Are Stanford and Ivies a Reach?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a white male and a junior in high school. I go to a middle ranked high school in Idaho. Really interested in going to Stanford, Harvard, Duke, Rice, Columbia, Princeton, Berkeley.</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA: 4.00 (straight A's)
Top 1% of class (420 students)</p>

<p>Freshman Classes:
-Hon. English
-Hon. Earth Science
-Hon. Algebra 2
-German I
-Dig. Photo/Global Persp.
-Band (alto saxophone)
-P.E.</p>

<p>Sophomore Classes:
-AP Bio
-Hon. Bio
-Hon. English
-Hon. US History
-Hon. Pre-Calc
-German II
-French I
-Int. Apps/Speech</p>

<p>Junior Classes:
-AP Chemistry
-Hon. Chemistry
-AP Calc
-AP English
-AP US History
-German III
-Health Occ.
-Pers. Finance/Zoology</p>

<p>Senior Classes: (expected)
-AP Calc 2
-AP Physics
-AP Environment Science
-AP English
-AP Stats
-AP Government
-AP Micro/Macro Econ.
-German IV</p>

<p>SAT I - 2150 (98th percentile)
Critical Reading: 680
Math: 720
Writing: 750</p>

<p>SAT II's
Biology M - 760
I plan on taking Chemistry, Math II, and US History this coming spring.</p>

<p>AP Scores (Plan on taking tests in all my AP subjects listed above)
Biology - 5</p>

<p>Clubs: (including expected clubs for senior year)
-Key Club (11, 12)
-National Honor Society (11, 12, hopefully will have a position on the board senior year)
-International Club (10, 11, 12)
-Quiz Bowl (11, 12. Captain both years)
-Teen Leaders Club at YMCA (11, 12)</p>

<p>Community Service:
-Teach a Jump Rope Clinic for Elementary Kids after schools (25 hours x 5 years = 125)
-Tutor Kids in AP Biology for 30 minutes once a week (20 hours x 2 years = 40 hours)
-Multiple Service projects of NHS (40 hours x 2 years = 80 hours)
-Community Service Projects for Teen Leaders (20 hours x 2 years = 40 hours)
-Food Bank (10 hours x 2 years = 20 hours)
-Formed a group which makes blankets to give to local shelter (2hrs/wk x 25wks = 50)
-Planning on organizing a environmental group this summer to clean up local parks
Total Hours = 355 hours</p>

<p>Extra Curriculars:
My main extra curricular is being on a jump rope team and competing in multiple competitions. I'm kind of hoping this will help set me apart.
-Jumping for 11 years
-Captain of Team (last 3 years)
-Have probably over 100 gold medals
-12 plaques (top 3 in event of all ages)
-7 trophies (best in event of all ages)
-Hold 4 different USAJR records
-Been to nationals/regionals all 11 years
-Ranked 1st in the nation, ages 14 and under (2007)
-Ranked 2nd in the nation, all ages (2009, 2010)
-Ranked 6th in the world, all ages, and got a gold and bronze medal at worlds (2010)</p>

<p>-Performed in various events for jump rope:
-David Letterman Show
-ESPN
-Fox Sports
-JUMP! Documentary
-Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (2010)
-Utah Jazz Basketball Games (2009, 2010, 2011)
-Various Basketball/Football Games in Boise
-Recently Broke the Guinness World Record for Consecutive Double Dutch Jumps (2010)</p>

<p>I have also been playing piano from 4th grade and expecting to go to 12th grade (9 years)
-Earned 5 (highest score) at piano festival (2007, 2008, 2009)
-Have 2 trophies from this competition</p>

<p>-Played alto saxophone for 4 years</p>

<p>Thank you for taking your time to read this! Please leave me comments and feel free to point out if I need to do better in a certain area, or anything that could help my chances! I would also love to chance back, just let me know if you'd like me to!!!</p>

2

<p>Bump. Will gladly chance back if you chance me :)</p>

3

<p>Well all of your stats look good and the jump roping is really cool and should set you apart. I think I saw that documentary and it was pretty intense :slight_smile: Try to get your SAT scores up and you should have a good shot, however Stanford/ivies are a reach for anyone so you never know.</p>

