Chance me ED2: NYU Stern, Boston C, or Boston U (NYC Resident, 4.0 GPA, top 10%)

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • New York
  • Private Catholic School
  • Asian Female
  • Senior in High school

Cost Constraints / Budget
None

Intended Major(s)

Business - Somewhere in Finance or Marketing

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: None - Only weighted
  • Weighted HS GPA: (3.96/4.0) ~ school classifies all 95-100 as 4.0s
  • Class Rank: top 10% out of graduating class ~ around 600
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1330 SAT but will not submit

List your HS coursework

All Senior courses are in progress

  • English: Regular (Frosh.), Honors English 10 (Soph.), AP Lang (Junior), AP Lit (Senior)
  • Math: Geometry (Frosh.), Honors Algebra 2 (Soph.), Math Analysis Honors/Pre-Calc. (Junior), AP Calc BC (Senior)
  • Science: Biology (Frosh.), AP Biology (Soph.), AP Chemistry (Junior), Honors Physics (Senior)
  • History and social studies: Global History I (Frosh.), Honors Global History II (Soph.), AP Human Geography (Junior), AP Macroeconomics (Senior)
  • Language other than English: Taken up to Spanish 3 Honors
  • Visual or performing arts: Percussion Ensemble (Soph.), Honors Percussion Ensemble (Junior & Senior), Concert Band (Junior & Senior)
  • Other academic courses: Science Research Honors (Soph.), AP Computer Science Principles (Junior), Forensic Science (Senior), Health (Senior), & required religion and gym classes for all 4 years

Awards

AP Scholar, College Board NRP, NHS, Mu Alpha Theta, Rho Kappa, Computer Science Honor Society, NYS Science Honor Society, Tri-M

Extracurriculars
Internship at doctor’s office (4 years), Altar Server (9 years), TA for religious ed. (2 years), run a TikTok Page w/ 3K+ followers and 33K+ likes (6 months), worked at golfcourse and as a summer camp counselor (2 years), key club treasurer (1 year) and committee president (1 year), science olympiad member (3 years), peer tutor (4 years)

Essays/LORs/Other
I have letters from my counselor and 4 teachers (AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Lang, & Forensic Science/SciOly/Research). I think/hope they’re pretty good because I have a good relationship with majority of them, I just spread the letters out to different schools based on major and/or safety.

I think my personal statement is very good, it’s about my sexuality and indifference from my ethnicity, etc.

Schools

ED2 to either: NYU Stern, Boston U, or Boston C

Reaches: Barnard, Smith, UMich, Notre Dame

Already EA’d: Northeastern, Villanova, UVA, Rutgers - New Brunswick, Binghamton, & Stonybrook

Acceptances: Fordham Dean’s Scholarship (25K), St. John’s Honors Program (42K), Hofstra Honors Program (37K), Adelphi Presidential Award (37K), Rutgers Newark & Camden (20K), UBuffalo Pride of NY (18K), Pace (37K)

Guidance counselor is telling me to do BU or NYU because it’ll be easier to get in, Mom is telling me to do BC. Scattergrams from previous years on Naviance show that in the past, 30-60 kids apply to BC but only 1-2 get accepted from my school w/ BU and NYU having much higher rates.

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Personally I would not apply ED or ED2 anywhere unless it is clearly your top number 1 choice. In terms of figuring out that your top choice is, I would recommend that you think about which school is a good fit for you, and ignore rankings (particularly when deciding between three very good universities such as the ones that you are considering).

Also I wouldn’t apply ED nor ED2 unless the cost of four years of university really does not matter to you and your family. It also looks like you are in a major where an MBA is at least possible, and this could imply additional expense.

You already have multiple very good and IMHO well-earned acceptances. Congratulations! Hopefully this is reducing the stress that often comes along with this process.

To me it looks like you are doing very well. I think that you are a strong candidate for any of the schools that you are still considering, even being test-optional (although I will admit that I have not checked what percent of students accepted to these particular schools have submitted test scores).

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Thank you so much!! Honestly I don’t really have a top choice as at the end of the day it will be up to my parents… but I just hope for a good school where I can be a little free.

Is it worth it to obtain? I honestly hate school but I do not want not having it to disrupt my future job opportunities.

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So the first thing is, you need an unweighted GPA. A weighted GPA is meaningless because every school weights differently. The schools will likely recalculate you so you need to.

It’s quite easy. Take each academic class (so no PE) and give yourself:

4 points for an A, 3 for a B, 2 for a C, 1 for a D. Add up the points and divide by the # of classes.

