Chance Me - CA senior, 3.7/4.2, 35 ACT. (Statistics, Chemistry, Psychology Major)

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • CA
  • Public HS - slightly competitive
  • Asian

Intended Major(s) - 1. Statistics, CHemistry, Psychology

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.7
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.2
  • Class Rank: Not available
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 35 ACT

Coursework:
Sophomore:
AP Calc BC (C, B) in Sophomore year(5),
AP World History (B, B+),AP score 4
Honors English (C, B)
Physics (B, B)
Junior:
AP Chemistry, (B, A)
AP US History, (A, A)
AP Spanish Language (A, A)
AP Statistics, (A, A)
AP Biology, (A, A)
AP Computer Science A(A, A+)
English (A, B)

Summer:
Multivariable Calculus at CC (A)
English 001A at CC (A)
Senior:
AP Physics C
AP Psychology
AP Government and Politics
Video Production
English
AP Seminar

I expect A’s in all of my senior year classes. In my sophomore year, I had increase familial responsibilities as my parents were frequently gone because of my grandmother’s death in India. My counselor can talk about this in his LOR.

Extracurriculars
Published cybersecurity research paper with former professor at UPenn (5 hours/week for 10 weeks). Additional research on predicting wildfires at start of junior year.

Founded Passion project involving 100+ kids teaching connections between sports and math (partnered with school and other independent after-school programs). In. charge of creating and teaching lessons, distributing flyers and increasing outreach of program, finding new people to train and “employ” to teach lessons at these after school programs.

Created a sports analytics club at school - partnered with different universities’ sports analytics clubs, help give valuable insight to members about careers in sports analytics.

Volunteered as basketball coach for local school for 5th graders

Sports AI internship: 8-10 hours/ week organizing spreadsheets and using R to create qualitative analyses of different sports players (Clients include professional basketball, football, and college players)

Varsity Golf

Spend lots of time playing video games, ranked top 100 in the world 4 years in a row on football video game franchise called Madden (I know it isn’t a big thing, but I want to show my analytical approach to sports and statistics)

Manager of 49ers social media account that has 12000+ followers

Essays/LORs/Other

Strong teacher LORs that speak to analytical skills and passion for sports analytics and statistcs (AP Biology and AP Chemistry)

Expect to write about growth from sophomore year and how I embraced competition - hopefully 8.5 - 9/10.

Counselor LOR hopefully write about how I’ve taken nearly every AP class in the school and my dip in sophomore year with my upward trend.
Schools

Carnegie Mellon University
Claremont McKenna College
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Emory University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Northeastern University
Northwestern University
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Rice University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Southern California
University of Washington
Vanderbilt University
Washington University in St. Louis

I know the schools listed above are all competitive, but I’d much rather go to CC and try and transfer than go to a target/safety school. I feel like my situation is different because of the grade dip and extenuating circumstances. I want to know my chances at getting into the schools listed above given my stats.

Leaning towards ED for rice (I’d have 3.62 GPA) because of their sports analytics major and my clear spike towards that. RD everywhere else with 3.7 uw.

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I don’t want to sound too harsh, but community college is your most likely outcome with this list. I’m not saying you can’t get in to any of these schools, but they are all very competitive and your GPA is what it is. It sounds like you are fine with that, but maybe reconsider and add some target/safety options. Good luck to you.

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Talk about your financial situation.

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Based on your combination of academic interests, have you considered a data science major? This interdisciplinary field would allow you to use statistics and computing on “applied domains,” such as chemistry or psychology. This approach would not preclude a second major or minor.

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I note that even if you do really well in CC, it is unlikely you will end up being able to transfer to a Reach college, so would most likely end up at a Likely or Target anyway. So in situations like yours, you may save some money choosing a CC, which can be very important to some families, but it is unlikely to significantly alter your ultimate four-year college options.

Anyway, to be blunt, you are otherwise asking these schools to give you a break due to extenuating circumstances and take you over other kids who did not need such a break because they had consistently good grades. Which may in fact work at one or more colleges, but it also may not, and it is virtually impossible to predict where, if anywhere, it will work. It is going to come down to whether a given reader/committee decides they want you badly enough to take you over those other sorts of applicants, and that is not really predictable.

That being said, your best bet is to explain why you are such a great fit for that specific college that they should make such an exception. So I would reflect on where that is really true for you, and then focus on a shorter list of such colleges where you can make that case in as compelling and specific way as possible.

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Cost constraints?

Any UCs or CSUs?

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Can you afford these? You never know - you get lucky.

But if you truly want a sports analytics degree - and I’m not sure you’d get in, I’d take Syracuse over all of these - potentially including Rice.

With this list, your best shot is Washington and then Pitzer. Washington is a huge state school so it’s counter the rest of your list. Northeastern could happen - an alternative campus.

Good luck.

PS - have you been to any of these schools - they are very different. You need to cut your list down. Too many essays, etc

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What were your AP scores from junior year?

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Since you’ve requested a chance me, this is how I would classify the schools on your list.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

Likely (60-79%)

Toss-Up (40-59%)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

Your entire list

As others have indicated, there’s probably greater than a 95% chance that if you do not change your list, you will end up at a community college next year. A guarantee? No. But the odds are overwhelmingly against you.

A couple of questions for you:

  1. Why do you want to go to college? What do you hope to get out of it?
  2. What happens if you go to community college and then you are unable to transfer to a “competitive” school?

With respect to the first question, there are many reasons why people choose colleges. Some people are focused on just learning information. Others are more interested in being around peers with similar interested. Others are trying to build professional networks for their career. Depending on what your goals are, it may be much harder to achieve as a transfer student than as a student who attends a school for four years.

