Decision: Waitlisted
SAT I (Comp, Essay, CR, M, CW): 1530 Superscore
ACT (Comp, Essay, Eng, Math, Read, Sci): 31 (Don’t think I sent it though)
SAT II (Type, Score):Didn’t send
Weighted GPA (out of ??): 4.304 out of 4.0
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.915
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 3/277 (Weighted), (24/277 UW)
AP (place score in parenthesis): APUSH, Bio, World History, Chem, Stats, German, Gov, Physics, Calc, English Lit & Comp, Micro, Macro (Didn’t send any scores)
Senior Year Course Load: Orchestra, AP German 5, AP Physics, AP Gov, Global Studies, AP Micro & Macro, AP English Lit & Comp, AP Calc
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Gold Award for National German Exam, AP Scholar with Distinction, All-State Orchestra ( I have since gained several other awards/honors and have informed them in my LOCI, but these were not part of my initial application)
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Varsity Speech captain
Subcommittee director on Mayor’s Youth Council
Music Listening state competitor
Knowledge bowl
Math team
National Honor Society
Youth orchestra & string quartet
Founder of Debate club (noncompetitive)
Youth social justice organization
[ *] Job/Work Experience: None reported
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: National Honor Society
[ *] Summer Activities: Included in extracurriculars
[ *] Essays:
Why UChicago was well-written and heavily edited, but I think it was probably too generic and it lost some creativity when I cut words after realizing it was way too long.
The uncommon essay was unique and creative, I wrote about a weird hobby and I think it was original enough but again, it lost some creativity when I cut words
I’m not proud of my common app essay, it showed growth as a person but I don’t think my voice came through well and it was kind of a dumb topic
[ *] Teacher Recommendations: I didn’t see any of them but I am confident that my bio teacher’s rec was amazing; she is also my speech coach and is known for writing great recs, I think the other two recs were also good
[ *] Counselor Rec: Not much confidence in the strength of this one, she rushes them and I didn’t have a strong connection with her
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): Midwest
[ *] School Type: Public, somewhat rural
[ *] Ethnicity: White
[ *] Gender: Female
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): None really, I play a somewhat sought after instrument so that’s really the only thing I could see getting me off the waitlist, if they desperately needed to fill a section in their orchestra
[ b]Why you think you were accepted/not accepted and general comments: UChicago is an amazing school and I think I demonstrated enough interest by visiting and reaching out to my AO, but applying RD with average stats and extracurriculars seems somewhat impossible. I’m sure the class of 2022 will be amazing and hopefully I’ll get a second shot at grad school. My biggest pieces of advice are to not get too caught up in one school, especially one like this just because the odds kind of suck for everyone, and if your family feels financially stable enough to apply ED, do it. My parents were too afraid of being bound to an unknown financial package, and if I could have changed that situation, I would for sure have applied ED to better my chances. Good luck y’all.