Chance me, I'll chance back

CactusUsername
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 04:38:29 +0000

Hey guys!

Trying to finalize my college list, and it sees pretty weighted towards reach and super-reach schools. I’d love some tips on which are safeties vs matches vs reaches vs not even worth applying to (cough Stanford). Thanks in advance! Here are my current schools:

University of Chicago
Stanford
University of Pennsylvania (Huntsman Dual-Degree Program)
Brown
Georgetown (School of Foreign Service)
Cornell (College of Arts and Sciences, Legacy)
Johns Hopkins
Washington University in St. Louis (Because no supplement… why not!)
UC Berkeley
Claremont McKenna
UC San Diego
George Mason (Honors College, Early Action, Recruited for speech team with scholarships)
American University (Honor College)
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
San Diego State
San Jose State

It’s a pretty ridiculous number of schools but UCs are all one app and I get fee-waivers for most so I’m making do.
Here’s my stats and stuff:

California
White
Male
Low-Income
Public high school in wealthy area

Testing:
ACT - 36 Composite Single Sitting (36M 36E 36R 35S waiting on writing)
SAT - 2330 Single Sitting (800M 780R 750W)
Subject Tests - Math II 800, Literature 730, Spanish Reading 750, Spanish Listening 740
AP - Calc AB 5, Human Geo 5, English Lang 5, Spanish Lang 5, Spanish Lit 5, Statistics 5 (and a couple that I took for no reason without self-studying or taking the class so they’re 3s or 4s, probably won’t submit)

Grades:
Expected after 1st semester senior year:
UW: 3.8 UC: 4.25 W: 4.28
Really weak 9th and 10th grade years, very strong upwards trend (9th 3.8, 10th 3.8, 11th 4.8, 12th 5.0)
Senior year class load: AP Calc BC, AP Art History, AP Microecon, AP Gov, AP Physics, AP Comp Lit

Awards:
-2nd Place in a speech event at speech and debate national championship
-2nd Place at an international debate tournament
-1st Place FRC Robotics World Championship
-1st Place Boys State California Oratory
-1st Place Boys State California Legal Advocacy

Extracurriculars - these are just a few highlights I have more stuff I can add but don’t want to waste your time:
-Robotics: 2 years Business lead for hs robotics team, raised about $140,000 each year, and was invited to Japan for a sponsor tour
-Debate: 3 years Finalist for the US National debate team (Top 15 in the country, many individual awards, coaching middle school debate, and invited to a tournament in Korea over the summer
-Local Homeless Shelter: 9 years Volunteer for a long time, first ever minor on the board of director for a couple years, and head of a group of high school students that intern at the shelter
-Business Consultant (Paid): 3 years Coaching and working for local startups and larger corporations coaching on pitch decks, business strategy, and marketing
-Spanish Translator (Paid): 3 years Translating Venezuelan birth certificates, translating online college courses
-Entrepreneurship: 2 years Work with a small team to develop a GPS bike computer, pitched to local angel investors, project eventually failed but makes for a cool story and shows my interest