Chance Me - Williams, Dickinson, Middlebury, Tulane, Brown - Funky Background

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Currently rising senior. I think I’m in a weird situation here. As a low-income Chinese American NYC resident most people like I would opt for schools like Stuy or BxSci. However I ended up at a boarding school (not gonna say which but one of the Founders League schools) I haven’t been able to find any student with my background on CC.

Colleges interested in, no particular order: Wesleyan, Williams, Hamilton, Middlebury, Brown, Tulane, Northeastern, Haverford, U of Rochester, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook, Dickinson, Union, Skidmore

Objective:
ACT: (Comp 34 , Eng 34, Math 33, Read 32, Sci 36, Essay 8):
SAT II: (Math II, 740) (Physics, 710)
Weighted GPA: (N/A)
Unweighted GPA: (estimate: 3.75/4)
Rank: (N/A)
AP: (Eng Lang, 5) (US History, 4) (AB Calc, 4) (French, Not available yet)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Stat, AP Bio, AP 3D Studio Art, AP Eng Lit, Finance, Drawing, Oil Painting
Awards: Grand Concours (French) - Silver, Varsity Letter Swimming
Course Rigor: Most Rigorous
CBO: Breakthrough NY

Subjective:
Extracurriculars:
• Breakthrough Student Ambassador - Speak with reps/donors (e.g. CBS, Eurex, Catalog for Giving NYC, Capital One Foundation) at Galas to represent the student body at Breakthrough and fundraise. Helped raise over $300k dollars.
• School Literary and Art Magazine - Layout Editor (likely President when senior year comes)
• Design Business (Founder) - Provide highly professional service in: (Senior Portraits, Event Photography, Logo Design, Graphic Design, T-shirt Design) to students and other entrepreneurs on campus, avg. $1000 revenue/gig
• School Social Media Team - Photographer (likely lead Photographer senior year) take photographs and manage school’s social media presence on Instagram and Facebook
• Band - Trumpet
• Philosophy Club
• JV Cross Country

Summer Internships/Jobs:
• Architectural Intern - Working at a NYC based high end renovation firm, drafted demolition/building plans in AutoCAD, chose flooring, tiling, paint, and other materials, helped select kitchen appliances, plumbing fixtures, and bathroom fixtures and finishes in meeting with clients, speak with local material suppliers for the commencement and collection of the firm’s samples/catalog library, help design the renovation for the firm’s office, shadow day to day activities of an architect
• PR/Social Media Intern (start up fast casual restaurant) - Audited social media accounts of similar and competing fast-casual restaurants. Created engagement by responding to commenters, Analysed viewer and engagement statistics to optimise posts for maximum audience reach, Utilised web analytics and tracking to optimise webpages for a streamlined and easy to navigate experience, Helped develop a more social media/instagrammable friendly atmosphere.
• Dental Assistant - As a yearly summer gig I work as an assistant under supervision from my cousin. I help perform: Prophies, Periodontal Maintenance, Fillings, Extractions, Root Canals, and Crowns.

Volunteer/Community service: Breakthrough? Also through Breakthrough we work around the city sporadically aiding organizations like the Billion Oyster Project, Trees NYC, Habitat for Humanity.

Summer Activities:
• Above mentioned internships.
• CIEE Study Abroad (full scholarship) - Two month immersion in Toulouse for speaking and listening skills and cultural development
• Summer Math Program for Young Scholars, CMT at Courant Institute (full scholarship)
• Center for Mathematical Talent at NYU - worked with mathematicians on proofs relating to subjects often taught post calculus such as: (Graph Theory, Number Theory, Mathematics of Web Search, and other abstract mathematics)

Essays: Haven’t written them yet but expect them to be good 9/10
Teacher Recommendations: Not amazing but nothing bad 7/10
Counselor Rec: Got to know my counselor very well 10/10

Other:
State/Residence: New York
School Type: Boarding
Ethnicity: Asian American
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: $30k
Assets/Property: $1m (not liquid from years of saving)
Extenuating Circumstances: immigrant parents, poor english, father has mild myasthenia gravis
Hooks: First Generation, Low-Income

2

The most accurate information you’ll get on your chances will be from your boarding school GC.

3

I do agree. Albeit my counselor is great, she just began her job at counseling this year. She admits she is rather unknowledgeable about low-income applicants.

4

Impressive! Have you considered applying through Questbridge? If you are a finalist, you’d have 12 chances at ED, and if you match with one of the 12 selected schools you will get a full four-year scholarship, no loans.
https://www.questbridge.org/

Of the schools you listed, these are the ones that participate in Questbridge: Wesleyan, Williams, Hamilton, Brown, Haverford. Plus many others.

