Chance Me - Indian Boy (International)

MWolf
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 07:16:24 +0000

aarybalkar;d-2175317:

**Intended Major **- Undecided (Different for Universities)

GPA - 93.53 Weighted (on a 100-point scale. Translates to a perfect 4.0 according to College Board)
[Ref: https://pages.collegeboard.org/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale]

Not necessarily - you misunderstood what they mean on that page. To calculate your GPA, you need to translate every one of your unweighted grades to a 4.0 scale, and then calculate the mean.

There are many ways in which one can end up with a mean of 93.53, and most do not translate to a perfect 4.0. For example, taking the minimal case, if you had two grades, and an average of 93, with one being a 92 and the other a 96, your average would be 4.0. However, if you had a 99 and a 87, your average would be 3.5. Moreover, you write that your GPA is 93.53 weighted, and, a perfect 4.0 means that it is your GPA unweighted. Basically, unless every one of your unweighted grades is 90 or higher, you do not have a perfect 4.0.

Generally, students who have a perfect 4.0 have 100 point GPAs of over 95. I would guess that, if 93.53 were (is) your unweighted GPA, that your 4.0 GPA would be (is) in the 3.8-3.9 range. If that is your weighted GPA, that would put your 4.0 GPA would be lower than 3.6-3.7, depending on how things are weighted at your high school.

aarybalkar;d-2175317:

Extra-Curriculars Common App (In Order): -

1. 25 hours of Community Service at a farm, growing organic food for kids with Cancer.

2. Patrol Leader for School Boy Scouts

3. Founding Member of Technology Club

4. Tutored friends and their siblings in my locality

5. School Editorial Board Captain - In-charge of blog, magazine, newsletter, etc.

6. Part of Eco Club at old school and Founder of Eco Club at new school.

7. Winner (or runner-up) of about 20 Intra-school activities including Theatre, singing, dancing, cooking, etc.

8. Founder and Co-Head of School Theatre Club

9. Organising Committee Member of School Cultural Eve/Farewell.

10. Babysitting/Tutoring/Cooking for my 4-year old brother took up a lot of my time
(11. Organizer of Residential Society Sports Day in 2019)

Essays -
Common App Essay - 8/10
Supplementary (9.5/10)

Coursework -
Most demanding. AP/IB/Honors not offered by school (or CBSE, my Board of Education)

Interviews -
Princeton: 10/10
Stanford: 9/10
UPenn: 7/10

Universities:
Harvard
Princeton
UPenn
Cornell
Columbia
Dartmouth
Brown
Yale
Stanford
Duke
Case Western
Tulane
NYU
Rice
Emory
CalTech
Johns Hopkins
Vanderbilt

Every single one of those is a reach, a high reach, or very high reach.

In all honesty, your chances at Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Caltech, NYU, John Hopkins, Rice, or Vanderbilt are very small. Your chances for Case Western, Tulane, and Emory are only slightly better.

You are competing against stars from India and there are many of them. Students with 96 or 97 GPAs, unweighted. Students with SAT scores of 1590, with national level awards. Each of these schools on your list accepts about 40 or so students from India a year, and thousands are applying each year. The acceptance rates are about 2% or lower for Indian students for this list of yours, especially when applying RD.

Your stats and accomplishments are great, but, to be accepted from India to the schools on your list, you usually need to be even better than that, because you are competing against people who are generally better than that.

It doesn’t help that you do not seem to know what exactly you want to do. I cannot see any rhyme or reason in your list except that they are at the top of whatever ranking list you happened to have, picking the full need met ones.

Where are matches and safeties? What is your plan if (more likely when) you are rejected by all the universities on your list?

I’m not trying to be mean, just being realistic. I would be overjoyed for you if I am proven wrong.