Type of high school: Public, extremely competitive residential school
Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Female, Asian
Other special factors: First-generation, low-income
Intended Major(s)
Finance/Econ/Business (depending on the school)
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.83, likely 3.85 by the end of first-semester senior year (calculated on my own, current school does not offer UW)
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.6/5.0
Class Rank: N/A
ACT/SAT Scores: 1550 SAT (I will be taking it again and hopefully score 1570+)
Coursework
Attended two high schools, freshman year only allowed AP human geo, sophomore year I doubled up on my math, science, and Spanish classes so no room for APs
Current school only offers 4 APs, 1 requires previous physics AP
Side note: The school I’m attending doesn’t explicitly state anything (except the four classes) as honors or AP because all courses are recognized as college-level and are weighted on a 5.0 scale
English 1 honors
Math 2 honors
Earth and Environmental science honors
World history honors
AP Human Geo
Accounting 1
Entrepreneurship 1
Spanish 1
Spanish 2
Equivalent of Spanish 3 (weird name for it at my school)
English 2 honors
Math 3 honors
Pre calc honors
biology honors
chemistry honors
civic literacy honors
Data science
Calc 1
Calc 2 (Took Calc BC Exam)
American Studies 1 & 2
Molecular and cellular biology
AP Chem (Took AP Chem exam)
Organic Chemistry
Computing/Python class
Foundations in research
Senior Year Courseload
Math intensive physics
astrophysics
research in humanities
biomedical engineering
neuroscience (research component)
multivariable calculus
linear algebra
operations research
women’s gender and sexuality studies
molecular genetics (research component)
Awards
1st place Science Olympiad Forensics
2nd place Science Olympiad Write it, Do it
Likely the AP Scholar award once BC and Chem scores are released
Participating in essay and research competitions this summer as well which will hopefully make this section stronger
Extracurriculars
TED translator
Science olympiad, two state awards
Co-founder and Co-president of ‘genshe’ business club
Baking business in partnership with local restaurant freshman and sophomore year, made 30k
Worked at my family’s restaurant (general assisting as well as aiding in some of the financial aspects)
Starting IRS vita e3 tax program in partnership with another school and latin-american, low-income-focused organization
Independent study on the viability of cryptocurrency, potential publication
Cancer research (specifically on mechanisms surrounding g-proteins/GPCRs and their role in cancer progression) at a university, soon to be published
Leadership role within my school partnering with the mentorship & research program we offer
Film club treasurer
Local non-profit bookshop board member and volunteer
70+ community service hours
Private math tutor
Scientific journal club
Stem Buddies club
Interact club
Asian Cultures Association Club
Key Club
mock trial
various certifications (project management, Red Cross, etc.)
Essays/LORs/Other
(9/10): A letter from my American studies teacher, close relationship, and extensive detail
(9/10): A letter from my AP Chem teacher, also a close relationship. This teacher has written LORs for me previously that have 100% aided in my acceptance to various programs
Both teachers attended & one taught at Duke if that is relevant
Cost Constraints / Budget
Income will likely qualify for full financial aid
Schools
Safety
UNC-Chapel Hill (I am guaranteed admission + tuition grant because of the school I attend, so this is the only safety on my list. If I don’t get in anywhere else I’ll attend UNC!) - RD
Reach
UPenn Wharton - ED? (I want to apply early decision, but some counselors say it could have a negative effect as I’ll be competing with legacies and athletes)
Brown - RD
Columbia - RD
Cornell - RD
Dartmouth - RD
Harvard - RD
Yale - RD
Princeton - RD
UMich - EA
Georgetown - RD
Notre Dame - RD
Duke - RD
UChicago - RD (my uncle works as the director for a few of their programs connected to Booth School of Business, I’m not sure if this will help me or not)
Northwestern - RD
NYU - RD
MIT - RD
Please let me know your honest thoughts and what I can do to improve! Thank you!
A bit confused by your course load senior year. Just ensuring you have an English, math, social science and foreign language. Your classes don’t seem ‘traditional.”
If you have an assured and affordable admission at UNC, that’s a home run.
I am concerned with your courses. And if you truly want finance, then you shouldn’t study econ and then you can remove some schools.
I can’t really chance you given I don’t quite understand your profile. But you seem amazing.
Thank you for the advice! You’re correct about my school offering less ‘traditional’ courses, but it covers all the bases and UNC takes many of them as credits!
I know the school you are at, my kid was same. Huge asset to be able to have UNC as a safety and tuition grant. As you know the competition is strong. I would focus on your essays and story tying it all together. The humanities you’ve taken should help to differentiate a bit.
You won’t be competing with athletes in the admissions process. If Penn ED is your first choice and it looks affordable per the NPC, then it’s ok to apply ED. https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/upenn
Please apply to all schools that you can in the EA round…UNC would be the only other one on the list at this point (besides Mich, which you tagged as applying EA). Does the UNC deal with your HS require an RD app or is an EA app ok? Note that UNC Kenan Flagler will have a secondary admission process that is holistic.
Your list of reaches is very long and will require many essays…can you cull that list?
