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Do I have even a slight shot at Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, or USC?
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7 replies10 threads Junior Member
Hey guys,
My stats suck. My SAT is 1420 (1470 super scored) and I have always dreamt of going to any one of the colleges I listed above. Not because of their ranking, but because I feel that I can fit in. My GPA isn't too impressive either; it's a 4.02 weighted and 3.75 unweighted. On SAT Subject Tests, I got 680 on Chem (taking it again) and 750 Math II.
Everything would've been much higher if I handled my home situation well. My uncle died the day i had two finals, which led to me failing both, bringing my grades down. I was in depression for the next month or two because we were very close. A month later, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had to spend much of my time taking care of her rather than focusing on school. When the summer came, I immersed myself into two summer programs: Stanford CASP and UC Davis COSMOS. As I spent time with these programs and focused on myself, I began to change and today I am a much happier and positive person now. I explained this all on my Common App and detailed how I have changed and what I plan to do with these skills in college.
I do have a lot of extracurriculars though. I was in my school's Varsity Volleyball team from 9-12th grade (planning on doing it next semester) and I was in my school's Varsity Cross Country Team from 9-11th grade (would've done it again but I have to take care of my mom right now). I co-founded three clubs in my school: Math Club, Biology Club, and a club related to educating the mass on cancers. I prepared the middle schoolers in my team for MATHCOUNTS and they all got the "Honorable Mention" award. I have a booth at a farmer's market in my community and my club members and I educate people on the importance of mammograms (my mom's cancer opened my eyes to a lot of things and I wanted to help others out so I did this). In 11th grade, I also raised $15,000 for patients with blood cancers (under Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). I earned the Mission Honor Roll Award. I also received the Science Department Award at my school, in recognition for my passion and creativity in science.
These low stats certainly put me at a disadvantage and I don't know what to do now. I am applying ED at Johns Hopkins and I am seeing everyone's stats and they are far higher than mine. These people also have a lot of impressive extracurriculars. Yes, its acceptance rate is't too bad (31% last year), but everyone applying ED at JHU is so talented and this puts me at a weaker place. All the admitted applicants at UCLA, UCB, USC, and CMU have crazy stats and mine are nothing compared to them.
Could someone please let me know what I can do about this? Do I have a shot at any of them or not? I have safety schools in my list, but these schools are my dream schools and I really want to get in to any one of them. Any sort of advice is appreciated.
7 replies My stats suck. My SAT is 1420 (1470 super scored) and I have always dreamt of going to any one of the colleges I listed above. Not because of their ranking, but because I feel that I can fit in. My GPA isn't too impressive either; it's a 4.02 weighted and 3.75 unweighted. On SAT Subject Tests, I got 680 on Chem (taking it again) and 750 Math II.
Everything would've been much higher if I handled my home situation well. My uncle died the day i had two finals, which led to me failing both, bringing my grades down. I was in depression for the next month or two because we were very close. A month later, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had to spend much of my time taking care of her rather than focusing on school. When the summer came, I immersed myself into two summer programs: Stanford CASP and UC Davis COSMOS. As I spent time with these programs and focused on myself, I began to change and today I am a much happier and positive person now. I explained this all on my Common App and detailed how I have changed and what I plan to do with these skills in college.
I do have a lot of extracurriculars though. I was in my school's Varsity Volleyball team from 9-12th grade (planning on doing it next semester) and I was in my school's Varsity Cross Country Team from 9-11th grade (would've done it again but I have to take care of my mom right now). I co-founded three clubs in my school: Math Club, Biology Club, and a club related to educating the mass on cancers. I prepared the middle schoolers in my team for MATHCOUNTS and they all got the "Honorable Mention" award. I have a booth at a farmer's market in my community and my club members and I educate people on the importance of mammograms (my mom's cancer opened my eyes to a lot of things and I wanted to help others out so I did this). In 11th grade, I also raised $15,000 for patients with blood cancers (under Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). I earned the Mission Honor Roll Award. I also received the Science Department Award at my school, in recognition for my passion and creativity in science.
These low stats certainly put me at a disadvantage and I don't know what to do now. I am applying ED at Johns Hopkins and I am seeing everyone's stats and they are far higher than mine. These people also have a lot of impressive extracurriculars. Yes, its acceptance rate is't too bad (31% last year), but everyone applying ED at JHU is so talented and this puts me at a weaker place. All the admitted applicants at UCLA, UCB, USC, and CMU have crazy stats and mine are nothing compared to them.
Could someone please let me know what I can do about this? Do I have a shot at any of them or not? I have safety schools in my list, but these schools are my dream schools and I really want to get in to any one of them. Any sort of advice is appreciated.
Replies to: Do I have even a slight shot at Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, or USC?
Are you a CA resident? You have good EC’s and hopefully good personal insight essays so definitely apply but no way to determine your chances.
You have many great aspects of your application but consider UCLA/UCB Reach school regardless of your stats.
Some UC statistical data to give you some perspective.
2018 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 10%
UCLA: 9%
UCSD: 34%
UCSB: 38%
UCD: 41%
UCI: 38%
UCSC: 70%
UCR: 84%
UCM: 95%
2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages:
UCB: 4.23
UCLA: 4.25
UCSD: 4.23
UCSB: 4.16
UCI: 4.13
UCD: 4.13
UCSC: 3.96
UCR: 3.90
UCM: 3.73
2019 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT totals:
UCB: 1340-1540
UCLA: 1330-1550
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1280-1520
UCD: 1230-1490
UCI: 1250-1510
UCSC: 1200-1450
UCR: 1130-1400
UCM: 1020-1290
I don’t think that Johns Hopkins has a 31% acceptance rate for ED given its overall acceptance rate. That number is closer to WashU’s ED acceptance rate (overall ~16%).
I say this ONLY so that you understand that if you are not accepted, it’s not the same as not being accepted to a school that admits 31% (or whatever the published number is - I’m not sure). That 31% can be very misleading.
With that said, you never know unless you try and ED is a great way to show the best interest. Good luck to you!