chance me for brown ed, yale, and vanderbilt!

javimelon14
Fri, 08 Nov 2019 05:36:13 +0000

hey everybody!

I’m a junior from the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley to be specific) in California. After visiting Brown earlier this year, it has shot up to the top of my list. Also interested in other schools which I’ve listed below. I’m curious to get some feedback/opinions on my honest chances on admission.

Context:
Latino middle-class male from relatively competitive public high school
my school is an International Baccalaureate school (akin to AP; big difference is focus on depth of education as opposed to breadth of education)
academic family (would be 4th-gen Stanford student, uncle went to Brown, aunt went to Yale)
intended major: economics (maybe also political science, business, data science, international relations, psychology, music help i’m so undecided)

hooks:
Bilingual Latino
Passionate about the intersection of math and social sciences
Well-versed in communications (debate, public speaking)
Leadership experience (debate president, chair of governmental committee)
Musical (hella music stuff listed below)
full IB Diploma scholar with high ACT and GPA

Stats:
ACT: 35
GPA UW: 4.0
planning on taking Math II and maybe Spanish SAT subject tests (aiming for 750+ on both)
(will have taken) 1 AP class (Stats) 3 AP exams (taken Stats already and got a 5)
(will have taken) 11 IB classes, 6 IB exams (max possible for me because of 2-year courses)
full IB Diploma candidate (look it up if you don’t know what it is)

Academic Awards:
National Merit Commended
competitive School Math Award (all 3 years so far)
Nomination for County Outdoor Education Cabin Leader of the Year
National Hispanic Scholar
CSF Life Member

ec’s:
President of school’s debate team (11th and 12th) and nationally ranked parliamentary debater
Chair of the Immigrant Youth Committee of my county’s Youth Commission (governmental organization)
Worked all summer before 11th grade (and probably the summer before 12th too) at Cazadero Performing Arts Camp (as a Counselor-in-Training)
Volunteer on public service trip to Panama summer before 10th grade
Athletics: cross country, track (varsity)
Competitive jazz pianist (with classical background). (by the time I apply) piano for 14 years, clarinet for 8 years, bass clarinet for 4 years, alto saxophone for 2.5 years, percussion for 2 years
Pianist in competitive Stanford-based high school all-stars jazz big band. Placed third at Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival.
Clarinetist in Peninsula Youth Orchestra (6th-9th grade)
Pit Orchestra musician (9th-12th grade). Highlights include having to learn percussion from scratch at a high level in one month (for The Addams Family), clarinetist in Fiddler on the Roof (iykyk)
Volunteered weekly at a local public middle school teaching music to 6th graders

future plans:
Organize/teach class at a local migrant academy for kids who have recently been released from detention centers at the border (still deciding what the class will be on, probably music)
Intern/work at percussion rental company in San Francisco
Putting together a high-level jazz combo
joining Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco
learning a third language (italian prob) at a community college

essay ideas:
(I swear I’m going to word it better than this. just a basic idea of my thought process)

My deep love/interest for baseball statistics (sabermetrics) began in 6th grade. My uncle invited me to join his office fantasy baseball league, which was coded by his boss, and used actual sabermetric data. It seemed like everyone in the league had PhD’s and worked at a top energy consulting company, and then there was me, a 6th grader. I loved it so much because it gave me a way to apply math and data to things that weren’t quantifiable. Essentially, I could find ways of predicting the unpredictable. This took on personal significance to me because that same year, within a few months, both my 7-year-old cousin as well as a dear friend and classmate of mine passed away in controllable, preventable, yet unpredictable circumstances. These traumatic experiences showed me the beautiful yet potentially disastrous consequences of the natural unpredictability of the world around me, beginning a deeply seeded relationship between numbers, society, and myself. Because of the beauty of the intersection between math and the humanities, I have always sought explanations where there aren’t any, I have always sought answers where there shouldn’t be questions, and I have always strived to find ways to predict the unpredictable.

Based on the information I’ve detailed above, what do you think my realistic chances of admission at a school like Brown (ED) are? For reference, here are some other schools I’m looking at (not in order):

UCLA (target/reach)
UCSB (target)
Tufts (target/reach)
Yale (reach)
Stanford (reach)
Vanderbilt (reach)
Indiana University (safety)
Rochester (safety)
Emory (target)
Penn (reach)
University of Washington (safety)
Northwestern (reach)
USC (target/reach)
WashU in St. Louis (target/reach)
UNC Chapel Hill (target)
Fordham (safety)

Thank you so much for any feedback/chances you might have for me. Much appreciated! I’m gonna go get to work on my English homework now.

p.s. if any other schools come to mind when looking at my list, please feel free to recommend!