Chance Me... Big Dreams... horrible Stats

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Low Income Asian Family Living in Cali… single mother whose income is around 30k

Asian Male (Korean)
UW GPA: 3.41 (I will talk about this more)
W GPA: 3.85
SAT: 1450 Superscored
Took 13 AP: Calc AB, Calc BC, AP Comp Sci Principles, AP Macro, AP Gov, AP Seminar, AP Research, AP Lang, AP Lit, AP US, AP Euro, AP Physics, AP Chem

I LOVE HISTORY, so I plan on applying as a history major for a majority of my colleges.

Personal Story Time: I don’t feel very comfortable talking about this as its still relatively new to me. But in 10th grade my father left my family ( I haven’t seen him since) he doesn’t even talk to his parents, he was the bread earner of the family. As a result, my 10th grade I struggled extremely with school, having to manage both starting my business ( check ec) and managing my emotions

GPA: Since then, I had improved my GPA significantly since 10th grade. I have an upward trend, and when comparing 10th and 11th, I would say its drastic ( 4 A / 2 b with one being art class/ 4 AP classes). While its not straight As I would say i’m happy with my improvement. I most likely will get 5 A 1 B senior yr with 5 AP classes. Also my bad grades really come from the STEM courses. IDK y i kept taking hard stem classes smh. I hope they take this in account as I want to study in the humanities.

Extra Curriculars:

Director of Fundraising for a NPO (1 Yr leadership, 4 yrs member): I was in charge of raising funds for some of the organizations that we work with. This year I raised more than 3k.
4hrs a wk/ 24 wks spent in a yr

Law Firm Internship(3 years) : One of my favorite extracurriculars, my internship at a local law firm. I loved it so much I have been doing it for three years in a row.
6 hrs a wk/ 46 wks in a yr

Small Business (Founder 3 years): So my mother really couldn’t support my family, her job is performanced based so it varies often. As a result, I started my own business surrounding sneakers. In the first year I started, 10th, I spent a lot of time outside trying to build relationships with managers of stores so that I can get limited shoes ( Off White Dunks who else i HYPED) behind the back. From then and now I have grossed sold around 50k this year ( i know im my previous post i said 80k, but im bad at math).
8 hrs a wk/ 50 wks

Internship at a congressman (1 year)- I did a internship with a congressman over the summer this year as a senior. I initially loved politics but after the internship I realized its not for me. But it was still a great experience.
15hs wk/ 6 wks a yr

History club (founder/Co-President 1 Year): I go to an extremely large HS but there was no history club. So I made one, and I have met some great people there!!!
2 hrs a wk/ 30 wks

Finance Club: I also have an interest within finance, but I such at math so im most likely not gonna chase this dream. But i did start a finance club at my school
2 hrs a wk/ 30 wks

Outside of school stocks club (4 years): I basically just write stock reports and try to predict what to invest in. We have a quarter stock competition.
1 hr wk/ 40 wks a yr

Debate Team: ( 2 years) I love debate I participated in LD. however, I stopped during senior yr cuz i predicted ill be to busy with work. I really want to continue in college tho.
2 hr wk/ 20 wks a yr

Student Writer for Korean Newspaper (4 years): TBH wasn’t a big fan of this I just did it cuz i was committed to it. Just wrote some articles from time to time

Treasurer for medical club: I don’t even know why i did this. I hate stem, but I do like bookkeeping so I ran for treasurer but won so i did that for a yr.

Why am I doing this: I met a friend from last yr who had like a 3.9 uw with a 4.5 w gpa and a 1590 who got denied from all his schools with safeties. We didn’t go to the same school so idk his EC. Im worrying cuz all the schools Im applying to are reaches to the MOOOOONNNNNNN!!!

SChools im applying to:

all the uc’s but i really dont want to stay in Cali!!

All history unless indicated
Babson College (It’s a business school so no history)
bates College
Bentley
Boston college
Boston University
Brandeis
Case Western
Colby College
Cornell
Dartmouth
Emory
Indiana bloomington
NYU
Northeastern
Tufts
UMich
Uni of Notre Dame
UPenn (Wharton… Crazy)
USC
Villanova

I KNOW IM MENTALLY INSANE FOR APPLYING TO A LOT OF THESE SCHOOLS, BUT I LOVE THEM… TBH ITS WORTH WRITING A SUP ESSAY FOR EVEN A CHANCE AT THESE SCHOOLS. HOWEVER, IM SCARED I WONT GET IN ANYWHERE.

IF any AO reads this… Hi Please Accept me <3…

2

School does not rank…

3

you for sure have big dreams… which are achievable with all your experience and scores. Honestly you will be fine. Take it one step at a time… and yes u are crazy for applying to all of those school.
Also do not take ur friends scores and his rejections into your consideration of school you apply to. Your friend may have not had enough E.C. or literally anything could’ve happened
Focus on yourself. May i ask how you did on ur 13 AP classes

4

I was surprised that you listed NYU.
Given your income, your family can’t afford $72K per year.
They give lousy financial aid.

Did you check the NPC for all of your schools?

5

Normally I’d say your grades are too low, but you do have a lot of extracurriculars, so you’ll probably have a good chance for at least some of those schools. However, your ECs seem like they’re somewhat focused in business (starting your own small business, working on a fundraising project, finance/stockbroking club)…yet you’re applying as a history major?

I would definitely trim that list down to, at the maximum, 12 schools. Even if you don’t mind writing the supplemental essays, you’ll do better if you focus on fewer essays & really polish them.

Also, even if you do get accepted to some of those schools – and I hope you do! – you need SEVERAL safety schools that you 100% know you can get into AND afford. Are the UC’s affordable for you? Are you willing to go any UC? I don’t know much about the UCs, so I can’t say whether you’ll get in. However, if you’re absolutely determined to leave CA, you should look for more safety schools.

