What major did she apply to USC as? Those results are wild — she’s not just stats, as her ECs look excellent, too. But glad she got into a great school she’s happy with. Truly, I’m sure a wider array of reaches would’ve produced a few more acceptances, but also appreciate students who don’t shotgun — so many apps from students who are understandably trying to cover their bets is what makes all these schools even more competitive!
Demographics:
Nigerian-American Female
No legacies
Not low-income
Large, average, suburban public high school
Midwest
Intended Major(s):
Pre-Med Health Humanities (Public health, Health and Society, Anthropology, etc….)
Numbers:
GPA: UW: 4.0, W: 4.5..
Class rank: 4/~490
Scores:
ACT: 31 (submitted everywhere)
AP:
Lang: 4
Bio: 5
Gov and Politics: 5
Psych: 5
Coursework (by the end of senior year):
8 APs
5 Dual Enrollment Classes
6 Honors Classes
Awards: Regional Pre-College Scholar Program, AP Scholar with Honors, National African American Recognition Program
EC’s:
President of Cultural Club and HOSA at school
Founded a peer-to-peer tutoring program
Medical internship program at state university
Gymnastics coach
Varsity Track for 3 years
Local biomedical education board member
Board member on a committee that awards grants to local youth-related initiatives
Church volunteering
Student council representative
Writing:
Essays: Very strong and creative Common App essay and good supplementals
LORs: Never read them but I assume that they were quite good
Results:
Early Action:
UMN Twin Cities: Accepted with 15k per year and honors college
UPitt: Accepted with 10k per year and guaranteed admission to MPH program with additional scholarship
Ohio State: Accepted w/ Morrill Scholarship Program
Notre Dame: Accepted with 2.5k per year
UChicago: Accepted
Northeastern: Accepted (Oakland admit transfer program with 10k per year)
Case Western: Accepted w/38k per year
Tulane: Rejected
UMich: Accepted
Regular Decision
Johns Hopkins: Rejected
Emory:
Oxford: Accepted
Atlanta: Waitlisted
Vanderbilt: Rejected
Penn, Yale, Princeton, and Brown: Rejected
Duke: Rejected
15 Likes
Website didn work it shows me some thai destination thingy
That’s a link from 18 years ago 
1 Like
demographics: indian male in central florida, 4000+ people in public school, 872 in class
applied for material sci everywhere thinking ima do that but realized after i wanna do data sci type stuff
test scores: 36 act , 1540 sat,1470 psat/nmsqt
coursework: projected to finish 26 ap classes, 14 dual enrollment, and have done 4 IB HL and 2 IB SL. currently have 12 4’s, 7 5’s, and 2 3’s on ap’s and a 5 and 7 on the two ib exams i have taken. diverse coursework with many math, physics, chem, cs related classes
gpa: 4.0/4.0 uw, projected to be 4.9 ish/5.0 at end weighted, rank 1/872
awards (only listing 5):
2x AIME qualifier (2023, 24)
2x USNCO qualifier (2022 + 2023)
UF SSTP (summer program) Best Research Paper (2023)
National Merit Semi-finalist (finalist after app)
3rd Place in CAC Quiz Bowl States as Part of Seminole County
(have some additional info awards like selected to present at CMU sports analytics conference + Midwest Sports Analytics Meeting)
extracurriculars (only ten here):
also, two of them are italicized as the first italicized is included in my EA apps but i got the princeton opportunity after which is included in new apps
mridangam/kanjira carnatic percussion instrument player - around 10 hours a week and have participated in multiple concerts including one at a religious shrine in india (jan 2020 - present)
founded free sat math tutoring program in junior year, have reached to around 30 kids starting this year, helping solve lack of access to education problem locally (oct 2022 - present)
ucf physics research focused around molecular dynamics and computational modeling, contributed to research presented at a famous physics conference earlier this year (jul 2022 - present)
uf sstp program - performed research on food waste dynamics, won best research paper and continuing research to contribute to published paper as it should be published soon (jun 2023 - present)
mu alpha theta/national math honor society member, treasurer (2023-24), calculus content leader (2023-24) - won multiple regional and state accolades including perfect score of 120 on a calculus regional in 2023 (aug 2020 - present)
science olympiad/bowl member, president (2023-24) - won multiple regional awards and working as sole president in club with projected around 25-30 members (aug 2021 - present)
chinmaya mission philosophy student - philosophy student learning about the framework behind hindu philosophy for long period of time and performed volunteering and service work as part of organization (aug 2016 - present)
princeton course developer assistant - helping with the development of a possible sports analytics course at princeton university along with the wintersession workshop (oct 2023 - present)
soccer analyst intern for orlando city sc - creating data-driven projects that will contribute to the recruitment analysis of the club (aug 2023 - present)
syracuse sports analytics research - helping with a project focused on f1 vs indy car speed differences currently and working on future projects after this one finishes (jul 2023 - present)
georgia tech material science + polymer science research - helping a phd student in chemical/biomolecular engineering with simultaneous learning of polymer science topics and contribution of data analysis and qualitative insights (sep 2023 - present)
essays: were probably ok, not too special
LoR: i think i got in because i had an insane LoR from the guy i work with at princeton but some of my other ones might have not been great
RESULTS:
Acceptances: Princeton, GA Tech, CMU, UIUC, Purdue, UF, UCF
Waitlists: Berkeley, Northwestern, Rice, Cornell, Penn, UCLA
Rejections: MIT, Stanford, CalTech, Duke
Glad to join the Princeton family and do ORFE as my major!
