<p>Major Extracurriculars:
Student Council, Executive Board
Council of 100
Student Congress
Debate Team
Peer Tutors
Vasrity Track
Patriot Guitar ensemble
Tri-Music Honor society
NHS
Model UN
Freshmen Mentor Program Leader
Work as an english tutor(paid job)</p>
<p>Community Service:
400 hours, 300 external 100 in local hospital</p>
<p>Shadowing experience: 50 hours in federal hospital, shadowed orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists</p>
<p>Research Experience:
200 hours in Medical School, researching hormonal effects on late stage diabetes</p>
<p>I know this sounds cliche, but your activities don’t make you stand out. Your 300 hours volunteering, is it at ONE place or MANY places? No one cares that you volunteered for 300 hours. What is noteworthy, however, is if that 300 hours is done at 1-2 organizations where you’ve made a huge impact.Your EC’s are very plain-vanilla, and lead me to question if you truly dedicated (it’s a long list). Is it possible? Yes, particularly for non-HYP. I’d say Cornell could be high match-low reach with your academic credentials. I’d suggest applying ED, though. </p>
<p>Also, stop looking at prestige. It isn’t all about that. You need to look at schools you’d ACTUALLY like. Saying “ivy or top ranked” is actually pretty pretentious. Look up schools to see which you’d actually like to go to, not those you’d just like to tell people you go to… lol</p>
<p>Well my volunteering hours come mostly from within school projects I work in and manage. I go to a 4000 student public high school, and some of those positions I have, such as executive board member of student council, freshman mentor program leader, and council of 100 are incredibly difficult to achieve. They are all related within my school, which shows my dedication to improve my high school’s experience for the student body. And I only say Ivy’s because they are the most selective. </p>
<p>You need to figure out what kind of top ranked school you are interested in. MIT is very different from Harvard, for example, and Brown is very different from Stanford.</p>
<p>So, yes, some Ivies and top schools are possible for you. But please (puh-lease!) apply to some merely excellent schools like Johns Hopkins and Tulane, for example. Some very smart people make the very dumb mistake of appying to only Ivy League schools or the equivalent. Usually they end up staying at home, or going to Big State University, because they had no backup plan.</p>
<p>Oh I will do personal research of my own to find a great college that is good for my desired major. I’m from illinois, so I have a great state school as well. However, I would like to achieve more and challenge myself in a more rigorous environment. I also would like to live and work abroad for a part of my life, and a degree from a well known university would help me in this situation, rather than a relatively unknown, but still very excellent college.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t apply to schools based on selectivity either… Anyways, your ECs are still generic and don’t show much passion or commitment despite how difficult you say they were to achieve. </p>
<p>EC’s that show passion is a single “name” in which you do many things. Now, my EC’s were excellent-- not extraordinary. For me, one such thing was music. I play the flute, piccolo, and piano. I’ve been in band 4 years of high school as the flute section leader and first chair for 3 years. I’m in my region’s top, selective orchestra. I have played in the pit @ all my high school’s musicals. I’m in a professional flute choir. I founded a flute trio which plays various venues like weddings and parties. I’ve also been in my county’s honor band for 3 years. I’ve received some awards for flute. I’ve also competed in many piano competitions and have some awards from that. I have been named musician of the year each year since my freshman year. </p>
<p>This is one of my involvements that I included on my app, and I got into 3 ivy league schools. I’ll be attending UPenn in the Fall.</p>
<p>If you try to add activities now, colleges will readily see RIGHT through them. What you need to do is work on developing a unique perspective in your essays as a means of differentiating yourself from the others with high GPA and test scores. If you have something to do this summer, great! If not, get a job to help pay for your college. READ LOTS OF BOOKS. Work your brain in some way.</p>
<p>Thank you both! While I have this many activities, my participation is mostly focused into my student council activities within school. I have organized and successfully completed rallies, charity drives, and inter-school events. Overall, I’m a leader in my school, and stand out in a crowd of 4000. However, unlike your musical passion, this doesn’t seem to stand out as much. How will I be able to make this great passion of mine parallel to your music, noel597?</p>
<p>@themaster45 You don’t need to make it like music. Just focus in on the fact that you’re involved at school. I couldn’t tell them from your list, so you’ll need to structure your activities on the common app in a way that show what you just told me. I can help you out, so if you need that help feel free to message me!</p>
<p>There’s no doubt you’re academically qualified, so I’ll forward the advice others have given me about EC’s. I think the quantity you have is spot on, so don’t try to pile on more and more. Instead, just choose a few that you’re genuinely interested in and really elaborate on them. I’m sure you’ve heard this a trillion times (and counting), so please forgive the cliches. Good luck! :)</p>
<p>P.S. What NROTCgrad said is very true. Don’t make the mistake of going purely for the name brand.</p>
<p>Definitely apply for Duke. Its not an Ivy, but arguably near the level of one and I think you can get in to Duke. I’d imagine you have a big chance at Cornell/Brown, and okay chances at UPenn, but honestly no lie, you do not have very big chances at HYPSM. But NOBODY does. There is no possible way can actually tell a person “you are def getting in to Princeton”, because they probably aren’t and that is the cold truth. You should definitely apply to HYPSM, and then apply to schools like Cornell, Duke, and UPenn, but then even when you do that you should still apply to state schools as safety. I am sure you will end up at a top-10 ranked school, just maybe not HYPSM. You have better chances than most people applying if that helps.</p>
<p>You seem to have an interest in hard sciences such as physics and chemistry. If you think that you might major in a science or technology field, then you should definitely apply to Georgia Tech, which is far better than most people think. See the following website which ranks GT number 11 – in the world! – for engineering and technology.</p>
<p>Notice the following first sentence of that online article: “The 2013-2014 Times Higher Education World University Rankings’ Engineering and Technology table judges world class universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.” Repeat, international outlook.</p>
<p>For you, Georgia Tech is a match. Everybody has heard of it, too.</p>