Final Chance Thread... Ivies, Stanford, UCB...

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Thanks for checking this out! Already got accepted to Notre Dame (pre-admitted to Mendoza). Now I scrapped out all of my safeties (and some matches) and left the rest to apply to. Please chance me for these schools:
Stanford (pls)
Brown
Columbia
Dartmouth
Cornell
Yale
Nyu
Northwestern
UChicago
UMich
UPenn (Wharton)
WashU
UCB/UCLA

Objective:
ACT (breakdown): 35 C (34 E, 35 M, 36 R, 35 S)
SAT II: 700 on both Bio E and Math 2 (bombed)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.8
Weighted GPA: 4.25
AP: AP Comp Sci, AP Bio, APES, APUSH
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc AB, AP US Gov, AP Human Geo
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Nothing…

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Co-founder of online social media business, competitive ballet, lead saxophonist in my church’s all-adult jazz band (really, REALLY emphasized these three throughout my entire application), President of Key Club, President of Stock Market Club, VP of DECA, High School Soccer for 2 years (won D1 league twice)
Job/Work Experience: interned as an operations analyst at an import/export company, interned at a web-designing company for graphic design/programming
Volunteer/Community service: Youth leader at church (organize/lead bible studies, mission trips, and pretty much the entire youth organization…), Soccer trainer at city’s soccer organization for elementary/middle school kids
Summer Activities: mentioned above
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Not to act boastful, but:
Common App: 9.5/10 (My regional admissions counselor from Notre Dame sent me a personal letter specifically noting how she loved my essay, which was about doing ballet as a male, and my online business. Also, I forgot to send in my music supplement to ND so there was no way of her noting the quality of my playing)
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): Predicting (take these with a grain of salt because I never read them):
Teacher Rec #1: 8-9
Teacher Rec #2: 7-9
Counselor Rec: 7-10 (she really likes me, but knowing that the student to counselor ratio is 1:500…)
Additional Rec from CEO/music mentor (happens to be the same person quite frankly): 10/10 I read it, absolutely amazing. Talked about my entrepreneurship ambition, saxophone abilities, and some delightful characteristics that I don’t think my teachers would’ve included.

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: Indeed I did.
Intended Major: Business/Econ
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant): US
School Type: Highly Competitive Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M
Income Bracket: 40K~
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation, music supplement for saxophone (I know that this isn’t an actual hook, but I believe that the quality of it will serve as one).

Honestly, I’m just betting on my essays and music supplement (sax) for these long-shot colleges. In order to purely provide a sense of my musical abilities (no intentions to boast), professors from Berklee College of Music, my local CC, and other conservatories, have mostly commented on my playing, quoting, “I am impressed that you a high school student… Also, if you’d like to get together and play some, I’ll have time in the first part of January. Just hit me up.”, “I think you have talent… You seem to have a natural affinity for playing the saxophone.”, etc.

2

Congrats for the admission at ND.
It seems your strength is in your test score and EC. Your GPA, ethnic background, and/or OOS status would have negative effects on the chances for some of these schools. Ross pre-admission is right tough but your EC may help IF you are first admitted by UMich LSA. Your GPA is below admission average and you are from OOS (20% or below admission rate). These would make it a reach. UMich considers GPA to be very important.
Music supplement from someone without a regional award may have little help. They adcom may only select certain music supplements for external review. So, the Ivy caliber reach schools are still reaches.
For top UCs, how is your UC GPA?

3

@billcsho Ehh, below average as well, 4.08. Also do you know if the adcoms only select music supplements by random once they determine that the student is academically qualified or whether they feel like it?

4

Oh, and I also had/have an extenuating circumstance during my sophomore and senior (this) year. So that might partly alleviate some of the issue with my GPA? But not going to depend on it.

Bump…

5

Bump?

6

you seem like you have a great chance at Stanford. Stanford, from what I have heard, really emphasizes the unique characteristics in someone, and I think the Soccer and the Ballet really makes you stand out! Your ACT is pretty solid, but the SAT 2’s may look bad. Nonetheless, Good luck!