24 Likes
This forum helped us so much in our college application journey, I wanted to add my daughter’s info to help others. First, here is a link to a match me I made last summer.
Moving to the NE for senior year, need help with college list! [RI resident, 3.9 GPA, 35 ACT, will be NMF, parent contribution <$40k, no need-based FA]
My D24 is a high stats kiddo, but her ECs and LORs were hurt by her dumb parents moving her around the country for jobs. Freshman year online with Covid, Sophomore year in person, upper midwest top public school, Junior year southern state strong public school, Senior year RI top public school.
Major: started as pre-law/political science/global studies/international relations
Ended as business. Realizing this sooner would have changed some of her schools
Additionally, her early ECs focused on health and medicine but AP Chem changed that plan too!
Stats:
3.95 unweighted
No AP classes allowed at her school before junior year
AP Chem (4) and AP Bio (5) junior year
AP Stats, Calc AB, AP Enviro Sci, AP Gov senior year
ACT 35 one test, ACT 36 super score with 2 tests
Didn’t take the SAT
National Merit Finalist
ECs:
Won state HOSA
Merit award at first high school, student council leadership camp middle school through sophomore year, mock trial at 2 schools, HOSA at 2 schools, choir and school musical at 2 schools
Essays were excellent. I am biased, but also had CC volunteer take a look and then husband paid $ to have another pair of eyes on it. They agreed with me 
Common app essay talked about crafting and related it to moving and finding community. She spent a lot of time on the extra essays for Yale, BU, Fordham and UMass and I think they were very good.
Full pay, white, lots of degrees between parents but not from anywhere that does legacy.
We were looking for merit with a 40k total COA or less and wanted to stay in the NE
Also looking for honors programs
In October my dear husband poked his head in to say….well we could scrape together for Yale, Harvard or NYU. (Cue exasperated groans from daughter and I)
D24 had always planned on a long shot try at Yale, just to see.
Results:
SCEA to Yale Rejected
EA and ACCEPTED to all state schools:
U of Alabama $$Full COA and honors college (her true safety)
University of Conneticut 23k merit and honors college (COA 35k)
University of Maryland 5k merit and Scholars program (55k)
University of Massachusetts Amherst 16k merit no honors (COA 40k)
University of New Hampshire 14k no honors (but maybe could have gotten with follow up to AO?) (COA 40k)
University of Vermont 20k merit no honors (COA 40k)
Muhlenberg Accepted 35k merit and honors (COA 40k)
Brandeis Accepted, no merit or honors (COA 85k)
Northeastern Waitlisted
Boston University Waitlisted
NYU Sterns Waitlisted
Fordham Gabelli School of Business Accepted, full tuition NMF scholarship of 63k (COA 25k)
Showed a lot of demonstrated interest to NEU, BU and Fordham. In the end, wished she had not done SCEA to Yale and had EA to those last 4. It was clear by January that she wanted an urban school and business major. So she is very excited to attend Fordham next fall! UConn was a close second as the only northeast state school with the magic trifecta of acceptance, merit and honors. But Storrs is definitely not in the city!
