Chance Me: Hispanic woman, 1600 [superscore] SAT, 4.0 GPA, NMSF, philosophy, pre-law track. Dream School = UChicago

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics
US Citizen + IL Resident from highly competitive public magnet school
Female, Hispanic, 1st gen American

Info/Stats
Philosophy major w/ minor in Data Sci / Cybersec to be a lawyer in the tech / IP field
GPA: 4.0 UW, 5.2/6.0 weighted (reg is 4.0, honors 5.0, APs 6.0)
we don’t do class rank
1600 superscored SAT: 1570 on paper SAT (800M 770R) first time, 1540 digital (740M, 800R) that school made me take for grad req

Coursework – rising senior
APs (I got 5s in all):
APHG, APUSH, CS Principles, US Gov, Lang, Spanish, Micro, Psych, Calc AB
Upcoming coursework:
AP Lit, AP Stats, AP Spanish Lit, Honors Real Analysis (adv math)

Awards

  • 2nd place speaker at local 1st division debate tourney
  • Scholastic writing Medal (silver) for Critical Essay
  • Published Winner, nat HS poetry competition
  • Honorable Mention, internat HS/college poetry comp
  • Honorable Mention in state HS poetry comp (1 winner and 1 honorable mention per grade, so basically 2nd place… 5% award rate)
  • Hispanic Scholarship Fund Youth Leadership Institute Scholar (<10% acceptance rate)
  • (bc of my PSAT probably will be at least a) National Merit Semifinalist
  • AP Scholar with Distinction

Extracurriculars

  • Policy debate captain + novice coach - coached teams to speaker awards + city semifinals, made novice curriculum (lectures + activities), specialize in philosophy-based arguments
  • Slam poetry team captain - made it to state finals sophomore year, starting a bunch of new initiatives to expand the team (poetry out loud, professional workshops, etc.)
  • UChicago internship - did data analysis, inventory management, recruiting, demo studies, and design for one of the research institutes
  • selective UChicago summer program - took free classes at uchicago (e.g. philosophy & programming)
  • Spanish Honor Society - raised 10k for cancer fundraiser, going to be helping out exec board w lectures & activities
  • Varsity soccer team (4 years)
  • Self-taught programmer: Python, SQL, R, going to be getting AI certificate this summer

Essays/LORs/Other
LOR from calc teacher (great guy; vouched for me to get into Analysis despite prereqs; prob good rec), lang teacher (same; had him for 2 years), and philosophy professor (planning to ask him after this political phil class is done; i participate the most in his class so i think it’s gonna help my app considering i don’t have a lot of phil ECs)
personal statement: about my relationship w the neighborhood(s) i grew up in + my sense of responsibility for making my community better … working on it but peer + teacher feedback says it’s engaging + unique, just need to reinforce my message and it’ll be good

Cost Constraints / Budget
i don’t qualify for financial aid but i need $$ from somewhere - currently applying to hundreds of scholarships + praying i get some merit aid from match schools + considering financial options w family (line of credit etc etc)

Schools
Safety

  • UIUC (major would be just philosophy)
  • DePaul
  • Illinois Tech
  • Loyola Chicago

Likely

  • Macalester

Match

  • Boston College
  • Boston University
  • Northeastern
  • Tufts
  • UMich
  • Penn State (w/ honors college may be more of a reach…)

Reach

  • UChicago
  • Northwestern
  • Harvard
  • Yale
  • UPenn

I am stressing a lot abt college apps so any and all honest feedback + advice is greatly appreciated!

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The thing you need to be stressing about is paying for it. You have a decent shot at getting in anywhere, with your stats. But if you would not qualify for fin aid, but have no money, you need to win big merit money. So your full ride safety is Alabama and a couple of other schools offering full ride to national merit finalists, i think dallas and tulsa. There are other schools that offer full tuition for national merit. Then you need to look for massive merit scholarships at specific schools, especially those earmarked for hispanic students. Sounds as if you are already looking at outside scholarships.

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The best merit aid comes directly from the colleges. A number of schools on your list do not give merit aid at all…they give only need based aid.

Are you saying that your family will not be contributing anything to fund your college education?

Agree that as a NMSF you should look at the very generous awards from University of Tulsa, University of Alabama (all campuses), UT Dallas.

You have an impressive resume, and could get a significant competitive merit award from Duke, Washington and Lee, University of South Carolina, and a few others. There are other folks who can better give this info. @DramaMama2021 perhaps can help.

@Mwfan1921

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Thank you for your response! I will look into those colleges asap.
My parents will be contributing to my college education. They said they’d be willing and able to make it worth if I got into a HYP+; however, i want to minimize my cost burden (partially bc of guilt and partially bc i have two younger brothers also looking to go to college)

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Thanks for your response! I’ll look into those colleges/awards, esp. the college-spec hispanic ones.
I am definitely looking at outside scholarships - on my spreadsheet I think I have about 35 so far? but ofc money is not guaranteed so i’ll be sure to expand the list. as i said in my reply to thumper1 my parents will be contributing, but i want to minimize my cost burden bc of younger siblings attending college in the future.

