Chance Me for: Berkeley, Northeastern, Penn State, Tulane, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, and UMass Amherst!

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Currently in the junior year stretch!

UW GPA: 3.88 W GPA: 4.41
SAT (1960): Math 660 Reading 660 Writing 640
Rank: 34/700 (will shoot into top 20 after this semester assuming I keep my straight A’s)

Currently in IB Programme. HL Psych and Physics are hybrid classes so I’ll be taking the AP exams for both this year.

Freshman Year: Biology (A/B), IB English (A/A), Hon. Geometry (B/A), Choir (A/A), Chinese 1 (A/A), IB World History (A/A)

Sophomore Year: Honors Alg. 2 (B/B), Student Council (A/A), CP Chem (A/A), Spanish 1 (A/A), IB English (A/A), Choir (A/A), IB American History (A/A)

Junior Year: Student Council (A), IB HL Psych (A), IB SL-1 Math Pre Calc, IB HL English (A), IB HL Physics (A), Spanish 2 (A)

Senior Year Classes: IB TOK, IB HL Psych, IB HL English, IB HL Physics, IB SL Math, IB SL Econ, Spanish 3, Student Council

EC’s:
-StuCo: Director of Publicity (10) -publicized all school wide events
-StuCo: Director of Social Events (11) -planned and decorated all school dances
-StuCo: Student Body President (12) - elected, will serve position next year
-Link Crew: President (11) - freshmen orientation day/year-long mentors [will serve as President senior year too]
-NHS: member (11)
-NHS: President (12) - elected, will serve position next year
-Little Warriors: member (11) - high school juniors and seniors going to neighboring elementary school to tutor/mentor
-Honor Choir (10) - highest choir at my school
-25th Chair Bass at Regional Choir festival
-Various theatre productions in and out of school, 3 leads held (9-11)

-Accepted into Cesar Chavez Leadership Institute this summer, only 60 applicants accepted in state of Arizona
-Accepted into Arizona’s Boy’s State this summer, 3 delegates per participating school

Volunteer Work:
-Helped organize, publicize, and execute marathon with proceeds benefitting skin cancer research. 1000+ runners
-Jeans for Teens
-United Food Bank
-Phoenix Marathon
-United Blood Services

Awards:

  • October Student of the Month (11)
  • Student of the Semester (Fall, 11)

Any guidance will help! I’m very excited for senior year but also nervous to apply to some of these schools! Berkeley is my top pick!

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I’m just going to comment on USC, UCLA and Berkeley because those are schools we looked at. The best starting place is to look at the freshman profile for the recently admitted classes and compare yourself to those who were admitted.

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/berkeley/freshman-profile/index.html
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/ucla/freshman-profile/index.html
https://about.usc.edu/files/2014/10/USCFreshmanProfile.2014.pdf

Those are all from last year’s class (Fall 2014). For the UC schools you should calculate your UC GPA. Look at the Univ. of California webpage for OOS applicants: http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/out-of-state/index.html. Your test scores are low for all 3 schools so anything you can do to raise those will help.

Also note that “very limited financial aid” that is “mostly loans” is available to help with the OOS tuition supplement of $24K per year at Berkeley, UCLA and the other UC’s. http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/paying-for-uc/whats-available/index.html#out-of-state. Don’t make the mistake made by many of thinking you can qualify for in state tuition after the first year. http://ucop.edu/residency/establishing-residency.html

We are also in AZ and I looked on Naviance for the USC results. Last year our HS had 33 apply to USC, 5 were admitted and 1 enrolled. The one who enrolled got the Trustee full tuition scholarship. As you should already know, USC is very expensive. Also look at Madbean’s thread on USC Chances: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1558825-what-are-my-chances-for-usc-final-answer-p1.html.

Last year for UCLA, 41 from our HS applied, 7 admitted and 1 enrolled. For Berkeley, 35 applied, 4 admitted, 1 enrolled. Again, I think that the reality of the cost of OOS attendance keeps most from attending even after they make it over the admission hurdle.

You don’t say what your intended major is, which could have a significant effect on your chances, especially if you are applying for something like CS or engineering.

3

@Corinthian thank you so much! My intended major is Architecture, which I understand might make my admissions chances even lower unfortunately. But I plan on retaking my SAT and hopefully break the 2000 barrier!