SAT I (breakdown): 2160 (720 each section)
ACT: 33, 32 writing
SAT II: 790 math 2, 760 US History, 690 Physics
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): borderline top 10%
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 US History and Calc AB, 4 Psychology and European History
Senior Year Course Load: AP Macroeconomics, AP Calc BC, AP Gov, AP English Literature, AP Environmental Science, Religion, Spanish 4
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Mock Trial (2 years), Track (4 years), Football (3 years), NHS, FLHS, Model UN (2 years) Newspaper writer (2 years) [all have been past 2 years, no major leadership]
Job/Work Experience: Cashier at Chevron, 14 hours a week to pay for school
Volunteer/Community service: around 125 hours over all years
Summer Activities: Football, Working, California Boy’s State
Essays: About winning the lottery of college as a first generation college student (pretty good) and supplemental one about my paralyzed dog and how she showed me to persevere (decent hopefully)
Teacher Recommendation: Both decent teachers that I liked and participated a lot in class
Counselor Rec: Good, talk to her weekly
Additional Rec: Football coach, shows how I’m not good but play my hardest
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Mexican
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: ~60k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): URM and First Generation
Possible Math/Statistics Major
Applying to:
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Penn
Columbia
Cornell
UChicago
Safeties/Matches: Boston College, US, Cal Poly SLO
Any help is appreciated to help with my college list!
your stats/extracurriculars are ok, not great. even given URM i’d say you should shoot for your safety schools, but the tip-top schools will be major reaches. also please reconsider both of your essays, frankly they sound boring. i am a consultant and essays like the two you mentioned often make me want to toss out the whole application.
Agree, re: a) your odds (URM hook will help you get into at least a few) but b) also def agree you should rethink your essays, especially your main one. Yes, you’re 1st gen and URM, but you’ll need to find a more creative and engaging way to show that in your application. Like the person before me, my eyes glazed over a little just reading your essay topic. Make it narrative–maybe it’s a compelling/weird/funny story from being a cashier at Chevron. I imagine all sorts of colorful things happen in that environment. You want to show them who you are as a person, with just enough enough hints to your URM/First Gen status without bashing them over the head with a sob story. They’ll get tons of those, so you have to stand out.
Do you have CA safeties/matches? While I actually think you’ll do better with OOS privates in terms of financial/merit aid potential, I would apply to at least a few UCs and some CSUs so you have some additional close-to-home backups. I might also find at least a few matches that are known for merit aid, not just financial aid. 60K isn’t a lot of money, but it’s not dirt poor, so you may find schools awarding based purely on need may not give you a full ride.
@proudterrier and @mellycx
For my lottery essay I am writing about my cashier adventures with lottery tickets and then shifting to my dad being unable to go to college because of a language barrier and me trying to fix this by challenging myself as hard as I can academically. For my dog essay she was paralyzed and had to be taken care of for 8 years which was pretty time consuming, but also I related it to how I am fat but nothing can stop me from pole vaulting (both have a funny-tone).
Also thinking of applying to UCSB and UCLA
Well, essays are all in the approach, so try them, but definitely get lots of feedback from people who aren’t family or your GC/English teacher. I personally think funny is always good!
UCSB and UCLA are good… since you can apply to up to 4, maybe throw in two more that are safeties? UCLA is basically a reach for everyone nowadays b/c it’s so competitive.
You have an awesome well rounded application, but you need to understand that applying to these schools means you’re up against:
Prodigy violinists who started playing at age 4
geeks who will someday hack the security bases of a small European nation
Recruited athletes who will someday play in the Olympics
You need more practical choices. I recommend UC schools. They’re great and affordable.
(4 kids at my school got 2400 sat (plus music and varsity sports) but were rejected by ivy leagues)
I also think your SAT and ACT aren’t as high as most of the Ivys and Stanford would expect. Beind URM and First Gen always helps, but I still think any Ivy plus Stanford and MIT is a reach for anyone. You shouldn’t think you can get into more than 25% of those reaches.