Chance Me, a Try-Hard (Relatively Speaking) from Rural Idaho, for T20s [4.0 GPA, rank 1/75, 1520 SAT, physics and astronomy]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: Idaho
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): 9-12 Public School
  • Other special factors: Pretty rural high school with a high dropout rate

Intended Major(s)
Physics/Astronomy

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: School doesn’t weight.
  • Class Rank: 1/75
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 750M, 770 R/W, one sitting in April last year

List your HS coursework

  • English: 3 years Honors English, 1 year Dual Enrollment
  • Math: Geometry, Algebra II, Dual Enrollment Precalculus, Dual Enrollment Calculus
  • Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics
  • History and social studies: 2 years US History (including 1 year of Dual Enroll), Dual Enrollment American Government, Economics
  • Language other than English: Spanish 1 year (dropped due to scheduling constraints and self-taught)
  • Visual or performing arts: Band 4 years
  • Other academic courses: Robotics 4 years

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: My school offers NO AP CLASSES, only honors English, and no IB curriculum. Any class I’ve taken, I have taken at its highest level.

Awards
None. School does not offer awards and AIME, etc. testing centers aren’t available in my area.

Extracurriculars
3 years as a library clerk at my public library (paid work). Got hired after volunteering my freshman year. In charge of interlibrary loans. Did some activism during the national freak-out about libraries.

4 years on the school robotics team, including as team captain the last two years. Qualified for World Championships 2 years on the Engineering Inspiration Award. Along with this comes a lot of community STEM outreach, about 200 hours by my last count. I hosted and organized two robotics camps over the last two summers.

7 years of playing the trumpet. 3-time All-State player, 1-time All-Northwest Player, 3-time State Soloist (including a runner up). Missed this year because I was sick. I also play in community ensembles as principal trumpet very often. Principal in my school band. I also teach lessons.

Recently started doing some low-key astronomy research at an observatory 30 minutes from my house. We record asteroid occultations and extract the light curves to give indications of their shape and size.

Essays/LORs/Other
LORs should be good. My teachers were paranoid about accurately representing me, so they had me proofread them, anyway. They might be a little weaker than most, simply by virtue of them not having to write real LORs before (nobody from my school has applied to a college that required LORs in recent memory). Essays also should be good, I had several people go over them throughout the process. My college counselor at the school would probably give them a 9 or 10/10.

Schools
Safeties: already taken care of. School of Choice is University of Alabama at Huntsville. A pretty good astronomy school that offered really, really good merit aid.

  • UAH with full $21,000 scholarship
  • UMaryland with Presidential Scholarship
  • CU Boulder with Honors College but no scholarships (rip)

Match: struggled to find schools I could afford, as most of these are OOS publics.

Reach: decided to go all out, because why not (plus I have a fee waiver). I ran the NPCs for all these schools and decided that we’re good to go, cost wise:

  • Deferred from Princeton REA
  • Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Dartmouth, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Northeastern, Cornell, Stanford
2

Fantastic.

If you can afford UAH, and you like it, it’s a fine school. And Huntsville is brimming with related industry. Arizona is another great one for the major, but would cost more.

The reaches are all that but being from Idaho will help. And you’re a fine candidate. And will know soon enough.

Did you not EA Northeastern ?

Best of luck.

1 Like
3

I didn’t EA Northeastern because one of the requirements for REAing Princeton was not applying to any other Private institutions early, even if it was non-binding. I forgot to add that all of my interviews went decently (Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, MIT), but the Dartmouth one was spectacular. They really have no bearing on your app from what I can tell but the fellow kept texting me DAYS afterwards.

1 Like
4

You will have multiple options. Schools should like your profile as well as your state of residence.

Below is a link to a sample 4 year course plan that you may find helpful. Good luck.

https://Arizona.edu/degree-search/majors/astronomy

If serious about majoring in astronomy, then U Arizona should be on your list of targeted schools.

5

So…no fourth year of science…and foreign language only to level one. Is that accurate?

6

Physics is fourth year science. My school has a combo chemistry-physics course for freshman that I didn’t put down because I didn’t think it was pertinent.

Yes, unfortunately foreign language is only level one. I couldn’t fit it in my schedule because my school only has one language and very few class hours for it. I use it at work and I made sure to put that in my app to see if it made up for anything. I also emailed schools to ask if that was okay and they said yes.

1 Like
7

Ooooh. Missed that. Yes that will be an issue but who cares if it is - UAH is outstanding.

Best of luck. Hope one works out. I’d take UAH over NU personally given the field unless NU gives you a freebie.

2 Likes
8

If you really, really need a second language, tell them that you are fluent in both English and Canadian.

1 Like
9

I figured I’d try anyway. Language isn’t a requirement at my school, and if I had taken past year one I would’ve had to sacrifice band because of how periods fell, so I didn’t realize my mistake until I was deciding to apply for college. You really have to start thinking about these things from the start of freshman year, which sucks, but it is what it is. I explained my circumstances and that’s all one can do.

4 Likes
10

Fortunately you have great options for safeties, since this will be problematic for your reaches.

11

I love reading profiles like yours. I don’t chance people, but I wanted to say that I’m stoked you’ve got a full scholarship at a school that’s such a good fit for you, and I’m excited for your future, wherever you end up. Good luck with the rest of the admissions season. You’re going to love college.

10 Likes
12

So wait. You’ve already applied and you’re just waiting to hear from HYPSM? Care to make it interesting? Just sayin’… :money_mouth_face:

13

Yep.

14

It’s frustrating for sure. But there’s always grad school and I have a great, decently affordable safety option.

1 Like
15

Who’s the other person from Idaho also waiting to hear?

1 Like
16

More than you’d think, haha. I know the valedictorian of a bigger school about 30 miles from me got into Stanford early.

1 Like
17

I am not convinced the foreign language will be a barrier. I don’t think super selective schools are 100% rigid in their requirements. This type of situation is exactly what a holistic review is designed for.

10 Likes
18

I had the same suspicion, which is why I emailed them and made sure to outline my circumstances in the app. A lot of the reason why they push language is because it’s a grad requirement there.

2 Likes
19

Your counselor should have but it’s ok.

You’ll learn soon enough but no matter you are going to a great school at a price that you seem to be able to afford - a bit under $20k-ish.

20

They aren’t. I attended one of the reach schools listed without meeting its science recommended prep.

But there’s a difference, IMO, in applying with three years of FL vs one, when they request 4 absent a valid explanation.

Regardless, the OP has a nice profile, so should do well however the chips fall.

1 Like