7

You have a really good chance at all of these schools, especially with your extracurriculars. The only things that look like they’d be against you are your GPA and SAT II scores, but I feel like your ECs will weigh them out. Your passions are also super focused, which will undoubtedly help you too. Nice job, and good luck!

8

YAS a ballet dancer!

9

@smileydinosaur :wink:

Bump

10

Bump… Will chance back!

11

I’d say out of all of those, NYU is almost for sure. The other ones… I’m not an expert so I don’t really want to say too much but overall, you are a very very competitive applicant with stellar stats that should be proud. I’m sure you’ll get into a couple of your reaches. Hopefully Stanford! :slight_smile:

12

I think your only two weak points are your SAT II’s and (a little bit) your GPA. But besides your application looks solid, especially your extracurriculars!

Stanford: I can see you getting accepted for sure
Brown: Yup!
Columbia: You have a good chance!
Dartmouth: Peer recommendation by any chance? That can be a huge game changer
Cornell: I’d say you’re getting in
Yale: Yale is one of those colleges that focuses heavily on essays. It’s good that your personal statement was good, but what about the Yale-specific essays? How were those? If they were good, then you have a good chance of getting admitted
NYU: I have no idea how the system works over there so I can’t tell
Northwestern: I’d say you hover around the 50/50 mark. They focus on GPA as well as essays. How was your Northwestern essay?
UChicago: How were your UChicago essays? With this school, in all honesty your application is meaningless if those essays aren’t strong. The admissions counselor said during the open house said a certain percentage of applicants (I think 25%) get rejected simply because their essays sucked
UMich: GPA and ACT. Those two balance out. I’d also say 50/50
UPenn: UPenn also focuses on essays. How was your essay for Wharton?
WashU: WashU to the best of my knowledge is a college that focuses primarily on test scores. I’m not sure how you’d stand. Another 50/50
UC’s: Not sure but I think their primary focus is essays.

You have a strong chance! Good luck!

13

Stanford, for example, they send out the music supplements to professional for review. If it is not up to that level, it is likely a waste of their time and money, and may have negative impact. I think your essay may be more important and helpful than your music supplement. Note that Stanford is and other top schools are not out of high stat applicants and many of them have excellent EC too. Test score and GPA alone are not sufficient but any weakness in them would hurt the chance. Give it a try but do not put any expectation on them.
Again, congrats on your ND admission. You should be proud of it anyway.

14

@EgyptianFlame98 @billcsho Thanks! And I forgot to mention that I’m not sending in a music supplement to Stanford because apparently the deadline was Dec 1st…

15

Bump

16

everythings good except GPa. Ucs will be picky despite your ECs

Im not familiar with Ivy’s, but Stanford will be a toughy. Are in the top 10% of your class? If not, they admit less than 2%. Thats why I didnt do it, even though I wanted to.
Make sure you depict your EC’s well, because thats all you can do. You said your essay was great, and the Recs are done. Sorry for not chancing very much, but I would say you have an average, not great, chance for ivys. And a better chance for the other publics.

17

@ikim16 Thanks, and does your school rank or does your school profile have the percentages of students within a GPA range? Because mine doesn’t for both so I don’t really know how schools are going to be able to see whether I fall in the top 10% or not.

18

I’d say you have a great chance everywhere. I love your male ballet hook, and great to know you wrote you essays on it.
Thanks for chancing me, and good luck!

19

I wouldn’t be surprised if you made it into Stanford. Yours ECs are unique and demonstrate genuine passion. Your act is stellar. The only weak points are sat 2 scores and gpa, but I think the rest of your application will make up for them. Good luck!

20

Stanford, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Yale, UChicago, Wharton are all reaches as they are for everyone, but you have an excellent shot at each and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got into at least one of them.

UMich is a match
UCB/UCLA are high matches/ matches for you.

I don’t know about the rest. Best of luck!