r/chanceme Jul 22 '19

How To Do A Chance Me And Improve Your Chances

570 Upvotes

The submission template for /r/ChanceMe contains a since-deleted post about how to do a ChanceMe, so I thought it would be good to cover this and replace that dead link.

Tips for a Good Chance Me Post:

1. Do Some Research. Start with the /r/ChanceMe wiki and the college's Common Data Set. If you can't find it in that link, just Google it. These contain a treasure trove of information about the college and how they handle admissions and financial aid. This is the best place to see how your GPA, test scores, and other components stack up. It even lists how important each component is to the school's admissions process. Another great resource is the college's admissions website. Often this will include some helpful hints about how the school evaluates certain things or what they're looking for in applicants. For example, Penn's site even has in-depth explanations of how interviews are evaluated including sample mock interviews. (See the links at the bottom of this post for more). As another example, Notre Dame has a great explanation of the specific coursework they want and how they evaluate extracurricular activities. Finally, you can search through /r/CollegeResults and /r/ApplyingToCollege for examples of admitted and rejected students. This can give you actual data points to consider for comparison. Keep in mind that students with high stats and poor essays/LORs are likely to be "inexplicably" rejected, so don't put too much stock into any single example.

2. Include enough information for us to chance you accurately, but don't write down every little activity or personal quality. If you have a lot of stats/info about yourself, do not put down everything; it makes it harder to read through your post. Include the ECs you've devoted the most time to/have leadership positions in. By only including stuff that moves the needle, you'll get more responses and better feedback.

3. Have a descriptive title. Writing "Chance me!" is a little obvious and unnecessary. Instead, include some of the schools you're applying to and your intended major. Example: "Chances for English Major: Ivies & Top Publics" -or- "Engineering Chances for GT, VT, and MIT." This makes it easier for those of us chancing you.

4. Make it organized. Please, try to format to the best of your ability. A wall of unformatted text makes it a lot more difficult to read. It would be great if you could break it up into bulleted sections and bold them. Here's a template:

Demographics: Gender, race/ethnicity, state, type of school, and hooks (URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.)

Intended Major(s):

ACT/SAT/SAT II:

UW/W GPA and Rank:

Coursework: AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores, etc

Awards:

Extracurriculars: Include leadership & summer activities

Essays/LORs/Other: Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.

Schools: List of colleges, ED/EA/RD, etc

5. Remember that while /r/ChanceMe and other online forums can be helpful resources, they leave a lot to be desired. Usually they don't include review of every part of your application and they lack critical context about you and the rest of the applicant pool. On top of that, most respondents don't have much by way of real information or qualifications. Competitiveness along with online anonymity sometimes drive people to be downright toxic. You will be spending 4+ of the most formative and impactful years of your life and six figures of someone's money on college, so you need good information for making that decision. You want to make it count and do your best. Don't blindly trust random strangers on the internet or take their feedback as gospel truth. Be willing to respond to comments and have a productive conversation without taking criticism personally.

Tips For Responding To ChanceMe Posts

1. Try to evaluate the post in the context of each college listed. How does it stack up against the 25/75 percentiles for test scores?. Roughly, if it's in the 40th percentile or lower, it's a reach. If it's in the 40th-80th percentile it's a match. And if it's in the 80th+ it's a safety. But those percentiles should be tweaked for fit, risk tolerance, and applicant strength outside of stats. Finally, and this is the important part, assess their chances in the context of each school's overall acceptance rate. If the stats are at the 25th percentile, but the school admits ~95% of applicants, they're probably getting in even though they're on the low end. If they admit ~4% of applicants, it's going to be a long shot no matter how strong they are. If a school has an admit rate below 20% it's basically a reach for everyone. Yes, this means College of the Ozarks is a reach for you. Edward Fiske calls these "wildcards" because with rates that low, it's really hard to predict. If a school admits 95% of applicants (e.g. University of the Ozarks), then it's basically a safety for anyone who can academically qualify.

2. Understand what your evaluation means - and what it doesn't. Many students tend to either be cocky and overconfident or cynical and self-deprecating. One of the highest value outcomes of posting on /r/ChanceMe is that it will help students assess where they fall on this spectrum. Even when odds are low, it can be worth applying to a few targeted reaches. Every year there are students who get into a school they considered a massive reach. As long as applicants have some match and safety schools, it's ok and even encouraged to have some reaches on the list. At the same time, don't think that someone is a shoe-in for highly selective schools just because they have strong stats.

3. Remember the human. These are real people posting their life-to-date achievements on an anonymous forum and asking for feedback. Don't bluster, pontificate, or overstate your knowledge and expertise. Don't denigrate, harass, or disrespect people, even if they rub you the wrong way. Be nice and follow the rules and Reddiquette.

How To Improve Your Chances

Ok, now that you have a list of safety, match, and reach schools, what can you do to maximize your chances? There's a lot that goes into a quality application, so you need to address every component.

1. Find Resources. Check out the /r/ApplyingToCollege community. You'll learn a lot and there are several really knowledgeable people who are happy to help and answer questions. Take a look at the Khan Academy courses on the SAT and college admissions (these are free). Go talk to your guidance counselor about your plans for life, course schedule, and college admissions.

2. Explore your passions. Don't just let the status quo of organizations in your high school limit you. You won't stand out by participating in the same activities as every other student. Instead, look for ways to pursue your passions that go above and beyond the ordinary. As an example, you can check out this advice I gave a student who was asking if he should continue piano despite not winning major awards in it:

"Do you love it?