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Perhaps you should change this wording. It made it sound like your family wasn’t contributing anything.

What is your budget for college costs? Are you eligible for need based aid? Have you run Net Price Calculators on the schools you listed? Many already cost in the $90,000 a year range.

I think you should try for the very competitive trustee scholarship at Boston University.

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good point. i would if the edit time hadn’t already expired :frowning:

Not eligible for need based aid. I’d estimate our budget could be 10k-40k yr (but i should ask my parents for an actual # before finalizing that). Net price calculators I’ve run (UChicago, Harvard, Yale, etc.) have come out to 90%-full price so about 80k-90k a year.

I’ve been drafting for the trustee supplemental for the past couple months actually! Definitely a scholarship I should keep in mind.

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Then as noted, you have a financing problem unless your family can and will pay $80k-$90k a year or more for your college costs.

Look into the Johnson Scholarship at Washington and Lee…and excellent college. Look into the Robertson at Duke @Catcherinthetoast any suggestions about this one).

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For UIUC, are you sure you’d want a pure philosophy major? When you described your interests and goals, my first thought was this:

CS is so well-regarded at UIUC - and a tough admit too, but I have little doubt you’d get into a CS+X major like this one. It would position you so well for the kind of work you want to do. I’m not sure how easily you could get the computational classes you’d want/need without the major. On the CS minor page, it is stated: “Declaring a CS minor does not provide registration advantages in CS courses. We cannot guarantee that a student can obtain all the courses needed to complete the minor (completing a minor is not a graduation requirement).” You could probably start out in the CS+Philosophy major, though, and switch to Philosophy + CS minor once you’ve completed the hard-to-access classes, if you feel that you’ve gotten all that you need on the computational side.

Given the affordability challenges, UIUC in-state seems like a highly-attractive option. The elite schools that don’t give merit seem like your family would be going out on a big financial limb.

The Northeastern combined majors like Data Science + Philosophy seem like a great idea too, and their NMF merit has been pretty generous in the past. Not sure of the current amount - the website only says it is “generous.”

You have Penn State on your list, but have you considered Pitt? They also have an Honors College, and you’d have a chance of merit, particularly if you apply early. (Admissions are rolling - the application opens next month.) The Philosophy department is very highly regarded - some lists put it in the top three in the world. Double majors and joint majors are also possible here, and CS/DS are strong. Plus, you seem to prefer more urban schools generally, and Pitt fits that pattern well.

Another school where you’d get a guaranteed half-tuition scholarship for National Merit, and the possibility of full-tuition, would be USC. There are multiple major options in the philosophy department, and double-majors are encouraged - USC is very friendly toward cross-disciplinary pursuits.

Lots of great options; the worry is that you have a decent chance of getting into schools that would tempt you to make a bigger financial commitment than what seems wise. I’d encourage you to capitalize on your strong credentials to put yourself in a good position financially as well as academically.

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Here is a list of schools that offer full-ride merit scholarships. Of course these scholarships are extremely competitive but you are a competitive applicant (!) so worth a look!

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I applaud your consideration of preserving family resources for your younger sibs. Your stats and record are fantastic. They may not be able to equal your record, may not have the same chances at merit money that you have, may need your parents to pay at least in state rate for college.

You will do very well wherever you go, and you can get into top law schools from any college, since you will have a high GPA and LSAT.

For both these reasons, I think your goal is a full ride. Alabama is a state flagship, has a lot of NMFs taking their offer of a full ride, so there will be a large cohort of very bright students there. Also of course look into Dallas and Tulsa.

I think you could be in the running for full tuition merit scholarships at schools that have them, especially if they are earmarked for Hispanic students.

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You’ve got an impressive high school profile and it are looking for merit aid…how wonderful that your record is likely to get you some very nice offers!

Totally. Figuring out the budget lets you (and us) know whether you need to look for full ride scholarships or full tuition, etc.

Definitely look into this thread and select some schools that you would be happy to attend that will get you a guaranteed full ride, or whatever price will meet the budget:

After you’ve done that, then I’d look for schools that offer Big Merit. With an interest in philosophy, these are some schools I’d take a look at:

  • Boston College
  • Emory
  • UNC - Chapel Hill
  • Fordham
  • Tulane
  • U. of Maryland - College Park
  • Southern Methodist
  • Ohio State
  • Boston U.
  • Syracuse
  • Duke
  • Vanderbilt
  • Indiana U.
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Congrats to you.

Given this, you can remove Tufts, Northwestern, Harvard, Yale and U Penn. There’s no non-need aid.

You can sub in Vandy, WUSTL, Rice, etc. They’re still likely to be expensive but you have an outside shot at merit, including full tuition.

Since you want to go to law school, I’ll tell you the where you go undergrad likely won’t matter. Your LSAT and other things will - and being female and Hispanic will help.