It would be impossible to assess you otherwise.

Did you ED1 anywhere?

Thanks

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Is there any way of knowing how many of these were specifically into Stern? (Seeing as people being admitted into second choice majors would still show up as admits on these)

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My school doesn’t use letter grading & my counselor said they don’t calculate unweighted. I have around a 98.8/100

I didn’t ED1 anywhere because I was still unsure, but after having long talks with my parents and counselors I was able to settle. Staying in NYC would allow me to be near family and friends wheres Boston would still be close to home but also give me a little independence.

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For ED1 around 22 kids applied and half of them got into CAS. Out of my two friends who applied for Stern, 1 got waitlisted & the other rejected… I think last year two girls got in RD and the year prior around 1-3.

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This is not how all universities calculated unweighted GPAs, of course.

UMass doesn’t do it this way for admissions, for example. Many HS don’t either. Many colleges don’t re-calculate at all.

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I liked school better when I was able to focus more on the subjects that I liked best. This was most obvious when I got to graduate school and nearly every subject was in my major (there was only one exception, and it was a class that I wanted to take and it was somewhat related). One obvious question is whether you will like school better after you get to university.

This does however lead to the question: What do you like to do? In particular, what do you like to do that appears to be closely related to something that you could do as a career?

To me finance and marketing are not quite the same thing. I was a math major, which does overlap a bit with finance. Marketing is something that to me at least seems quite different (and something that I could not do at all).

However, where to focus does seem like something that you can figure out after you get to university, and most likely after having a couple of years of university business related course work already completed.

Regarding the GPA discussion, one issue is that different high schools in the USA compute GPAs in wildly different ways. This makes it difficult to directly compare what each student reports as their high school GPA. Universities will see your detailed transcript and will know how to interpret it. For our purposes of guessing your chances having some set way to compute GPA (such as A=4, C=3, …) can at least help us give a more accurate guess of your chances.

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I think NYU Stern and BC Carroll are very much reaches for you.

Both schools are very selective - much more in line with ND and Barnard than with Villanova, Rutgers, Binghampton, Fordham, St John’s,…

Everyone has a high GPA these days. It’s a given - pretty much become a joke as far as admissions people goes (reason why more colleges are turning back to requiring SAT/ACT scores).

Your SAT scores are significantly below the range at the more selective schools on your list (NYU, BC, UVA, ND, Barnard,…). Btw, some of the those schools - BC, UVA - will very much want to see your SAT scores regardless of their “official policy”. You may also think about taking the actual AP exams and score a 5 (similar to GPA - seems everyone lists AP courses and that they took 15 AP exams but few score 5s on the AP exam which is really what matters). You have a lot of extra-curriculars but they don’t really tell a focused/coherent story that reflects and weaves your interest of study.

Congrats on your Fordham accept and the scholarship. That is great and FU has a good program at the Gabelli business school and good alumni network in the Tri-State. I would be very happy if I were you to potentially end-up there.

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I don’t have a formal recommendation for you but a couple school-specific things that might factor into your decision:

NYU and BU tend to be more favorable for Test optional applicants (<50% of those admitted appear to have submitted a test score) whereas BC tends to admit more students with test scores (I think >60-70% of admitted students submit a test score). I assume you want to apply to BC CSOM (Carroll School of Mngmt), not the the Arts&Science school (MCAS) and CSOM is assumed to be more competitive (but no published numbers to prove it). However, BC being a Catholic school does admit a lot of students from religious school backgrounds. NYU Stern is likely the most competitive of all of your choices, but unless you are going for a big IB or Finance firm for a job, I am not sure it confers any major advantage over other “business” options from your other choices (including your various EAs and acceptances). So if you want a higher chance to get in, maybe BU is best - but if you just want the most selective school, NYU Stern is likely the choice.

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Next question, do you know if they submitted test scores?
I know NYU is test optional and you are not planning to submit, but as another poster noted above, grade inflation is rampant and testing is one way to discern that - especially at Stern.
Did I miss it somewhere, but what are your achieved AP exam scores?

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I hate this. I like - which school speaks to me, that I’d want to bind myself to.

You will be somewhere four years, day after day, so if I’m ED’ing I want that in mind.

If you’re looking for heft/rank, for marketing it’s overrated. For one who thinks marketing or finance, unless they’re very quant oriented, they’ll likely end up in marketing. That’s where the more don’t like math and science end up (like me). Today there’s still a quant emphasis but still less so than finance (by a lot).

BC Is Catholic and has a campus - really 2.