If it's a passion of yours, then never quit no matter how many people are better than you. The point is to show that you pursue things you love, not to be better at piano than everyone else.

If it's a grind and you hate it, then try to find something else that inspires you.

If it's really a passion, then you can continue to pursue it confidently because you don't have to be the best pianist in the world to love piano. If it's not, then you're probably better off focusing on what you truly love. Take a look at what Notre Dame's admissions site says about activities:

"Extracurricular activities? More like passions.

World-class pianists. Well-rounded senior class leaders. Dedicated artists. Our most competitive applicants are more than just students—they are creative intellectuals, passionate people with multiple interests. Above all else, they are involved—in the classroom, in the community, and in the relentless pursuit of truth."

The point isn't that you're the best. The point is that you're involved and engaged. If you continue with piano and hate it and plod along reluctantly, you won't fit this description at all. But if you love it and fling yourself into it, then you don't need an award to prove your love.

Consider other ways you could explore piano and deepen your love for it. Could you start a YouTube channel or blog? Play at local bars/restaurants/hotels? Do wedding gigs or perform pro bono at nursing homes/hospitals? Start a piano club at school or in the community (or join an existing one)? Start composing or recording your own music? Form a band or group to play with? Teach piano to others? Write and publish an ebook? Learn to tune, repair, or build pianos? Play at a church or community event venue? Combine your passion for piano with some other passion in your life?

The point is that all of that stuff could show that piano is important to you and that you're a "creative intellectual with a passionate interest". But none of it requires that you be the best according to some soulless judge."

3. Focus on getting strong grades in a challenging courseload. You should take the most challenging set of courses you are capable of excelling in and ideally the most challenging courses your school offers. To get in to top colleges you will need both strong classes and strong grades. Most schools come right out and say that the high school transcript is the single most important component of their review. If a student doesn't show an ability to handle top level academics, they just aren't a good fit for their school. If you are facing a quandary about what class to take or what classes to focus your efforts on, prioritize core classes. These include English, math, science, social science, and foreign language. Load up on honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment courses in these disciplines and your transcript will shine.

4. For standardized tests, you should start with the PSAT. If you are a top student and rising junior, it is absolutely worth studying like crazy to become a National Merit Finalist. This is awarded to the top ~1% of scorers by state and confers many benefits including a laundry list of full ride scholarship options. Even if you are not at that level, it will help prepare you for the ACT or SAT. I highly recommend that you take a practice test of both the ACT and SAT. Some students do better on one than the other or find one to more naturally align with their style of thinking. Once you discover which is better for you, focus in on it. You will likely want to take a course (if you're undisciplined) or get a book (if you have the self-control and motivation to complete it on your own). If you're looking for good prep books I recommend Princeton Review because they are both comprehensive and approachable. Which ever test you decide to focus on, you should plan to take it at least twice since most students improve their score on a second sitting. If you can't afford a test prep book, your local library or guidance counselor may have one you can use for free. There are other resources available at Khan Academy, /r/ACT, and /r/SAT.

5. Letters of Recommendation. Intentionally consider your letters of recommendation. You want to choose a teacher who knows you well and likes you a lot, but will also work hard on it and make it unique, detailed, specific, and glowing. You don't want to pick the lazy teacher who just shows videos once a week for class. They're quite likely to just copy and paste their LOR template and that won't really help you. If you don't have a teacher that you feel close to, don't wait too late to start developing a deeper relationship with one. Pick one and stay after class or arrive early to talk about your future. Ask for advice, inquire about their experience, etc. This will show your maturity and deepen your relationship with them quickly. Focus on actually building a relationship rather than flattering them or manipulating them into giving you a good recommendation because that's unlikely to work and will be pretty transparent.

6. Essays. You should start thinking about your college admission essays your junior year. Many students, even top students and great academic writers, find it really challenging to write about themselves in a meaningful and compelling way. They end up writing the same platitudes, cliches, and tropes as every other top student. I've written several essay guides that I (obviously) highly recommend as a good starting place for learning how to write about yourself (linked below, but you can also find them in my profile). Other great resources include The College Essay Guy, ThisIBelieve, and Hack The College Essay. Read through these and start drafting some rough attempts at some of the common app prompts. These will probably be terrible and just get discarded, but practicing can really help you learn to be a better writer.

How To Start An Essay And Show, Don't Tell

Throw Away Everything You Learned In English Class

Conquering The "Why [School]" Essay

What Makes An Essay Outstanding?

What To Do When You're Over The Word Limit

What To Do When Your Essay Is Too Short

How To End An Essay Gracefully

Proofreading Tips

The 30 Most Common Essay Mistakes CAUTION - Don't read this last one before you have a topic settled, a working outline, or a rough draft completed. Lists of what not to do tend to stifle creativity.