@NiceUnparticularMan already asked #2, but it bears repeating. How would you feel if you apply as a transfer to a list that looks an awful lot like your current one, and you don’t get an acceptance?

Related to that, instead of thinking a few years down the road after a couple of years at a CC, think about a few months down the road to the spring. How would you feel if come the spring you have 16 rejections/waitlists and 1 acceptance to community college? Many students underestimate the psychological impact of getting rejection, after rejection, after rejection. It can really be very damaging on a student. For some people, getting tons of rejections only fuels them to prove how awesome they are wherever they land. I find that most people tend to do better with more acceptances than rejections. Reflect on what kind of a person you are to help determine what kind of balance your college list should have.

Additionally, if you’re attending a “slightly competitive” high school, how will you feel in the spring if students are talking about getting ready to move away for college and you’re planning on staying at home. Do you think that will have any impact on you?

You haven’t commented about your budget. Georgia Tech ($46k) and U. of Washington ($60k) don’t offer need-based aid beyond what the federal government offers (Pell grants and loans), and I would not expect you to be a candidate for merit aid at those schools. Make sure that all schools you consider are within your budget.

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Should you decide that you’re open to at least exploring additional schools that would be likelier admits than those of your curent list, below are some suggestions.

If you like Dartmouth, have you considered Bucknell? Bucknell has about 3700 undergrads compared to Dartmouth’s 4500, but they both have more remote locations in areas of natural beauty. I think the vibe amongst students is pretty similar as well. And whereas Dartmouth has a 6% admit rate, Bucknell has a 32% admit rate. So it’s still a very competitive school for admissions, but it’s already 5x more likely of a get than Dartmouth.

You’ve selected a lot of colleges, with most of them being mid-sized to the small side of large, most of them in big cities with a number of sports teams. Using that as inspiration, here are some other schools you may want to consider.

Extremely Likely

  • Butler (IN): About 4400 undergrads in Indianapolis (Colts, Pacers, Fever, Indy 500, and other options)

  • Loyola Chicago (IL): About 12k undergrads

  • Loyola Maryland: About 4k undergrads in Baltimore, and you can also cross-register for classes at Johns Hopkins, a mile away from Loyola.

  • Marquette (WI): About 7500 undergrads in Milwaukee (Brewers, Bucks, etc)

  • U. at Buffalo (NY): About 21k undergrads (Bills & Sabres, etc)

  • U. of Minnesota – Twin Cities: About 39k undergrads

  • U. of Texas – Dallas: About 22k undergrads

Likely

  • Illinois Institute of Technology: About 3100 undergrads in Chicago

  • Southern Methodist (TX): About 7100 undergrads in Dallas

  • U. of Pittsburgh (PA ): About 24k undergrads and you can cross-register for classes at CMU, less than a mile up the road.

Toss-Up

  • Brandeis (MA): About 3700 undergrads in this suburb or Boston

  • George Washington (D.C.): About 11k undergrads in D.C. (Commanders, Capitals, Wizards, Nationals, etc.)

  • Loyola Marymount (CA): About 7300 undergrads in Los Angeles

Lower Probability

  • Case Western (OH): About 6k undergrads at this Cleveland school (Browns, Cavaliers, Guardians, etc).

  • U. of Miami (FL): About 13k undergrads

  • Villanova (PA ): About 7k undergrads in this suburb of Philadelphia

Low Probability

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As others have pointed out, your chances are very slim for most of these schools and low for others. You’ll be competing with others who had extenuating circumstances also (sometimes in more heartbreaking situations) with stronger grades than your Sophomore year. You don’t mention your Freishman grades which many of the privates will consider also.

Most of these private schools also don’t take a lot of CC transfers and the out-of-state ones favor those from their states. USC might be the one exception but even for transfers, it favors those in the Trojan Transfer Program.

But you never know unless you try. I strongly suggest you cull your list significantly down to 3-5 schools and really spend the time to find a good fit and explain why you’d be a great student at those schools. This is much better than applying to may schools thinking that increases your odds.

So you might want to reconsider applying to target/safety schools. I promise you there are great schools out there that are probably better fits for you even if they don’t carry the same prestige. You can absolutely succeed at these schools and will probably end up with the same jobs/outcomes as the brand schools on your list. If you still go the CC route, you should look at UCs and Cal States as they are much more receptive to in-state CC transfers and for some schools have guaranteed admissions. UCI is great for the areas you are interested in and has good video-game related programs (even if you don’t pursue CS).

One area of caution I’d add: it’s impressive that you’re top 100 in Madden which is a very popular and competitive game. Given you are Asian, you should approach highlighting video games cautiously as many Asian applicants often talk about that as an EC they are good at. Rightly or wrongly, it fits into a stereotype that I’ve been told by counselors doesn’t really help Asian males in particular. If you can explain your Madden analytical skills as it relates to your field of study in an essay, that is probably the best way to highlight your skills and accomplishments rather than to list it on our ECs prominently without context.

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Reading between the lines, I’m wondering if the original poster was intending to transfer from CC to one of the more competitive UC schools (which would, given sophomore grades and their test-blind nature, almost certainly be out of reach as a freshman applicant).

I am not an expert on that pipeline but it has historically been easier to get into Cal or UCLA etc. as a transfer student with a solid track record of achievement at CC. Agree that the other schools would be trickier.

I liked @tsbna44’s suggestion of Syracuse, given OP’s interests. I might add in a few flagship schools from other states, e.g. Ohio, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, where your upward grades trend and high ACT scores might help you out.

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