BU/NYU are both smack in the city with NYU no semblance of campus at all. BU has major sports, sans football.

If you are 100% sure you want to be at one, then pick it. If you are not, don’t ED.

All are tough admits. BU is more TO and loves full pay. BU, if you are EDing for prestige, in my mind is more comparable to your other admits than your top 2. It’s obviously a much bigger name but I don’t see Questrom in the same league of Carroll and Stern when people seek perceived rep. But I’m more concerned with fit than name and if you end up in marketing, I’m little concerned with name at all.

Ps - I’d assume your gpa is not weighted, since they have one but it’s semantics.

Congrats on your admits. Best of luck. The good news is you’ve already got great potential homes.

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I think I will like school more once I get to university as it will allow me more freedom & independence compared to right now. Right now it’s just so meh as I’m wrapping up my first semester and still working on all my college apps. My counselor is recommending me to go away to help me find myself and be who I am, etc. and I think time away from my mom is a good thing.

TBH I don’t like doing much… but I would say I’m very skilled and attentive to the things I do. I’m pretty good in math and love doing riddles and puzzles which I guess correlates to analyzing and solving business problems.

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LOL I was so bad in chemistry, the only one I was good with was biology (and physics as of right now…) I’m pretty good in math so that’s why finance was definitely a major option for me. Marketing and Administration were my initial choices but Reddit subpages made me question whether to pursue them.

As for BC, I’ve grown up Catholic and was going to ED to Nova but I’m not like overtly religious so it’s not a huge factor for me. I’ve heard BU is like the NYU of Boston but I don’t really mind.

Yeahhhh that’s what I’m afraid of when I’m applying for jobs but I’ve also heard some companies don’t care where you graduated but I’m not 100% sure.

Thank you!!

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I’m pretty sure I’ve taken more honors & APs than all the ones who applied to Stern but my AP scores are ok… Mainly 3s and 4s.

Both the ones who applied this year had higher SATs than me. The one who got rejected got 10-20 points higher but her GPA is much lower than mine. The one who was waitlisted got a 1540?? So I was really surprised when he didn’t get in.

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Yes 2/40 kids from my school got in last year. One was the valedictorian who received the Presidential Scholarship and the other was recruited for a sport but received no money.

Yeah, I’ve just heard it helps a lot because of it being near Wall Street but so is Fordham🤷‍♀️

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Yeah… I was hearing that this year would be one of the easier years for top schools because of the government but everybody is so locked in now.

Thank you! I knew I was going to get in but it’s definitely not one of my top top choices. I would love to aim higher and go away from NYC.

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I think when one can afford, going away is a home run. But not everyone is suited differently. Many come on and say I miss my friends and you noted that about NYU.

I do think there are differences of BU and NYU - one is still more - not campusy but has an identity, etc.

Getting a job often depends on the economy. Different companies think differently. My experience is they don’t care if you went to Vanderbilt or W Georgia so BU or Binghamton, they probably don’t care.

But if you’re going for Investment Banking, it could very well be different.

In the end, my belief is you will be somewhere day after day for four years so I’d want to be happy.

And if you don’t want BC (likely a more “campusy” environment and you’re unhappy with the bang for the buck of BU, then maybe Babson is a happy medium. Great name, a bit cheaper….and a bit out in the burbs although I can’t speak to the campus environment.

But it doesn’t sound like you’re a person where the perceived prestige is going to matter. Usually those kids have their eyes on wall street and getting rich.

There are successful kids from New Paltz and there are non successes from Harvard. It’s not black and white like everyone tries to portray it.

4 years is a big chunk of your life - pursue where would make you happy.

I’m not a fan of your counselor - apply here and get locked in because it’s easier. That’s great…except if it’s not really where you want to be.

ED is NOT a game - and too many people make it so. You clearly seem indifferent at this point to a lot of things so I wouldn’t ED at all….or at least I’d get out, visit, and validate.

But that’s me.

Good luck.

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So of the people who apply to stern, when you submit test scores you can be test flexible and submit 3 APs (one of which must be math). I guarantee you most of the applicants who go that route are submitting all 5s. NYU’s middle 50 for SAT is 1470 to 1570 at the moment and historically (when they used to release the separate breakdown for stern, they don’t anymore) Stern applicants have been at the upper end of NYU’s middle 50. I have heard of even higher SATs than 1540 being waitlisted so I am personally not surprised. Stern can afford to be incredibly selective.

If you want to choose one as ED2 it should be shoot your shot for favorite reach. Is that Stern?