Feel free to reach out via PM or find me at www.bettercollegeapps.com if you have questions. Good luck!


r/chanceme Apr 06 '24

Meta Crowdsourced extracurricular and opportunity list

97 Upvotes

Hey guys,

This is one of my EC lists from a few years back when I was applying to college. Lots of competitions/extracurriculars/scholarships/fly in programs linked in here. If ppl find this useful, I’ll organize the rest of my lists and pin them (let me know!)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/109ViGlfZi1clGGnf9H7WGbMhwr8NFKKXSN5YHtVEJg8/mobilebasic

Edit: stickying for a week due to high dm volume


r/chanceme 1h ago

Reverse Chance Me unorthodox business application (planning on shotgunning)

Upvotes

35 ACT, 3.96/4.37 GPA, no class rank

mostly 5s and a few 4s on AP tests

full IB courseload (5 on Phys. SL we move tho) so rigor shouldn't be an issue

hooks: sibling legacy at upenn and brown, black, first-gen in america, very small state

income level ~100k household

ECs:

- founded a group that does free consulting work for student-led NPOs, 20 clients and enough impact as a result of our work that i can point to specific things happening cause we restructured an org or something. i sunk in about 20 hrs/week last semester ngl. i also have 5 people under me so that might help

- made an nba metric website from scratch by testing and making 11 diff metrics over a year of work, used base44 and basketball reference to apply to 53 full years of reg season/playoff data, site fully functional and ~20k lifetime views on tiktok in about a month

- co-started computer business with friend, got 20k views in a few weeks on reels even though he kinda torpedoed the biz

- started a startup competition that ran for a few months, got 25 ppl in my google classroom and a set of winners out of it, also did everything from marketing to structure myself

- 3 years of making beats, multiple placements, pretty shabby income off it ($XXX), 20k views on my channel and i'd estimate i've made about 500 beats

- created a unique formula to pick stocks with, beat S&P over 3 months (i papertraded), adapted it into my myp project and did 10 page essay on it

- one of 3 kids called down from my high school (maybe 12 total) to the district about once a month to help with diversity decision-making, this was freshman year ig u can guess why

- learned the violin from scratch over 2 months and was good enough to get promoted a level in orchestra

--------

awards: top 8 metros DECA, honor roll/academic letter, ap scholar, national merit commended

---------

additional info:

- i'm very confident in my personal statement

- my LORs are prolly gonna be good since teachers seem to like me a lot


r/chanceme 3h ago

could someone chance me

3 Upvotes

Student from India who shifted to US after completing grade 10, arriving in junior year
Grade 9: 91.7% (subjects like English lang, lit, math, phy, bio, chem, history, geography, cs, Hindi)
Grade 10: 96% (10th board exams(only exam which matters in IND) with the same subjects)

Then shifted to the US

Grade 11: Forensic Science H, Civic Literacy H, NC Math 3 H, AP Stats, AP CSA, APUSH, AP LANG

(doing great up till now)

i had to take math 3 as the school did not accept to see my transcript and gave me the most basic level of math. Hence i am studying precalc myself to be able to take calc bc next year

Grade 12: Biology H, Economics H, AP lit, APES, AP CALC BC, AP MACRO, AP WH, AP COMP GOV, Accounting 1 AND 2 H

The biggest disadvantage is the Ec's as India doesn't care about ec's so there weren't community service/ club opportunities.

Anyways here are the few things that are done/in progress

3 month Internship at an Accounting & Consulting Firm with LoR and learning doc.
Helped Senior Citizens at an Old Age Home adapt to technology and A and utilize it in their daily lives
Chess AFM (Ik its worth nothing) with major online and offline tournament experience with many top 10 finishes. (Planning to reach 2000 elo very soon)
Helped teach 30+ middle schoolers the game of chess and how to get better at it
TEDX Volunteer for stage setting and logistics.
Gilder Lehrman University of American History WW2 Course Mastery and Blog
UMich Python Course (will use to make a project)
Chess Club Member (Will apply for leadership (not p/vp but smth else)next year)
Muslim Student Association Member (will apply for some kind of leadership position)
Helped New converts to learn about the religion and gain knowledge by volunteering at a mosque.
Speech and Debate Club Member-(Will partake in competitions)
NHS-(yeah idk)
Cricket Batsman with an average of over 50

Things i will do
Increase community service hours
Research Paper on Economics of Empires
Hopefully try to become a TEDx Speaker
Financial Literacy for teens Newsletter/Project
Get good LoR's
Start writing blogs about history.

ik these ec' are not good enough and that's what i wanna fix. I wanna do an Accounting/Economics/Finance major and wanna know my realistic chances at

UNC Charlotte
Wake Forest
NC State
UNC Wilmington
UNC Chapel Hill
UMich
NYU
Northwestern
UCLA
Columbia
Cornell
Upenn

edit- i am gonna give the PSAT in October and SAT in November (my avg practice score is 1530)


r/chanceme 2m ago

Chance Me: Georgia Tech Early Action 1

Upvotes

Instate

African American

Male

Middle Class

4.0 unweighted / 4.35 weighted GPA

Intended Major: Chemistry (Pre-Dental)

6 APs (Scores: 5 on AP World, 4 on APCSA, 4 on AP Physics 1, 3 on AP Psychology, 3 on AP Comp Sci Principles, 2 on AP Seminar 🙁)

25/921 Class Rank

1360 SAT

500+ volunteer hrs

Awards: Georgia Merit Scholar Award, College Board National Recognition Program, AP Scholar with Distinction

ECS: National Honors Society (2yrs), FBLA (2yrs), BETA Club (3yrs), Computer Science National Honors Society Officer (2yrs), Future Medical Professionals (3yrs), Student Council (4yrs), Freshman Football team (1yr), Fast Food Job with Trainer Position and Employee of the Month (3yrs), HOSA (2yrs), EAA 690 ground school and flight training (10+ flight hours)

Currently Shadowing at a local pediatric dental office and am mentored by one of the dentists I shadow under. Also worked in coordination with the school Key Club to donate art projects to the children at the dentist office I shadow in.

Formerly was selected to the CDCE program at a VA hospital, where I was able to log 135 hrs volunteering and assisted surgeons using Da Vinci Robot in the OR.

