<p>SAT: 770(CR) 770(M) 690(W)
SATII: 660 (World) 780 (Spanish) -hopefully 700 or higher on Math and BioM
Weighted GPA: 4.0
Rank: Top 2% (maybe top 1%) in a class of 700
AP: World (3), Bio (hopefully 5), English (hopefully 4), French (hopefully 3)
Senior Year Classes: AP Lit, AP Micro, AP Psych, AP CalcAB, Physics
Awards: Honor Roll, Shakespearian Monologue Award Winner, Bio Achievement, etc.
Extracurriculars: SGovernment Vice President, President of 2 Clubs, National Honors Society Treasurer, Dance choreographer
No job experience
Volunteer: Local hospital
Summer Activities: Carnegie Mellon Summer Institude
Income: low
Ethnicity: Asian (indian)
Writing (for essays): not too great, but not too bad either.
Teacher Recs: probably not going to be phenomenal, but also not bad</p>
<p>I really wanna go to Columbia, NYU, UPenn, Yale, Brown, Amherst or Williams. Think I have a shot?</p>
<p>Probably NYU since it looks like a match or safety.</p>
<p>Is the income questbridge matching low? Then you may have shot through questbridge for Ivies. Otherwise, you apply and hope for the best with the under 8% chance for most ivies.</p>
<p>Simply put, Ivy Leagues tend not to have a “match” because admissions are holistic and its hard to predict who will get in. Often, certain have been “chanced” as guaranteed admits, to only find out from the actual school that they were rejected, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Agreed. Sometimes even the best fit people end up deferred or rejected from Ivy Leagues or similar caliber schools. Some of the aspects of your application you should work on are your test scores. Try to retake the SAT and bring up your writing score to above 750 to maximize your test score competitiveness for these schools. These are all competitive schools and none are really safety schools. Do you have any safety schools?</p>
<p>But Apoc314, you say “best fit people” get denied. Are you insinuating that I am one of these “best fit people” ? Also, I really don’t think there’s a need to take my SAT once more, just to increase my score by 60 points. I only got 4 wrong on the writing section, and I truly don’t see a substantial difference between 4 wrong and 1 wrong, and I believe these Universities will understand that. </p>
<p>@philosofer - you say my stats are avg. in an ivy league. do you mean that if i were in an ivy league, the average student would have my stats? that’s a good sign, no?</p>
<p>You do realize, OP, that like half of the people who apply to Ivy schools are top of their class with all As or almost all As. Their SAT is also in the top range. So basically, having those scores mean nothing. What sets you apart is your ECs, Recommendations and Essay. Having the “average stats” doesn’t mean much. It’s just that you won’t be marked down for your grades.</p>
<p>The SAT score looks good but I dont see solid scores on subjects, your AP scores seem weak. Ivies require 5s to give you a credit and 3 does nt even matter to them and so you cant even brag about having taken the AP test. ECs are not mindboggling and seem a bit routine unless you can show great experience essay coming out of CMU summer program.</p>
<p>Ivies have a 6-8% acceptance rate and as others have mentioned, the applicants are also an elite pool academically (most are top 5%) and they are all trying to outdo each other outside of academics in terms of achievements. The only matches Ivies actually have are those that are recruited athletes who are accepted ahead of the general class and probably some with a building named after their family. For everyone else it is an automatic reach irrespective of anything they have on their resume.</p>
<p>Kid- 2230 SAT with top 2%/1% class rank is accepted on a regular basis
by the Ivies. Focus on fine letters and polish those essays-- then apply!
For kicks Supersize your SAT and Subtests with a retake. Only takes one !</p>
<p>i was wondering if going for a less popular major such as anthropology would increase chances of admission for upenn? (not that i’m trying to sneak in the back door or anything) my sat’s are low for most ivies (2040) so i’m not sure if it’s even possible…</p>
<p>There are a few majors that may give you an advantage applying (only in differentiating yourself from other qualified applicants) because they are typically under enrolled. Two such majors are physics and chemistry. This is especially true for women in physics because the gender ratio in the physics major is so skewed (most likely less that 25% women in any given year and probably more around 20% on average). For the same reason as above, it also probably would be advantageous for a girl to admit interest in engineering disciplines such as mechanical and electrical engineering and in math.</p>
You do realize that going to a major just because you think it will help you get into admissions will further lower your chance. If you want to go to premed and have done science and then thinks “oh I should put down philosophy because fewer people choose it”, then admissions will immediately sniff you out. They will see that your ECs and classes don’t match your choice of major and then realize that you are doing this not because you actually want to do it at Penn, it’s just that you want to get into Penn. ----> Rejection</p>