Muhlenberg was an add on when D24 thought maybe she wanted a small less competitive environment. It had high rated dorms and food lol We ended up being impressed with their communications and have added them to the list for D27. (She will not have as high stats and definitely doesn’t want a city campus. Yay! Back to square one)
3 kids down, 1 to go. Phew 
34 Likes
Demographics
Asian female
Competitive public HS in Texas
Stats
GPA: 3.87 UW, 4.63 W
Class rank: top 10%
SAT: 1540 (800 verbal, 740 math)
APs prior to senior year: CSA (5), Human Geography (5), CS Principles (4), World History (5), Psychology (5), Biology (4), English Language and Composition (5), US History (5)
APs this year: Government, Macroeconomics, Physics, Calculus AB
Two college-level/professional CS courses in addition to AP CSA and CSP
Extracurriculars
- Four-year member of choir, made region choir (placed highly)
- 10 years of traditional dance and classical/jazz piano (local performances, mentoring younger kids)
- Long-term virtual tutor for kids from low-income families
- Self-studying programming languages and intro to ML/AI
- Volunteer for transcription of historical documents online (~300 in total)
- Member of leadership group (networking, public speaking, business principles)
Essays/LORs
Common App essay: focused on my love for history and lifelong fascination with vintage pop culture and social norms
LOR 1 (a math teacher): probably good but average
LOR 2 (a CS teacher): probably quite enthusiastic
Major: CS
Results
Note – I considered the difficulty of direct CS admission when categorizing these
As someone with weak CS-related activities outside of school, I think I got very lucky. I believe my Common App essay and stats were the strongest parts of my application. Looking back, I wish I had explored more options for target schools. However, I am happy with my results and enrollment decision 
Reaches
UIUC (EA) - deferred → waitlisted
Northeastern (RD) - waitlisted
Rice (RD) - rejected
UCSD (RD) - rejected
UNC Chapel Hill (EA) - rejected
Georgia Tech (EA) - rejected
UT Austin (EA) - rejected (CAP)
UMD College Park (EA) - accepted to CS with $17.5k/year, attending!
Targets
CU Boulder (EA) - accepted to Exploratory Studies with $6.5k/year
UMass Amherst (EA) - waitlisted
Safeties
Arizona State University (rolling) - accepted to CS with $16.5k/year total
Texas A&M (EA) - accepted to CS (1st year engineering)
UT Dallas (rolling) - accepted to CS + general honors with $12k/year
University of Houston (rolling) - accepted to CS with $4k/year
Final Comments
I ended up choosing between UTD and UMD but much preferred UMD’s campus, culture, and CS program after visiting in person and talking to current students and professors. Go Terps 
30 Likes
do you have an updated link?
My daughter’s results. This community was a ton of help throughout, thank you all. I will say her results might be extra useful as she was both test optional and not a ‘perfect’ student …
3.85/4.2 weighted. (Note this was all As in high school except for a C+/B in chem 10th grade and a C/B in AP bio 11th grade. )
8 AP. (Stats, bio, lit, Us history, psych, Gov, Spanish, Human geo). 20 AP offered. Her highest math : AP stats.
6 Honors, 1 summer Sociology college class at Syracuse
Test optional
Really strong ECs: Captain state champ team, four year varsity, Intern DA office two years, summer job as camp counselor, state wide ad board for teen mental health, city project with the mayor that received local press, 100 plus volunteer hours, campaign volunteer.
Recs and essays likely above average based on feedback we received.
Since she was test optional (and with two C grades) we weren’t sure what to expect and cast a wide net. She showed a ton of interest and did interviews whenever possible.
Results:
Safeties
UNH- accepted, honors, $14k/year
Wheaton MA - accepted, honors, $42k/year
Denver - accepted, $32k/year(withdrew before honors)
Elon- accepted, fellows, $17k/year
Indiana - accepted, honors, $6k/year
Targets
Santa Clara- accepted, $17k/year
Pitt- accepted, $5k/year
Fairfield - accepted, $23k/year
UVM- accepted, $18k/year
Delaware - accepted, waitlisted honors, $16k/year
Umass - accepted, $18k/year
American - accepted, $18k/year
Syracuse - accepted, hoping for honors, half tuition so approx $35k/ year
Wisco- waitlisted (think lack of math hurt her here)
Maryland - rejected
Reach
Lehigh - accepted, no merit
Michigan - waitlisted
Colby- waitlisted (showed no interest here)
Will be attending Syracuse as a leadership scholar
TLDR, show interest and don’t panic if your grades are imperfect!
33 Likes
What was the final outcome on Case? They defer most EAs then send communication encouraging to switch to ED2. They would say strong demonstrated interest would have been ED. But they sometimes still admit RD even if the pressure for ED2 was ignored.
Hopefully this will be helpful to future “average excellent” students on a budget.
S24: CA, large suburban high school
white
UW 4.0 / W 4.6
HS does not rank
ACT 36
8 APs - scores of 4 and 5 on those completed
12 DE classes at local community college
I think essays and letters of rec were excellent
No idea about major, but not the competitive ones like engineering and CS and business. Applied as econ, philosophy, history, etc.
S24’s only specific desire was for a medium or large urban school, the more urban the better. We have a $12,000 budget so he applied widely to schools known for auto merit, schools where one could apply for full merit scholarships, and schools known for generous financial aid.