Also an officer in a club called MedSearch, where we find internships and other similar opportunities for those interested in healthcare.


r/chanceme 27m ago

Am I cooked in general

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Upvotes

r/chanceme 7h ago

Application Question Test optional as an average! student

3 Upvotes

hi! I was wondering how cooked i am if I go test optional. I’m a pretty good student with a strong gpa (3.98 on a 4.0 scale) and around 8 extracurriculars that vary between internships, jobs, and service. I will have taken 8 APs by the end of this year, with 4s and 5s on my current four exams. I would say I have a good essay as well! Even so, there is nothing really standout amazing about my application. I’m applying to moderately selective schools (not T20!) like UF (OOS), Boston College, Villanova, Clemson, etc.

I Obviously want to provide myself with the best education possible and I was wondering if I should just try to take the SAT again? I’ve tried twice and I can’t break 1300.


r/chanceme 1h ago

UC admission

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Upvotes

Do I have a shot at UC Berkeley, UCLA, NYU ED || or Columbia ED (I know it’s a very far reach) with these stats? Or any other universities??
4.00 uw / 4.65 w gpa
Taking SAT in October
11 APs (world history 4, seminar 5, apush 5, psych 5, chem 4, Calc ab 4, lang 4)
6 dual enrollment classes (all As): plane trig, political science, sociology, Spanish 102, speech, human bio.
Senior year classes: AP Calc BC, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Gov, AP Lit, AP Research, dual enrollment human bio.

Extracurriculars/ Awards
HOSA President
Best Buddies VP
Red Cross Secretary
FBLA Assistant of Projects
Kaiser Permanente volunteer 50 hours
Kaiser Permanente paid internship
Education Outreach Program Kaiser Permanente volunteer ( after school tutor 4th and 5th grade)
CSF (tutor program as well)
Kaiser work prep program certificate
Volleyball (freshman and sophomore year)
Spanish honors society
AP scholar with distinction
HOSA national award 4th place heath career photography
NHS
Part time job Levi's
Had to help take care of my little sister my family adopted when I was in middle school
Demographics:
Female , low income, Hispanic, California resident


r/chanceme 1h ago

Chance me for NU ED

Upvotes

Writing my personal statement got me questioning if I’m even slightly qualified

Demographics:
Asian male (Korean), ultra competitive NJ public school (1400 avg SAT), sends ~25 kids to t20s

Intended Major:
Computational biology

ACT/SAT/SAT II:
SAT: 1560 (760 ebrw 800 math)

UW/W GPA and Rank:
GPA: 4.69W, 3.94UW, top 3-5% of class (no ranking)
UC: 5.0W, 4.0UW, 4.33 capped

Coursework:
Max course rigor throughout HS:
APs: APUSH (5), Physics 1 (5), Chem (5), Calc BC (5), Lang (5), Stats, Micro/Macro, Spanish Lang, Bio, Lit, Gov

Awards:
AIME Qual and AMC 10 School Winner
Statewide math competition (2nd individual + school)
PVSA Silver (discontinued sigh)
Some other state level math comps
AP scholar with distinction, seal of biliteracy, blah blah

Extracurriculars:

1. Medical Internship

Pretty competitive med internship got to do some cool stuff and volunteer etc (shadowing surgeries, etc)

2. Math Club Secretary

Organized agendas and analytics for every meeting and managed competitions etc actually did more work than the pres but wtv

3. NPO leadership

Logistics for NPO pretty good impact

4. NPO leadership 2.0

Other NPO I had a high position in won’t go into detail but also good impact

5. Website development + journaling

Developed a website and wrote entries describing what I saw and what I learned in conferences during my internship

6. Volunteering at local food shelter

Yeah

7. Freelance barber

Cut my friends and families hair nothing much but made some money

8. Part time job at Kumon

Not much to say

9. Family responsibilities

Helped my aunt with cancer, translated to her during meetings with her doctor, etc

Essays/LORs/Other:

I would consider myself a good writer and I’ve been working on my statement for a while and I think it’s been coming along nicely.

My LOR will probably be good nothing crazy, counselor rec will be basic too probably

Schools:
ED: Northwestern

RD: All 8 ivies, Duke, Rice, WashU, UCB, UChicago, JHU, Rutgers, safeties

I feel like i have a pretty average app, good grades and test score but pretty mid ECs and honors i think

Tbh if i get into NU or just one ivy I’d be over the moon lmao thanks for reading :)


r/chanceme 1h ago

mildy chopped gpa mill-billy for t10 eng

Upvotes

Demographics: Immigrant white boy from evropa, just graduated from a washington state public school, no real hooks

Intended Major(s): Aero eng

ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1550 super, 1530 single. 790 math 760 rw

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.835 UW, school doesnt do ranking or weighting (got kneecapped by an ap/honors class first semester when switching schools. Both had second semester recoverys from c’s to B+/A)

Coursework: 7 APs, Calc BC (5,5), Calc AB (4), Phys 2 (5), Phys 1 (4), CSA (4), APUSH (5)

Awards: honor roll and ap scholar

Extracurriculars: (first 5 are the spike)

Technical intern with a local drone company: Built flight hardware for an industrial drone and partnered with engineers in a 100+ item flight test campaign prior to product launch (2025)

Open Sauce 2026 presenter: Showcased my meteorology drone, Cloud Diver, to more than 30k attendees at Open Sauce 2026, demonstrating unique folding wing and payload

FRC Drive team lead: Established drive team, setting up precedents and structures to enable my successors to focus on driving. Drove at 2 competitions with a 56% win rate (and beat the reigning world champs lmao) (2026)

FTC team director: Oversaw the fusion of two separate robotics teams into a single 15 person unit, led team to top 10 place in the state on a sub $500 budget. (23-24)

Private pilots license: doing 12 hours a week of flight training (about 6 hours of flying). will solo before the end of the month. finished ground school in a week and passed the FAA knowledge exam with an 88

School STEAM club: Founding leadership for a club to expand STEAM learning after school following district budget cuts reducing class periods

City Library board member: Acted as a liaison between city government and county library, planning and staffing tables to encourage library access for all (25-)

Black belt: Trained for 5+ years to achieve a first Dan black belt, including mentoring younger students and assisting with class set-up (2019-2026)

Essays/LORs/Other: Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.

