Decently competitive Catholic (10ish% marticulate to T30)
Other special factors: (first generation to college, legacy, recruitable athlete, etc.)
Cost Constraints / Budget
None
Intended Major(s) Finance/Biz/Econ (depending on school)
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.61****
Weighted HS GPA: 3.87****
Class Rank: School doesn’t rank
SAT: 730/730 Cold, my tutor guaranteed a 1550 in Aug/Sep with intensive prep in the summer (or money back)
List your HS coursework
English: English 1, English 2 Honors, AP Lit, AP Lang
Math: Alg 2 Honors, Precalc, Calc AB, AP Stats, Financial Math
Science: Physics, Chem, Bio Honors, AP Environmental Science
History and social studies: World History (pre 1700s) (1 sem), AP World History, US History
Language other than English: Spanish 1, 2, 3
Visual or performing arts: Photo 1, 2; Graphic Design 1
Other academic courses: Religion (7 semesters):
College Coursework
Intro to Business
Principles of Microecon
Financial Accounting
Awards
Eagle Scout?
AP Scholar
Small school things
Extracurriculars
Scouts: Been involved since 3rd grade, Eagle Scout, SPL (highest leader) for a year. Also revamped the troop’s yearly weekend-long fundraiser (cut costs, new food items, etc to increase revenue from <3500 to >7500 in 2 years, profit from <1500 to >4000)
Co-founder and co-president of Geography Club: Founder with 2 close friends start of soph year, 100+ registered members, taught about the geography and cultures of different countries, utilized GeoGuessr to do so.
Co-leader of Religious Affinity Group: Was Class officer frosh-jr year as well. Taught others about our culture/religion as we were <1% in the Catholic school. Hosted fundraisers for religious organizations, presented at school events, and volunteered locally.
DEI Committee member: Served on a committee of 20 students+2 teachers from different affinity groups to enhance collaboration and cultural awareness and plan schoolwide cultural events.
Nonprofit: Founded a non-profit rooted in religious values, raised 10k to buy holiday gifts for local youth
Yearbook: Staff photographer for 3 years, Leadership team member senior year, directly managed teams of 5ish staffers, school-wide recognition 2 times for photographer of the month (out of ˜50 photographers, also the only person to do this twice so far)
Mentored freshmen: Worked with other juniors and seniors in a program to mentor 26 freshmen, built close relationships with most. also idk if it matters, but motivated by how much the program helped me (maybe a supplemental essay topic?)
Cross country/track: ran a couple szns xc, 1 of track, very slow tho, and quit due to lack of time and injuries
USC Finance course: 2 week online course, learned a lot
Finance internship with Native American Tribe: Helped with budgeting and applying (and receiving) for grants >500k
Essays/LORs/Other
Essays: I’m gonna cook up, I really need to.
LORs:
Jr Year history teacher 8-9/10: Really likes me, I was arguably his favorite student, did well in his class
Jr year bio teacher: 7-8/10: Got to know him well, improved my grade substantially as well
Scoutmaster: 7/10 Known me personally for a decade, worked with me in Scouts for 6 years, but is not a great writer though.
****Other: This is kinda weird, so I wanna preface this, I had undiagnosed/untreated ADHD till the end of last year. This semester was my first with treatment/accommodations, I improved a lot. (3.67/4.17 GPA vs 3.59/3.81 w/o)
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)
Everything EA when possible.
Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability): Indiana (auto admit)
Extremely Likely: Santa Clara (double legacy), UCM
My two cents is if you are counting on applying ED giving you a big boost, I am skeptical that actually happens much at colleges like USC (Marshall) or NYU (do you mean Stern?) when you don’t have the sorts of academic credentials that would put you toward the top of their range.
I’m also curious if you really prefer all those colleges to Indiana. I get applying to a lot of Cals since you are in-state for California. I am a little more skeptical about the value proposition for a lot of those other OOS publics.
I’m still looking but I don’t see Indiana Kelley on this student’s list. But I think it should be if this student is auto admit to Kelley.
