Please help me choose schools, I think my guidance counselor is overestimating me!!

Chance Me / Match Me
1

So I went to my guidance counselor and this is how he categorized my schools:
Reach: Ivies, Stanford, UChicago, Vanderbilt, Duke
Target: Swarthmore, Rice, Emory, WashU, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, Boston College
Target: Lehigh, Boston University

All these colleges are such great schools, and I just feel like he really overestimated me, and put some schools in the wrong categories. Please take a look at my stats and tell me what you think!
BTW: My favorite schools are Rice and Swarthmore
Also, I can chance you if you’d like :slight_smile:

Objective:
•SAT I: 1570/1600 (780 Reading and Writing // 790 Math)
•SAT II:Math II: 780, Physics: 780, Eng Lit: 790
•Unweighted GPA: 95.5/100 (weighted GPA is 102/106)
•Rank: Top 10%, maybe top 5%
•AP: World History(4), Statistics(4), Chinese(5), English Lang(5), US History(5), Environmental Science(5), Calc BC(4), Psych(4)
•Senior Year Course Load: AP Eng Lit, AP Gov, AP Chem, Multivariable Calculus, AP French, Chamber Ensemble, Critical Health, AP Comp Sci
•Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National AP Scholar, President’s Volunteer Service Award (x3), National Merit Scholar

Subjective:
•Extracurriculars: NHS (Secretary), Literary Magazine (4 years, Literary Editor and contributor), Orchestra (+4 years, concert master and board member), Cross country (+4 years), French Honor Society (3 years), writing (just in general)
•Volunteer/Community Service: ~400 hours. Play violin at nursing home, volunteer at kid’s science center (4 years), volunteer at local hospital
•Summer Activities: Did a research project on quantum entanglement, took 3 online courses (philosophy, greek and roman mythology, morals of politics), collaborated with friend on designing a video game

Other
•State (if domestic applicant): NY
•Country (if international applicant): USA
•School Type: Large Public
•Ethnicity: Asian
•Gender: F
•Income Bracket: 100+
•Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): N/A

2

Also, looking it over, I feel like I come off as really stereotypically asian. So if you have any advice as to how I can stand out, that would be great!

3

You definitely should add some safeties to your list. However, I think that you are very qualified for those top schools. Narrow them down to 5-7 + safeties.

4

@wrenegade I think that is a pretty fair evaluation by your counselor. Your SAT is phenomenal and your GPA is not going to disqualify you anywhere. Which ones did you think he categorized incorrectly?

I’d appreciate it if you could chance me back!
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1906475-chance-me-for-georgetown-nyu-stern-bc-villanova-and-others.html

5

@1zogden1 I was just worried about my ECs, especially for WashU and Johns Hopkins b/c they’re pretty hard to get into.

6

idk what i’m doing how do you delete a comment

7

I definitely believe you are a strong candidate for all of these colleges!!! You are looking at some of the same colleges at me and you are definitely a stronger competitor than me. With your sat scores I do not think your counselor is overestimating you.

8

@wrenegade
Your EC’s might hold you back a little but from what I see you have a true passion for the thing you do. I can see that because you have a couple of things of 4+ which is impressive since many people just join a whole bunch of stuff senior year because they want to put on their application but that does them no good. That combined with your 400+ hours of community service shouldn’t put you too far behind in ECs.

9

I don’t know… It could definitely go either way. While your scores are above and beyond, your ECs are quite usual among many other college applicants. Applicants applying to your reach schools will, most likely, have more impressive ECs (not to say yours aren’t impressive; they are, but not unique).

10

You’ll be full pay at Berkeley-$55k no aid to OOS students. Have you had the financial conversation with your parents?

11

In order to understand your shot at tippy tops, you really need to try to know what they look for, the whole picture they want. Your GC seems focused on stats and your role in hs. It’s more than that and there will be tens of thousands of top kids applying. Add to that, Rice and WUSTL (and to some extent, Swat,) can be very unpredictable.

The first step is sometimes to figure if you want to be a little (or ordinary) fish in a big pond or if it’s important to you to be the bigger fish in a smaller pond. Both are ok and personal… Also get a Fiske Guide, so you can scan through a variety of schools. And you or your parents need to run the Net price Calculators on each college web site, to see what they expect your family to pay, then see how your parents feel about that amount. (It’s not fully accurate for some income situations, but can be a start.)

So, you’re thinking STEM? Any math-sci or academic competition activities?

12

@“aunt bea” So far my parents have told me to just choose the schools I’d consider going to, then we’d eliminate schools by expense. But I’ll most likely be applying RD anyways, so that we can compare financial aid between schools

13

Lehigh and Boston U are matches.

BC is probably a high match. Berkeley OOS and Emory are low reach/high match. (Academically, Emory is probably every bit as good as Rice, WUSTL, Vandy and CMU – it just isn’t quite as selective these days.)

The rest are probably reaches or low reaches for you. I would say:

Reaches: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, UChicago, Penn, Swat, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke

Low Reaches: Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Wash U, Vandy, CMU

You should add at least one safety. That may be your public flagship, a lesser public school in your home state, or a lesser private.

I think you should research those reaches and figure out which fit you best academically (class sizes, majors/curriculum, calendar, etc.), socially, environmentally (campus, town/city/rural setting, weather), and cost-wise, among other factors you think are important.

14

I would suggest you narrow down your college list… it seems quite extensive. Also, JHU is considered a pretty reach school. What sets you apart now would be the essay, and if you are cramming tens of essays at once, it will suck. and schools will reject you (sorry, I’m blunt). Once they put a check on your scores, they start looking to see how you will fit into their college. Make sure you actually fit there. Also, consider weather, I knew colleges geographically above Columbia will basically suck for me. (I also didn’t do Columbia cuz it wouldn’t fit me) Fit is super important. And an authentic essay is crucial for admissions. They read tens and thousands of essays, you don’t want them to just read yours and move right along. (BYE FELICIA is not what you want…)

15

The colleges north of DC all have basically the same weather. A little less here, a little more there. But OP is asking about general direction, isn’t sure this list points in the right directions, for her. She has some background work to do, then can come back and ask for help refining. The college chances are about more than stats and rigor.

16

@lookingforward that’s the problem actually, I’m not really sure what field I want to go into, whether it be STEM or humanities. I feel like my ECs also show that I’m a bit all over the place, and I’m worried that’ll be a disadvantage because someone told me once that colleges like when an applicant has a specific focus in life.

Also, I haven’t won any major competitions or anything

17

@prezbucky thanks for your advice! I will be applying to some SUNY colleges as safety schools

18

@worhexiz I see how my post might have been a bit confusing, sorry! I definitely won’t be applying to all the schools I mentioned, that list was just a general list my counselor made to help me figure out my chances for the different schools out there.
I probably won’t be applying to most of the Ivies as well as Stanford and UChicago, just because there’s a very slim chance I would get accepted, and I don’t want to pay all those application fees.

19

It’s always good to see what the colleges themselves say, not someone who heard something or other.

20

Run the net price calculator on each of these, and cross put any that our parents can’t pay for ‘out of pocket’ (from income and savings, without loans)
Due to acceptance rates, although you re competitive for all, you only have one match (bu ) ,which is known for lousy aid - in other words, you may end up with only one school, and find it’s unaffordable.
You need to apply to safeties : suny geneseo, Bing. Perhaps Pitt or Temple Honors,Miami Ohio, UMass Commonwealth Honors, UDel Honors. LACs ranked 50-75.
Then, add a few matches : Skidmore, Dickinson, Macalester, Kenyon depending on the type of environment you want.