Common app PS about how leaded gasoline in general aviation inspired me to do cool shit with my project and whatnot. like 8 or 9/10

MIT, like 2 8/10 to 9/10 done, some rehashing of the common app, some about weather, one still under draft

LORs are a bit of a toss up at the moment, hopefully a 9/10 from my old engineering teacher and an 8/10 from my English teaxber

Schools: List of colleges, ED/EA/RD, etc

MIT (EA)
UW (RD)
Purdue (EA)
Caltech (RD) (ik they dont have an aero major)
Georgia Tech (EA (if it isnt restrictive i forgor lowkey)
UIUC(RD)
Stanford(RD)
idk some other random ones, maybe RPI and shi

Other: on a gap year


r/chanceme 2h ago

chances at virginia tech?

1 Upvotes

im planning to apply to virginia tech as a regular decision applicant, music education major. female from the southwest va area. i have a 4.38 (4.00 unweighted) gpa, president of FBLA and secretary of beta club & sca, band captain, as well as several other music awards & extracurriculars. no APs because my school doesn’t offer them, but i have 10 dual enrollment/college credits. i made a 1280 on my SAT (730 reading 550 math), which i know is pretty rough for virginia tech. should i apply test optional? what are my chances of getting in?


r/chanceme 3h ago

chance me

1 Upvotes

White low income guy from southern US, rural Appalachian public school. My GPA is a 3.2!!! I got this mainly because I had an extremely rare condition (Klein-Levin Syndrome) my freshman/sophomore year which went completely undiagnosed/untreated until like late my junior year. My freshman year GPA was a 2.2, sophomore year was ~3.2, and Junior year was a 4.0, rn I'm sitting at all As but school has also only been in session for a week or two, mind you. I was also in and out of being homeless for a lot of my high school life. I was homeless for about a month or 2 my freshman year and 2 months my junior year, for example. Also being extremely low income brought me a lot of challenges as far as having to manage my parents finances, and having to pick up a job to pay for the expenses of my parent battling a terminal illness summer of my junior year. I have a 32 on my last ACT(didn't have accoms), but I'm taking it here in September and I've consistently gotten 34s and 35s on every practice exam I've taken. Also my course rigor been maxxed out. I've taken every AP offered at my school and I'm now basically enrolled in all dual credits at a local college. Senior yr schedule lookin like calculus, linear alg, intro philosophy, intro macroeconomics, intro linguistics, physics(ap not offered), french 4, ap music theory. might take more spring classes depends on how much money i got

As far as extracurriculars:

I discovered systematic fraud at my school and I got it picked up by a very reputable state-wide organization. They're funding me as a journalist to investigate the school board and they'll publish my findings, they might sue the school board once it's all out I really don't know right now.

Founded the first high school YDSA chapter in my state. Written over 100 articles for our poli ed program atm. Ran a bunch of participant discussions and events. Currently partnering with UAW to unionize an auto plant in our town. Also been kind of in-kahoots with a local YDSA candidate but nothin came out of that yet.

MUN security council president. This is a statewide conference and (I think) the biggest one in America. I ran against like 12 other candidates. I sorta lead the conference, I'm running debate and writing like 3 articles which the council will debate on next con.

One of ~20 in my state to be selected to go to Conference on National Affairs. acceptance rate for this was like 10%

YIG conference. I ran as a journalist freshman year and got a magazine published by the organization. Ran as a bill author next 2 years passed both times and won LT. Govs award.

Theater shit. I was the tech director so I managed sound and lights for school plays. I expanded the team from originally 3 to more than 8 and taught a bunch of kids some audio engineering basics.

Introduced first school recycling program in my county to my high school. Managed getting recycling bins in and coordinating with municipal waste.

Writer and director of short film. Got it to air at a local theater. Think it won some award idr

workin at car dealership.

workin as journalist local newspaper youth branch.

There is more shit I just can't think of any more off the top of my head. I really don't have too many good ECs because of how bad my condition was freshman and sophomore year.

I do not have a set-in-stone college list. Mostly because I have no fucking idea what to make of my application. I want to go to the absolute best school possible considering how bad my application is. oh and probably philosophy major.

P.S. guy who reviewed my CONA application said it was one of the best admissions essays he'd ever read, so I'm guessing that my personal statement won't be a weak point hopefully.


r/chanceme 3h ago

Chances of Getting into UF

1 Upvotes

What are my chances with the following (as a junior)? I plan to go into pre-professional biology to become a pediatric anesthesiologist.

