain will accept the student. It should have an acceptance rate of 45-50% before it can be considered a safety.

codexaenir · 07-01-2007, 07:31 PM

Okay thanks for all the advice guys, how does this look?

Reach: Yale, Columbia, Princeton

Match: UChicago, Northwestern, Cornell, NYU (maybe not)

Safeties: UIllinois-UrbanaChampaign, BostonU, University of Washington

My GPA is about 3.9 Unweighted and 4.94 weighted.

unalove · 07-01-2007, 07:37 PM

It looks good... because UChicago, NU, and Cornell are high matches, and NYU a mid-low match (I think? maybe?) you might want a few more in the match category. WashU, JHU, Tufts, URochester, Emory, Vanderbilt, etc. are all matchy and are all strong schools worth looking into.

You know your list is done when you have a bunch of safety schools you wouldn't mind going to and a bunch of match schools you really like and feel confident about.

AzNChoiBoi8 · 07-01-2007, 07:49 PM

i am not so sure about some of the comments made on this thread:

"Code, Unless you are a Calif resident, any of the UC's are a reach for OOS students. On average, only 10% of OOS applicants get accepted to UC's."

I don't think the percentage is that low. About 10% of UC students are OOS, but that is entirely different from saying that only 10% of OOS students get into a UC.

"No school with an acceptance rate of 37% (NYU) can be considered a safety for anyone. At best, it's a match."

I'm sure NYU is a safety for the average Harvard student. Yes, the acceptance rate is 37%, so the average applicant has about a 37% chance of getting in, but students in the top of the applicant pool have a higher chance than that. If you have 4.0, 2400, 800, 800, 800, legacy status, and extremely impressive ECs/essays/recs, one would call NYU a safety. Schools' acceptance rates must be considered with the strength of their applicant pools. After all, UCLA/USC have acceptance rates around 25% and UChicago around 40%, but generally speaking, getting into UChicago is more difficult due to its "stronger" applicants.

Redenbacher's · 07-01-2007, 07:50 PM

I noticed that you mentioned you're a chess player, and an exceptionally good one. If financial aid is important to you, you might want to consider UTexas at Dallas. They offer scholarships (partial or full) to qualified chess players. I know one classmate of mine (came in 4th this year, individual all-around at Nationals) got a full ride there although I'm not sure if he's attending.