5

I have applied to questbridge college prep however I think I was denied due to my high assets.

6

Most of these schools are need blind so your acceptance won’t be impacted by your financial status. The question will be if the financial aid will be enough for you to attend. Have you run the NPC for these schools? Depending on what kind of assets your family has, you may have a higher EFC than you’d like.

7

Not much help here - but yours is truly complex background (Asian-Boy-NY:: all competitive); in terms of low income - I read somewhere that need-based assistance look at assets (in addition to income) and expect it to be reasonable/in-line with income for qualification. Did you check if your family income and assets would qualify you for need-based assistance ?

8

I do qualify for financial aid however the outcome will vary school to school. I checked the npc and efc, they show $20k and $0 respectively.

9

Which school’s NPC gave you a $20K result? If that is not affordable, you can strike it from the list.

10

How do you get $1m in assets from low income? That will be included in the financial aid considerations, whether or not liquid. (Only exception is $ in Qualified Retirement Plans.) And if it’s that your family owns properties, their value will be considered, liquid or not- and the Net Price Calculators won’t work for you.

Your ECs are nice. But if you told what possible major, I can’t find it. You would benefit from rewording them less like a resume for a job. Eg, not all the audited, analyzed, utilized, optimize, and more. You’re describing as if a potential hire, not a potential freshman. They look for kids with diverse interests and experiences, nice kids, not just all “drive.” And you described your work with Breakthrough as PR/ambassador, galas (!) and fundraising. That represents a high level of trust in you, but how do you actually work diectly with the needy?

You need to go back and be sure you have an idea of what your targets look for. And as you say you have a great relationship with the GC, you do need her to advise you, new or not. For the most competitive, the SAT2 cores are below the preferred bar and the 4 scores can be an issue.

edited.

11

Ah. I missed the asset line when I first read your profile.

12

If the assets are in the form of home equity in your primary home, it will be capped at many of the schools you are interested in. IOW, they won’t count the entire million. It will be capped at a multiple of income.

13

But if the low income/high assets is additional properties…

14

Correct. If not the primary home, then the full equity is counted in the formula. But living in NYC, a home bought at a low price 20 years ago could easily be worth $1M now. Which is exactly what that formula for primary homes is trying to address.

15

You’re right I just copied the intern descriptions from my resume. As for the major issue why doesn’t the design business, art magazine, social media photographer, arch. internship, and math program fall into an arch. major.

To answer your question about the assets, we borrowed some from our cousins and in ten years time housing pricing in nyc went up like brantly said. As to answer your second question about the ambassadorship, I’m a Breakthrough student myself so the board picked me to speak on behalf of the program’s students.

16

So, the assets are in the form of equity in your primary home? Good! One college on your list does not even count home equity in its formula: Hamilton.

Wesleyan, Williams, and Haverford cap consideration of HE at 1.2X your income. So your HE would be considered at $60k. Brown, I believe, counts 100% of HE. So do Northeastern and Union. Rochester and Skidmore cap at 3x your income.

Of course the SUNY schools and any school that is FAFSA-only (does not require the CSS Profile) does not count HE at all.

CALL every school you are interested in (that takes CSS) to ask a financial aid professional how the college treats HE in FA decisions. This is going to be critical for you. Or someone at your boarding school should know this already.

17

Brantly, sorry if I’m bringing more confusion but the housing asset is not our primary residence. :frowning: Bad for me, but anyways.

You guys have all been very helpful with financial aid info. However I’d like to have your opinion on my chances of acceptance. My parents have told me they would be able to sell off any assets if I’m accepted. As you all know my background’s a bit weird so that’s my main concern now.

18

For Williams and Brown, possibly Midd, while the ACT is good, the Subject tests should be closer to 750 and the AP4 in USH and AB could be an issue. Calc is a necessary aspect of arch study and physics only a bit less so. It depends on how the individual college views these needs. We don’t know grades or the range of classes behind your belt (or any limits on AP at your school.) Nor if you’ve taken physics- or more core history. Or how balanced and rigorous your non-AP were. You need to check your academics against what the targets recommend for hs prep.

It’s nice that you were part of Breakthrough and they selected you as an ambassador. But is there any actual community service where you reached out to work with the needy. I’d expect that in a BS. Maybe, pronto, you can see what you can do directly for people.

The other ECs are harder to respond to, with the “action words” and things like choosing flooring thrown in. You need serious support form the GC. Most top BS don’t just hire someone green. How did you come up with this list of colleges?