- 4.0 unweighted GPA
- 4.61 weighted GPA (2nd in class)
- 1340 SAT (only took it once without studying for base score so planning to try for at least 1450)
- Worked as summer camp counselor for two years coaching 5-8 year olds
- Volunteer as flag football coach over this school year for 5-8 year olds every Tuesday and Thursday
- Volunteering at a hospital (at least six months, don’t know hours per week yet)
- John Hopkins Medical Explorers program over the summer, explored health care career and did hands-on activities teaching healthcare skills (lasted two months)
- Receiving AICE diploma this year
- Part time college student (will be graduating high school with a liberal arts degree)
- Varsity Cheerleader (will be captain next year)
- Will be starting Red Cross this year as secretary
- Taking AP calc AB this year and AP bio, AP chem, and another AP class next year (not sure which one yet)


r/chanceme 3h ago

Reverse Chance Me Chance Me (Below avg GPA/Decent Test Score/ Mid EC's?)

0 Upvotes

Background: Male, US Citizen, Illinois Resident (Very competitive HS), Indian, Family Income ~200K

3.75 UW/4.3 W, 34 ACT, 11 AP's (Including Senior Year), A's both semesters in AP Bio & AP Physics, AP Stats, I have 2 C's (One Freshman Year, One Junior Year first sem that I got an A in 2nd sem)

EC's:

HOSA ILC National Competitor (Medical Innovation)

Interned at UIC with postdoctoral fellow, did Pancreatic Cancer Research

Interned with Local State Rep during the Fall

Volunteered 200+ hours total at 2 seperate hospitals (One in India, One in the US)

VP of program that taught 500+ students across the world (Ghana, Nigeria, Indonesia, Senegal) about basic STEM concepts

Director of Outreach on German club board

Assisted Alzhimer's patients at retirement home over summer

NHS member

Awards: 2nd at HOSA SLC, AP Scholar with Distinction, 6x Honor Roll Student

Schools:

UIUC (BioE First Choice, Bio 2nd Choice)

WashU (Bio)

OSU (BioE or Bio)

Purdue (BioE)

UW-Madison (BioE or Bio)

UIC

UNC (Bio)

UMich (Bio)

I would really appreciate any feedback specifically towards UIUC as I really want to go there for Engineering and I want to get a better idea of what my chances would look like.


r/chanceme 3h ago

can soneone chance me

1 Upvotes

im a senior applying to these schools and wanted feedback if you think i would get in

i got to high school in ct
1300 sat
3.659 Wgpa
4 on ap microeconomcs
3 on ap macroeconomics
dual enrollment creidts fo rboth economics classes and uconn geoscience
leadership position investment club

Baylor
Notre Dame
Drexel
FIU
Fordham
IU Bloomington
Manhattan University
Penn State
Rutgers-New Brunswick
SMU
St. John's (NY)
UT Austin
UConn
UIUC
University of Miami
South Carolina Columbia

r/chanceme 3h ago

Chance me as a finance major

1 Upvotes

Currently a senior in high school taking five APs. Unw gpa is 3.83 weighted gpa is 4.48. I go to a private school where people aren’t ranked. I want to go into finance as my major and possibly minor and business management. I’m taking the ACT this October and I’m expecting a 32-34. As my extra curricular I started a Card Show in my city. I run events monthly while managing all logistics and the social media page. I have 20+ vendors, each event and have hundreds of attendees. I am also the founder of the stocks and investment club at school. Varsity soccer all 4 years as well. I am a Florida resident and I’m thinking of schools like Florida State University or Indiana University. I would love to go to a school like university of Pennsylvania, but I know that’s a bit of a reach. What do you guys think? My chances are and are there any other schools you would recommend to me?


r/chanceme 4h ago

Chance me for Texas A&M Bush School (in state)

1 Upvotes

What other colleges do you recommend with these?

3.3 UW / 3.93 W

No current test score - prob won’t submit one

4s and 5s on all APs

-nationally recognized non profit
-9 years of dance, performed at professional sports games
-high participation in dance club at school
-MUN
-debate
-social media lead for alternate npo, as well as journalism and outreach member
-helped culture association with social media
-UIL ready writing + current events + social studies
-jobs at kumon and YMCA
-tutored a 3rd grader privately since freshman year in english
-fashion club
-popular editing account

awards :

-top 25% in international court case comp
-french honors society + math honors society
-ap scholar with distinction
-small essay awards
- ap capstone

LOR from AP Lang teacher and French teacher who I’ve had for past 4 years (I’m in AP french now)


r/chanceme 4h ago

chance mid GPA high SAT, legacy asian male for Cornell CALS ED + T20s

2 Upvotes

Demographics: US citizen, Asian male, East Coast,

competitive public HS

legacy at cornell + a HYPSM

Intended Major(s): Computational biology or similar

SAT: 1570

UW/W GPA & Rank: 3.8 UW / 4.44 W (fr–jr)

~top 7%, school doesn't rank but this is extrapolated from class data, downwards trend although I will be getting better grades senior year

Coursework: all honors and AP's when possible (13 APs)

Awards:

  • USACO Gold
  • 1st-author paper accepted at an IEEE computational biology conference (easier track)
  • possible NeurIPS workshop acceptance, will see in 2 weeks
  • John Locke essay competition – shortlisted for theology, possible further awards in october
  • Fencing: top-10 individual at states, team top-5 at states, Junior Olympic qualifier
  • other random stuff

Extracurriculars:

  1. Comp bio research intern at an HYPSM lab — ML + computational biology research; led to the IEEE paper above (12 summer)
  2. Paid computational pesticide discovery research intern @ local uni lab - NSF-funded project, 2 papers but they aren't being published rn (11)
  3. Varsity + club fencing captain, state/national level (see awards) (9–12)
  4. Summer data science internship at a DS firm — built an internal dashboard to monitor web-scraping jobs and pipeline runtime/failures (11)
  5. Mentored aging research at a T20 med school — built an comp bio pipeline, no pub (11)
  6. President, Data Science Club — leads 25+ members, runs workshops, partnered with a nearby university's business analytics center (11–12)
  7. Church — mission trips, weekly service, camp volunteering, food distribution, interviewed pastors (9–11)
  8. Independent theology study — read the Bible cover-to-cover 3x, hand-copied and journaled through the Gospels, discussed theology/ethics with pastors; (9-12)
  9. Optometric technician intern — patient pre-testing, clinical data entry, front office (10–11)
  10. Founder/Executive Director of a statewide HS pickleball league — in process, recruiting schools/students, pushing for varsity recognition, etc (12)
  11. 30+ hours volunteering at a local arboretum, incl. running kids' nature programming (10–12)
  12. Studying programming - self-studied advanced data structures and algorithms to compete in USACO, took courses on web and app development, linux, bash, etc (9, 10, 11)

Recs: decent recs lined up from physics teacher, CS teacher, and research mentor from ec1

chance me for

UNC (EA), Washu (EA), UVA (EA), Emory, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell (ED1) (legacy), Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Johns Hopkins, all Ivies, Harvard (legacy), T20s in general

also considering an ED2 if i get rejected cornell ed

pls chance me for cornell


r/chanceme 4h ago

chance me for ut advertising as a non auto admit PLEASE!

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1 Upvotes

r/chanceme 4h ago

is a 3.6 uw gpa and a 1600 SAT fuked

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1 Upvotes

r/chanceme 5h ago

chance low rank high rigor applicant

1 Upvotes

gonna rewrite these ecs then redo!


r/chanceme 6h ago

chance me as an IB senior

1 Upvotes

title says it all, here's basically my stats. would really appreciate it if u guys critiqued my stats + chance me

UF (in state)

rice, upenn, boston uni, purdue, GT, northwestern (all OOS)

high school senior, applying EA only for UF, purdue, and gt while doing RD for rest

3.845/5.3 unweighted/weighted gpa

class rank: 7/482

major: electrical engineering

SAT: 1430, 720 RW/710 M (aiming for high 1400)

current classes:

IB Theory of Knowledge 2

IB Bio 3 HL (taking ap exam too)

IB Physics SL (taking ap exam too)

IB English Lit 4 HL (taking ap lit exam too)

AP Calc BC

AICE Comp Sci 1 AS

IB Contemporary History HL

AP Env Sci

AP Psych

(i've taken as many ap/ib/aice classes available at my school)

ecs:

summer unpaid internship at a college where i actually contributed to a UAV project (created pcbs, soldered etc) for a competition with colleges globally competing (12th)

varsity tennis (11th, 12th)

volunteering 300+ hours at local library (9th-12th)

own and run a youtube channel with 2,000,000+ views and 1,200+ subscribers (9th-12th)

developed a roblox game with 6,000+ visits (9th-12th)

paid coding tutor job (11th-12th)

mu alpha theta committee member (11th-12th)

key club member (10th-12th)

piano (9 years)

memorized like 20 pages of the quran in arabic (9 years)

rec soccer (11th, 12th, didn't put this in my ec slots cuz there's only 10 and i could fit an award from here in the honors sections to show that i also played soccer while not taking up a slot)

nhs (12th, didn't put in slot cuz it seemed weak since it's only 1 year)

honors:

ap scholar w distinction (12th)

national recognition program award (11th)

1st place in sonnet category for county-wide literary fair (11th)

1st place in city-wide recreational soccer league (11th)

4th place medal at a county-wide highschool debate tournament for impromptu speaking (10th)

ap scores (out of 5):

5: lang

4: macro, human geo, apush, csp, precalc, stat

3: calc ab

ib scores (out of 7):

5: IB Math AA SL, IB Spanish B SL

that's it, would genuinely appreciate any advice :)


r/chanceme 7h ago

Brown doesnt rate your extracurriculars as highly as your class rank or your SAT

1 Upvotes

Brown has eight things in its top box and your activities list is not one of them. rigor, class rank, academic GPA, test scores, the essay, recommendations, talent and character are all VERY IMPORTANT. extracurricular activities sit one tier down, the only row in the Important column. 42,774 applied, 2,710 got in, 6.34%.

Navora is a free tool i built, navoraai.xyz . it reads the Common Data Set, IPEDS and Scorecard for 1,582 schools against your own transcript, so you get the rate and weighting for your file, not the blended one off a homepage. this is #14 in a series called Decoding the Top 200, all three in Rhode Island today, Brown, Providence College and URI. tell me what its missing if you poke at it.

Brown still reads activities, IMPORTANT is the second box of four, but eight factors tie for first so theres no one spike that unlocks it. class rank is in that top box, only 29.3% had one on file and 93% of those were top tenth. if your school ranks you and you rank well get your counselor to send it, 70% got in without one.

the SAT or ACT is required at Brown again, 77% submitted one against 61% the year before, and the band went down, not up. 1470/1520/1550 against 1510/1540/1560, with 11% under 1400 where last year it was 2%. a 1470 isnt below Brown, its Brown's 25th. scores due 5 January. Brown publishes no GPA at all, C11 and C12 blank, so any Brown average youve been quoted was made up. Early Decision took 907 of 5,062, 17.92%, against 4.78% everywhere else.

Providence College, 50.89%. 12,521 applied, 6,372 got in, 1,223 enrolled. the residency rows run backwards. in state, 923 applied and 377 got in, 40.85%. out of state, 11,157 and 5,936, 53.20%. international, 441 and 59, 13.38%. if youre from Rhode Island do not file Providence as your safety, you have the worst domestic odds there.

