Chance Your Boi

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Sup guys, hope you’re all having a wonderful summer that’s totally not being ruined by college szn. Anyways, hope y’all will take the time to give me some suggestions as to where I could possibly get in. Obviously nothing is certain, but it makes me a feel a bit more sure of myself you know. I’ll prob apply through QuestBridge if I am a finalist too,

Demographics
-Asian male
-Low-income; first-gen

Academics
-GPA: 97.5 Unweighted, 107-108 Weighted; prob 1/162
-SAT: 1470 (retaking August, I thought I was gonna cancel this score so I didn’t prep but decided to just keep it)
-SAT Subject Tests: Lord help me I waited too long to take these (gotta do it in Oct/Nov)
-APs: Euro (4), Pych (5), U.S. Gov (5), APUSH (5), Lang (5), Chem (4), APES (4)

Major: Behavioral Psych

ECs
-Ongoing research with psych professor about behavioral psych (mostly about human behavior)
-Summer internship at psych clinic, learning more about human behavior and other things
-Student Council VP
-STEM Club Founder/President
-UNICEF Club Founder/President
-NHS (possible Secretary)
-Cross Country/Indoor/Outdoor Track (possible XC Captain)
-Valley United Way
-Link Crew Coordinator
-Other clubs: Hope Club, Chess Club, Math Club

Letters/Essays
Letters: APES teacher (really likes me, hopefully a really good one), Chem teacher (same as before), prob gonna get my Lang teacher too (could go either way)

Essays: Hopefully I don’t put the AOs to sleep you know

Weaknesses
-SAT score, lack of subject tests for now, weak ECs (should I also get a LoR from a non-STEM teacher?)

Chance Me For
-Northeastern
-Tufts
-Duke
-Yale
-Princeton
-Columbia
-Johns Hopkins
-Carnegie Mellon
-Vanderbilt
-UNC
-Harvard (lol)
-BU
-Flagship State-School

2

Consider taking the ACT. If you finish tests quickly, the ACT could be a better test for you than the SAT. There are pdfs available online, print one out and spend a Saturday morning on it. If the ACT is your test then you could be able to skip the subject tests (many schools don’t require them if you do ACT).

You sound like a possible candidate for many of the schools on your list with slightly higher SAT or a good ACT, but your list is reach-heavy. I don’t know what state you live in, but please do consider that many state flagships have become highly selective in recent years, especially in popular majors. I was shocked to hear of kids with 4.0/1600 getting flat rejected from UMCP, for example. Please make sure you add an actual safety to your list, preferably two.

3

Thank you! Yeah I added mostly reaches to this list just to see how I stack up. I’m gonna filter a few of them out in place of some safety schools. Thanks!

4

For the higher reaches (princeton harvard etc.) I don’t think you have enough to make you stand out from the crowd in terms of your EC’s. Researching is good but unless you get published (and even if you do), you need more than that to become an outstanding applicant. I don’t think your major would be an extremely competitive major to get in to, however, so that helps. With that in mind, I think your chances at these top schools would be up to how well you think you could stand out thru essays or something.

5

Yeah that’s what I thought too, but hey, who knows with admissions am I right? I’m really banking on my essays to get through to the AOs.

6

Think about adding some low-match/safety schools that still meet full need.
Since you’re interested in the Boston area, Holy Cross in Worcester could be a good choice.
And U of Richmond fits the Duke/Vandy/UNC pattern.

Carnegie Mellon and BU are not full-need-met schools (percentage need met on average is 80-something-% for both) so be prepared for the possibility that they’ll be out of reach financially unless you get outside scholarships.

Often not all the recs have to be from HS subject teachers. Can you get one from the psych prof you do research with? That could be a lot more impactful than one more “could go either way” teacher rec.