6

I do have a lot of business ec, and originally I thought I wanted to start my own business or go into finance, but I love history for some reason. If there was a way I could combine the two. I am fine with going to any UC, regardless it’s a UC and I think I will be happy there, also the price of a UC doesnt hurt. I would rather stay in Cali but save money due to my financial situation so I really am not looking towards safeties OOS.

7

Basically all the AP Stem courses I got B or C… Cuz im stupid. However humanities classes I would usually get As in them as i find them enjoyable such as AP Lang or APUSH. But i might get a B in AP Lit because I am having a hard time understanding Beloved. Great book, but sometimes I get confused…

8

I understand NYU is expensive and they don’t give the best financial aid. You might think im stupid but Im willing to go into debt for NYU because I have always been attracted to it.

9

These extracurriculars are somewhat mixed, but some of them I had to do because of personal finance such as starting my own business. I would have loved to have done history related EC, but I had a difficult time finding any (history is super underrated :frowning: ).

10

I’m not too sure how finaid works as I haven’t really received any help, but I have submitted all of FAFSA and CSS profiles to the schools i’m applying to. Can i just take out loans to pay for college, I see this as an investment, in which I’ll be betting on myself.

11

I might have to consider the ability to transfer internally within a school, to be totally honest I want to do history, but I also have to think about the future. Will a history degree be worth it or would a finance degree be worth it. Both fields i love but I might have to make a choice as we all know one degree has a better ROI than the other.

12

But the lenders don’t see it that way- they want you to be sure that they will get their money back. There is a cap on how much you can borrow yourself: for FAFSA (subsidized rates) it’s $5500 for 1st year, $6500 for sophomores and I think $7500 for junior and senior year.

More to the point, NYU simply is not worth starting out your life in debt for. A lot of students have stars in their eyes about it- and no real idea of the difference that debt payments makes in every.single.part of your daily life, much less how it limits your choices.

Poor reasoning on several levels but let’s just take the factual one: your friend did not get denied from his safeties. He might have been denied from schools that he felt should be safeties, but the very definition of a safety is one which SAFE- ie, certain. Not ‘my stats put me safely in range’. A 3.9 and 1590 is a walk in .at a LOT of places, even if your friend never did a single EC.

13

That is true i don’t know his full story, but still scares me

14

You can’t borrow $72K per year on your own. You can only borrow $5500 per year and you need more than 10 times that for one year.

You will be in debt for 30 years+! You wont make that kind of money for several years but the loan repayment begins immediately. Some loans require payback while you’re in school.

So you never want to buy a car, own a home?

Your parent makes less than ½ of the tuition per year and banks will not feel comfortable loaning your parent that kind of money.

15

NYU isn’t worth the money, and neither is Babson really. Go to a cheaper college. Seriously, prestige doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think it does.

A stellar history program (ranked #9 in the country by U.S. News, since you seem to care about those things) is at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Personally, I do think you have a shot there.

Some other good history programs that you have a chance at:
IU Bloomington (#20)
UIUC (#23)
UW Seattle (#23)
Ohio State (#27)
UMD (#27)
UC Davis (#32)
University of Minnesota (#32)

And for chrissakes, add some more safeties to your list. Seriously, it makes my eyes bleed to look at.

16

You may have a problem getting FA at most of those schools because you’ll need both parents to complete the CSS. You need to look at your state schools which will only require the FAFSA. California gives great FA to its residents.

17

@twoinanddone is right. I’d say that therefore UC Davis is a great option, as it’s in-state and has a good history program.

18

:slight_smile: yep applying to davis, u bloomington, and uiuc

19

The only way you’re going to afford any of those is if your mom co-signs piles of debt over to you. If your mom makes $30k a year, there’s no way she’s going to get approval for $200,000 worth of loans. There’s no way you could go there. Going out-of-state is triple the tuition vs in-state, and these schools favor their own state residents. Don’t expect any financial aid.

The list is just not realistic based on your finances and GPA. There are plenty of others to choose from. Davis is a great option. Don’t stop there, apply to all the UCs and CSUs you can.

20

I will be blunt.
NYU is not worth it and is notoriously tight with aid, you will not ever find a way to get that much money, and you are highly highly unlikely to get into Stern.

You are highly, highly unlikely to get into the following: Emory, NEU, BU, Tufts, Penn, USC, Cornell, Dartmouth, BC, U Michigan, Notre Dame, Villanova, and Bloomington, which will charge you OOS fees and not give you merit because your stats aren’t high enough. No OOS school will give you enough money, so forget those. Money is an issue for your family, so don’t waste precious dollars on colleges you have no real shot at. Frankly, you seem to have sacrificed grades for too many ECs, your business, and taking too many STEM classes when you want to be a humanities major. I don’t fault you for starting your business, because you needed to help your family.

There’s no shame in being a humanities major. You say over and over again that you aren’t interested in STEM, yet you took hard STEM classes and sacrificed your grades. Colleges want to see high grades in hard classes, not B grades in classes that you think will impress them.

Schools that MIGHT possibly give you the aid you need, might be interested in your Asian status (Asians are typically URM at LACs) and might possibly be sympathetic to your plight (provided you have a guidance counselor at school who will explain your sophomore grades and circumstances), could be Bates, Colby, maybe Brandeis, Bentley and Babson? Have you run the NPC for those schools? Again, not quite sure though if you are “poor enough” to get enough aid at those schools.

Your best strategy: use your AP credits at a CSU, start with Soph standing if you can, save a ton of money, get GREAT grades, see if you can transfer into UCLA or UCB. That’s your most realistic option.