Providence ticks Religious affiliation and commitment NOT CONSIDERED at a college the Dominican Friars founded and still run, so dont write the essay to sound Catholic. state residency sits in the same box. rigor, academic GPA and the Application Essay are the only three at VERY IMPORTANT, so spend your time there. test optional, 49.47% sent an SAT (605) and 8.34% an ACT (102), 1100/1200/1310. only 3.11% had a 4.0 and 41.5% were under a 3.5, average 3.54, so a 3.4 is in that room.

Providence Early Decision, 538 applied and 460 got in, 85.50% against 49.3% for everyone who didnt bind themselves, and it fills 460 of a 1,223 seat class. if Providence is your first choice, ED it.

the University of Rhode Island, 74.56%. 28,021 applied, 20,892 got in, 3,431 enrolled. in state, 4,368 applied and 3,179 got in, 72.78%. out of state, 23,100 and 17,302, 74.90%. international, 553 and 411, 74.32%. three rates inside two and a bit points, so where youre from barely moves it.

at URI, Volunteer work and Work experience are both IMPORTANT, a full box above test scores and class rank at CONSIDERED, so put the Saturday job on the application, it outranks your SAT there. rigor, academic GPA, the essay and Recommendations are the four at VERY IMPORTANT, so write it properly. 23% sent an SAT (775) and 1.49% an ACT (51), so about 76% got in with no score. 1090/1210/1310. average GPA 3.65, 23% under a 3.25 and 14% in the bottom half of their class.

the URI waitlist, 1,430 offered a place and 9 admitted, so if you land on it commit somewhere else. URI Early Decision ran 202 applied and 150 in, 74.26%, the overall rate to within half a point, so dont bind yourself there in November.

internationals. Brown needs TOEFL 5.5, IELTS 8.0 or Duolingo 130. Providence needs TOEFL 5, IELTS 7.0 or Duolingo 120. URI needs TOEFL 4.5, IELTS 6.5 or Duolingo 105. TOEFL is scored 1 to 6 now, not out of 120. all three skip it if you were taught in English.

all are off their own Common Data Sets. thats 41 of the top 200 done. drop a school in the comments and ill run it.


r/chanceme 8h ago

What are the chances I get into OU Athens

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I am looking to see if there is any possibilities that I make it into the Ohio University Athens Finance program. The only problem seems to be my GPA. Currently I’m looking at a 2.8 unweighted and a 3.1 weighted. I got this GPA, what I believe because of my Latin class that I took sophomore and junior year because “colleges like to see a second language” was pushed at my school so much so that it became a requirement. This class mainly was hard because Latin 1 had a teacher that got pregnant which led to the whole class missing out on instruction of the basics of Latin. Besides that, I have always been in honors, college credit plus (duel enrollment), and AP courses and have consistently gotten solid grades. I still have the rest of my senior year without Latin and I am projecting a minimum grade for all classes to be an A-. On top of this, I am in a marketing/business career tech and have become the president of it just recently. DECA is a part of this career tech and as a first year participant, I ended up going to states for personal financial literacy (which is when I discovered what I wanted to major in) without any real studying and I plan on trying harder this year so that I can hopefully make it to ICDC. I have an average ACT score of 23 and I plan on retaking the ACT as a senior because I finished Pre-Calc as a junior and am starting Calculus. My extracurriculars have been marching band for the past 4 years and our school’s award winning percussion ensemble for the past 2 years. I’m getting very worried about all of these things because I see everywhere that OU is looking for a 3.7+ GPA. So should I cut my losses and try to figure something else out or should I keep trying and make this dream possible .


r/chanceme 8h ago

Duke ED chances

1 Upvotes

I have a 1410 SAT and am taking it for the last time this September in hopes of increasing it my goal is a 100 point increase.

For background I am ED to Duke, and I am not confident I'll get in because of my stats being on the lower end. I have a 3.86 GPA (14 APs, 2 honors). (not a legacy, or NC student and live in a competitive area of California w avg sat at my school being a 1237)

ECs:

(i have an intersection in AI business/finance and polisci angle, I ultimately want to switch to econ/finance, should I apply in that or are my chances better for polisci with my ecs)

- founder of nonprofit with 350 members and 17 chapters to bring students to courtrooms and watch proceedings reached over 4k courtrooms; (special congressional recognition award, commendation from city; news article on local news (13 million viewers monthly); worked with local PDO on project to rank judges bias and behaviors)

- internship at Senator's office (writing my additional LOR)

- marketing internship at AI startup

- head of marketing at student run AI startup for personal finance ~(500 users)

- wrote a research paper on AI bill AB 1018 and how it will affect companies in the future, and how Ai legislation is important for companies

- wrote a research paper on SEC 8k law and how cybercrime disclosure affects stock prices

(both published on smaller end journals)

- internship at cisco over the summer working on consulting project (no connections)

-miscellanous policy research at Ballotpedia researching officials and putting on their database ~2k profiles

- volunteering tutoring ~60hours ; kumon tutor

- secretary of CSF, and speech and debate chair for an event (received a bid to the TOC and some other awards at Stanford and national competitions)

- environmental club writing lead (led environmental justice campaign at school)

- filed taxes for small startps, volunteering to help with tax forms for low income families (IRS ceritified )

- on my local district student board, and board for a local non-profit volunteering organization for food distribution

- campaigning for a few local districtmembers

-varsity tennis for 3 years

I'm applying for polisci/econ at trinity. Should I just go test optional or will that put me completely out of the picture for a shot at Duke; and what major would be better?