Very involved in all aspects of school but not much leadership and no awards.
Sustained involvement in multiple sports, music, some theater. A number of non-required classes of interest taken at our local community college. Spent summers working part time and going to sleep-away camp on scholarship.
Likely
Alabama - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE) (Presidential Elite Scholarship)
Arizona - ADMITTED (NOT AFFORDABLE) (auto merit scholarship)
Pitt - ADMITTED (NOT AFFORDABLE) ($20,000 merit scholarship)
McGill - ADMITTED (NOT AFFORDABLE) (did not apply for scholarships because already had affordable offers when admission came)
Target
Macalester ($30,000 merit + financial aid) - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE)
Reach
Boston College - ADMITTED (NOT AFFORDABLE)
Boston University - WAITLIST
Northeastern - WAITLIST
NYU - ADMITTED (NOT AFFORDABLE)
Tufts - REJECTED
Tulane - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE) - (full tuition merit scholarship)
UC San Diego (financial aid unknown because of FAFSA delays)
Wash U - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE) - (BEST PRICE!!)
Super Reach
Brown - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE)
Columbia - WAITLIST
Harvard - REJECTED
MIT - EA Deferred - REJECTED
Northwestern - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE)
Penn - ADMITTED (AFFORDABLE)
U Chicago - EA Deferred - REJECTED
UC Berkeley - ADMITTED (financial aid unknown because of FAFSA delays)
UCLA - ADMITTED (financial aid unknown because of FAFSA delays)
USC - ADMITTED (financial aid unknown because of FAFSA delays)
Vanderbilt - WAITLIST
Reflections: I was introduced to College Confidential by my D22. I have learned an incredible amount from all of the regular posters on this website and that knowledge really helped the application process for S24.
We understood from our learning here that S24 would fall into the “average excellent” category. He is a great kid who loves learning but just did what he wanted to do in his big public high school with no planning for leadership or specific activities that would help set him apart.
We could not afford a college counselor and the counselors at his school are rightfully more concerned with helping make sure students graduate, etc. so they do not have much in terms of college counseling. So armed with our College Confidential knowledge, he and I spent time last summer thinking how to best craft a cohesive application “story.”
He definitely leaned into our social class (we are two educated parents but with lower paying jobs in non-profit/education sectors). His essays talked about room sharing, chores, working part time, road trips, etc.
I didn’t know if this would help him stand out, but from reading about what other people do for graduation gifts (international trips!?!? Wow!) I think S24 has had quite a different life than many applicants to similar schools. He has only been on an airplane a few times and never out of the country.
So I think putting a lot of thought into crafting his “story” was time well spent. And we definitely could not have done it without all we learned on College Confidential so thank you to all the regular posters for all the insights, ideas, thoughts, etc.
58 Likes
I was just remarking to a friend that the families on this board seem not quite representative of this country as a whole! Congratulations to your son @green1724 - what did he decide?
8 Likes
He hasn’t decided. He has not visited all the schools but likes everything he reads about them. So on the one hand it’s a hard decision because there are a lot of good choices. But on the other hand, it’s not hard because he knows he will be happy at any of the choices.
11 Likes
My two cents is this is illustrating how a lot of the apparent advantage of being from a higher-income/multi-gen-selective-college family is: (a) it is easier to get high numbers; and (b) just having a really good idea what is possible and how to play the angles with those high numbers.
Your kid had the numbers, and you learned how to play the angles, and got great results. Which is great, and I just wish more families found places like this to help.
9 Likes
Yes I definitely agree that we have the advantage of “college knowledge” and how to play the angles (a lot learned here!). I enjoyed the research and application process so much that I have volunteered with Scholarmatch to share what I’ve learned with those who may not have access.
Also, to clarify, we are not a multi-gen-selective-college family. I’m not sure where I implied that in my post. I am the product of a wonderful, but not-so-popular UC school and my spouse attended an excellent California Community College and transferred to a Cal State.
11 Likes
You should be so proud! Wow some great admits there! Will be a tough choice
5 Likes
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and outcome of this process for your child.
I love that there was no non-profit created, no jockeying for multiple leadership roles, and no international awards.
Great results for someone who is most likely a wonderful citizen and had genuine letters of recommendation about what he will add to a college campus community.
11 Likes
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant you had duplicated the main advantages of having a background like that, not that you had such a background.
3 Likes
Your daughter’s results show exactly the way a thoughtful and balanced list of applications works. Bravo to her, you have to be so proud.
10 Likes
She applied undecided, not sure if that might have hurt her.
We are at the UW Madison admitted student event and she is really loving it here so it has all worked out for the best.
5 Likes