Harvard, as an example, has 147 colleges in the first year class - think about that. 561 students. 51% are students of color. Colleges like Arizona State, Florida International, Tennessee Tech, etc.

U Penn has over 200 colleges represented in the law school. UVA, in its 2026 class, has 5 from U of Arkansas…as an example.144 colleges are represented in is first year class.

I bring this up because you are NMSF…and likely will be NMF.

U Tulsa is a full ride - 25% or more of their class is NMF - so tons of smart kids. President Carson posts on this website. It’s a fine school.

U of Alabama gives you (assuming you become NMF) a 5 year scholarship - and you’d spend not much.

These are auto merit (meaning you get if you attend - no questions asked) - and there’s more - UT Dallas, Maine, Florida schools and more. National Merit is the golden ticket. I put two below for you…but again, there’s more.

So you are fantastic and your list is fantastic.

But you are likely wasting time applying to hundreds of scholarships - because some of the big ones are need based and you don’t have need - and the others are small. And even if you get lucky, they’re hard to apply to - and frankly, you needn’t go through the effort.

Take advantage of the the largesse schools will provide to you - or at least have them in your back pocket - because you need merit (and you needn’t work hard to get it), law school is expensive, and you’ll be able to go to a top one from anywhere (get a great LSAT…given your 1600 that seems likely).

Best of luck.

National Merit Semifinalist Package - The University of Tulsa (utulsa.edu)

National Merit Scholars | Afford (ua.edu)

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Congratulations on your achievements.

Will your parents pay full price for UIUC so $40Kish (just double checking)? You could get some merit there too. Make sure to apply EA there and EA to any school on your list that offers it.

Now to UChicago. You will get their $20K first gen scholarship and something additional because you attended the summer session. You might get more merit from them as well if your magnet school is CPS and/or a U Chicago partner. I don’t know if it can get you to $40K though…so that precludes applying via any of their ED plans. You could ask them for a financial aid pre-read though, it’s worth a try to get a sense of the potential package there.

Michigan, Penn State, Harvard, Yale, Penn will be unaffordable so take them off the list. Northwestern will likely be unaffordable too. Getting the price of BC, BU, Northeastern down to $40K and/or getting a named scholarship makes them a high reach, but still try!

I second looking at the national merit full ride schools, and the schools suggested by austennut and tsbna. Good luck.

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Also keep in mind Law school can cost another 150-200k in tuition alone. However you are an amazing student and I would expect you would get similar grades and LSAT score in college such that you might get merit money for law school. However that can’t be counted on.

As others have suggested you would have a chance for lots of the very few merit scholarships at top schools but again you never know and the kids you will be competing against with have similar grades, scores and ECs.

As suggested above you should include a few schools that have guaranteed merit awards such as Bama, Tulsa, etc.

Good luck to you and keep us posted on your journey

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A quick reminder about “outside scholarships”- many of them are not renewable. That means you get the money for freshman year- but zero afterwards. Be very careful in your math and your assumptions. Most of us parents know kids who had to transfer after freshman year because they couldn’t afford to continue, and that is a tough situation to be in. 1- you lose the money you needed to bridge the gap between parental resources and whatever college based merit or need award you get-- 2- Transfers typically get WORSE financial aid/merit than students who start as freshman. So they have worse options for sophomore, junior and senior year than they would have by starting out at an affordable school.

You sound amazing and are going to do fantastic things. Just make sure you are developing a four year plan, not a one year plan!

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I happen to know several lawyers who work in intellectual property in high tech. “IP” is a bit of an ambiguous acronym for lawyers working in high tech since it refers to both “Intellectual Property” and “Internet Protocol”, both of which come up from time to time (but we use the acronym anyway, and it is usually clear from the context which is meant).

Quite a few of the intellectual property lawyers who I happen to know have a bachelor’s degree in some related field, such as computer science or electrical engineering. Apparently you can major in almost anything and then go to law school, although both the ability to write well and the ability to think logically are valued.

I think that you are a very competitive applicant to any university in the US. Of course your reaches are reaches for everyone. You should keep your budget in mind and try to make sure that you will be able to afford law school when you get to that point.

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OP states she is a first gen American not necessarily first gen college student. My understanding was that for college admissions it is just the latter that is considered an obstacle worthy of being an admission ‘hook’ or distinguishable for earning this merit scholarship.

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Agree, I had processed first gen, so if OP’s parents have graduated from a 4 year college they won’t qualify for that Chicago scholarship.

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Remove Penn State. It won’t be affordable. You could try Pitt. They offer some merit but it’s competitive. You would be in the mix with your stats. Highly regarded Philosophy department as well. Apply early for best chances.

You could look at FSU. They have some very nice scholarships for NMF kids. S21 is very happy there.

You mentioned your parents will pay for a HYPSM school. Would they make the same offer to your siblings? Could they? I have a friend whose parents made him take a free ride instead of an elite school. They paid full price for other siblings who didn’t get scholarships. It created an awkward dynamic. Good luck.

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