Perhaps someone can verify if this student would be an auto admit to Kelley. If so…
I would eliminate UIUC, and Purdue, and put in Indiana Kelley which is a very well regarded business school.
@arjan since you have Santa Clara on your list…have you looked at Southern Methodist University?
I guess I should be asking if you want other suggestions.
I might also suggest you look at the applications for some of these schools and the out of state acceptance rates (i.e. UTAustin and UNC - possibly others seriously restrict OOS enrollment). Once you look at the application needs for some of those schools you may determine it’s not worth the time spent.
S23 applied to UTAustin and the school specific essays are numerous.
I was assuming the above was a reference to Kelley, which I believe would in fact be an auto admit with the OP’s weighted GPA and a 1460:
Yeah, there are a variety of private colleges in addition to Santa Clara that could be interesting for the OP to explore, and of course a lot of their Reaches are privates.
On the other hand, the OP already has such a long list! I would probably focus on some serious trimming first, then see if maybe a few more privates made sense. But plausibly not, if the OP did not see them as potentially preferable to Kelley.
@arjan would you go to UIUC or Purdue or Wisconsin or Rutgers or Wisconsin or Minnesota over Indiana Kelley which you are guaranteed to be accepted to, and has an excellent business school.
While reading your profile,my thoughts turned to Notre Dame. Indiana Kelley & Notre Dame should be your targets. (I use “target” differently than other posters on this website.)
not 100% sure on my choce, but I’ve visited most of those B1G schools and liked them. I’m not sure I would really want to go to SMU or another private over Kelley, and they do cost about 30k more a year.
I don’t know about Purdue but I’m guessing both Cal Poly SLO and UW (I’m assuming you mean Foster) might be tougher than this?
CPSLO is non-holistic and admission is mostly based on GPA (including 9th grade). I’m not sure of their admit rate for business. (On the other hand, with no essays, it’s also not much work to throw an app at it.)
UW only rarely takes a look at standardized test scores (they say that these scores are hidden from the app reader except for in rare borderline cases), so they are missing a relatively stronger part of your app. I don’t know the admit rate for Foster but it seems it isn’t the easiest admit. (UW is also pricey OOS, kind of up to you whether it’s worth it over cheaper OOS publics.)
Kelley sounds like a great option though, and if it’s assured (as it seems) you could just do that + easy apps in CA + your favorite reaches. I agree with others that you’ll want to trim down the list a whole lot so you don’t burn yourself out.
From their website, 2024 data for business:
Applied 9713, accepted 2715, GPA (cal poly weighted calculation) 4.04-4.25.
With requirements, they are kind of unique in that they recommend 5 years of English and math (requirements are 4 and 3 respectively). There was quite some chatter on the thread this year about how students who only took 4 years of English did not do as well in admissions. They also do take ECs, work experience etc into account so are somewhat holistic, but they are opaque about how it all comes together.
Thanks for the information on Cal Poly. From my school, hundreds of people got in over the last three years, and most had four years of English and four years of math. Our school doesn’t allow doubling up until senior year, and even then, it’s minimal.
Well then, if your school has something like naviance/scoir/maia etc you should be able to figure out how you stack up from a GPA perspective at least compared to how others from your school have done.
Btw I stand to be corrected, but I think Cal Poly counts it as 5 years of math for those who started Algebra 1 in middle school and then do 4 years in high school. For English they specifically say you need to double up somewhere.
It’s not surprising that many people would get in to Cal Poly, assuming that they have a range of GPAs and intended majors. Each Cal Poly major has its own applicant pool, and some majors’ applicant pools are quite a lot stronger or weaker than others.
CPSLO gives bonus points for courses beyond the CSU minimum (largest bonus is for math courses higher than algebra 2). Be sure to list math (algebra 1 or higher) and foreign language taken while in middle school to get proper credit for CPSLO admission.
If they recommend 5 years of math, surely most applicants have at least 2 years beyond this? How far do you need to have gone to really differentiate yourself then?