Have you considered applying thru Questbridge? Many of your schools are QB partners.
Crypto AND cancer AND baking AND restaurant plus everything else? Two of these seems like quite a lot for a HS student…your list seems somewhat unrealistic…not challenging the veracity, just pointing out that a tighter list might present you in a more compelling way.
Econ isn’t finance. Spend an hour with the online course catalog of the colleges you are interested in. I know a lot of kids who discover once they are enrolled that their college doesn’t teach what they wanted to learn. Yes, HBS teaches finance. But as a Harvard College undergrad studying econ, you’ll be immersed in macro and econometrics and won’t be taking classes at HBS.
You sound terrific. But I think a tightening up of your list…and what you want to present to adcoms is going to help you a lot.
Great list. Since you are assured admissions to UNC and want to go there if you don’t have a better option, you don’t need any other safeties. I agree with ED to Wharton, rather than RD, even though you’re competing with legacies and athletes.
Would you prefer every single one of the schools on your list to UNC?
How awesome is that to have UNC as a guaranteed admission! You sound amazing. The only thing I would add is that I don’t think raising your already-very- impressive SAT score by a few points will do much to improve your application. So retake it if you want but don’t sweat it.
Just guessing here but are you are aiming for 1570 to match Penn’s 75th percentile? They reported 75th percentile is 800M/770 EBRW…but that doesn’t necessarily mean their 75th percentile composite score is the sum of those two because they may be reporting them individually.
My point is you already have a super high score so, if I were you, I’d spend more time on essays and forget retaking the SAT.
First of all, UNC is a very good university. When I was in graduate school (at Stanford) one of my best friends was a UNC graduate and one of the stronger students in the same graduate program. I have also worked with a few UNC graduates who were very good. For a safety this is a very good university. Hopefully this will take quite a bit of the stress off of the rest of your applications.
Otherwise I think that you are a very strong candidate, and the rest of your schools are reaches. Some of them are need blind for admissions, and (I think) some are not. You are likely to get into a few of them, but there is some chance that you might only get into UNC. Of course you can only attend one university at a time and UNC is a great choice if something else does not come through.
In terms of what you can do to improve, just keep being yourself. Be authentic. You are doing superbly well. Just keep doing whatever is right for you and continue to do it very well.
In terms of having only one safety, I am fine with this as long as it really is a safety and as long as you would be happy going there. When I was a senior in high school I similarly only had one safety. It was McGill (in-province). We have seen a couple of threads here on CC from students with only one safety but who were auto-admit for UT Austin (in-state). I see all of these cases as quite similar. When you have a solid safety that is on the UNC-CH, McGill, UT-Austin level then it is okay if the rest of your schools are reaches.
I do not see how applying ED to U.Penn can hurt compared to applying RD. I would only apply ED if BOTH of the following are true: It is clearly your first choice; The NPC shows it as being likely to be affordable. Otherwise, or if you want to compare financial offers from multiple schools, you might want to avoid applying ED anywhere and just see what offers you get.
I think that you are doing very well. Congratulations and best wishes!
I might add: I personally would not make an effort to try to improve upon a 1550 SAT score. 1550 is already superb.
While legacies and athletes are included in the ED acceptance rates, you won’t really be competing against them. They are admitted at a much higher percentage than unhooked applicants and as such, skew the ED acceptance rate higher. You will be competing against other unhooked applicants who have applied ED.
As others pointed out, the senior year courses look heavy on math , as you are able to handle AP chem and BC calc , organic chem in the Junior , you should able to handle them, but wondering why there are no economics ( macro micro AP ) classes
Carnegie melon should be included as it has awesome business school
May be you should also include Rice, Emory and Vanderbilt , they are similar to Gerogetown and Notre Dame , Emory and Vandy are know for merit scholarship for small number of students
You should get UNC Assured admission for Keenan Flagger … and for this EA for UNC is required
AP macro and micro are not offered at my school, I could self-study but by the time AP scores are released admissions will be done. Operations research was the closest I could get. Thank you for the advice!
Thank you! My counselor and mentor, as well as the restaurant I partnered with, can verify my accomplishments. The research is still ongoing but I will be done a few months before applications are due!
The only thing I would add: you have a lot of reaches, and they are reaches for everyone. I think you might be happier next spring if you shorten the list of reaches, and consider adding a couple targets where you’re likely, but not certain, to get in (and that you’d want to send). It’s great that you have a fantastic safety option - but it can also be nice to be relatively certain that you will have a choice when all of the decisions come out.
Thanks! I would prefer most of the schools on the list over UNC, but I’d also be more than happy to attend UNC so I’m okay if I don’t get into any other schools.
The reason that I asked was that there were a few schools on there that I thought that you might prefer UNC over them, in which case I wondered why you were applying to them at all.
Except NYU , the rest of the schools ratings are better , NYU is the odd man out and UMICH Ross school is better, I am not familiar with George town business
But KF school admission is not given, only UNC admission is guaranteed , and most of the kids for her high school will have similar statistics in ACT/SAT or GPA, so the teacher recs, ec’s , essays and awards may play large part,