4

<p>yes they are a reach for you, try to raise your SAT score to have a better chance at Ivies/Stanford. If you get your SAT above 2200, then I say with jump roping as a “hook”, you’ll have as good a shot as anybody into getting into those schools. It is really unique and colleges are trying to “build a class” and you offer them something that no one else can. Good luck :)</p>

5

<p>^and you live in Idaho, wow. Try the ACT and study for it, see how you do on it. Keep up those straight A’s through the end of your junior year.</p>

6

<p>GPA is awesome. ECs are awesome. Your SAT is a little on the “average” side. Try to get that up a bit if you can. You’re definitely a good candidate. Just remember, Stanford and Ivies are a reach for anyone!</p>

7

<p>I think your hook is awesome, OP! That is so cool! And your scores, grades, and coursework looks rigorous. You might consider retaking the SAT in June but otherwise, you’d be a great addition to any of those colleges. I hope it works out for you!</p>

8

<p>you are an excellent candidate for any ivy. don’t worry about the sat, you only need high sat scores if you dont have any real accomplishments :)</p>

9

<p>wow you have amazing EC’s and academics too… if you can just get your SAT score to something like over 2300 … you’ll be in for sure…
though you never know this whole admission process is so damn fickle… :)</p>

<p>chance back
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1079059-chance-me-ambitious-applicant-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1079059-chance-me-ambitious-applicant-2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

10

<p>

^its better to be safe than sorry. Go for that 2200 OP, it will benefit your chances greatly. Try the ACT too, if you do bad, you don’t have to send your scores, and colleges will never know you did bad.</p>

11

<p>“you are an excellent candidate for any ivy. don’t worry about the sat, you only need high sat scores if you dont have any real accomplishments”</p>

<p>Blatantly false information.</p>

12

<p>^ ummm i dont think you know what it takes to get into an ivy league college.</p>

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<p>^In support of your view: MITChris, an admissions committee member from M.I.T. posted on these forums a day or so ago, that once you have passed the threshold of demontrating academic prepardness then he felt that SAT scores and GPA were the least important factors in their committees deliberations.</p>

<p>His insights are in this thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1084380-why-do-you-post-chance-threads.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1084380-why-do-you-post-chance-threads.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@hinsdale You do know that he said that SATs do not really matter after say 750+ on each section. With the OP’s 680 and 720, I would definitely consider retaking. </p>

<p>@OP Yes, they are still reaches. You have interesting ECs that are pretty unique. You come from a decently underrepresented state. You have a solid GPA and decent rigor. I can’t say whether you will be admitted as many aspects will only be known to the adcoms who read your app. The only thing I would try to change is your SAT score; get it up if you can!</p>

<p>Otherwise, just be yourself.</p>

15

<p>

^do you??</p>

<p>I agree with hinsdale1, once you reach a certain point of SAT/gpa then other stuff matters more. A lot of people on CC “estimate” that point is 2200+/3.8+ gpa. I don’t know for sure, but your a junior and you still have an opportunity to retake the SAT. Some schools superscore the SAT, so it bodes in your favor to retake and try and get that 2200+.
Just my 2 cents.</p>

16

<p>Thanks for everyone’s help. And yeah, I’ll probably retake the SAT one more time. And I still have to take the ACT so hopefully I can excell in that!</p>

17

<p>One question, I’ve taken the SAT twice now and the 2150 is the score from my most recent test. Would it still bode in my favor to take the SAT a third time, or would it be seen as a negative for some of the colleges?</p>

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<p>@theRADtomato47 and schmohawk: have any of you two gotten into one of HYP? if not, then it is unlikely your opinions are helpful to the OP.</p>

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<p>^no, I never said I did, and I never said I knew what it takes to get into HYP (unlike you). Seriously dude for an HYP student (you are one, right?), your pretty arrogant. Just because you got into HYP a certain way, does’nt mean everybody follows that path. The OP is still a junior, WHY NOT try and raise the SAT score and increase his odds of getting in. Since you know what it takes to get into HYP, why don’t you enlighten the rest of us normal beings?</p>

<p>@OP, no, there are quite a few people who take the SAT 3 three times and superscore is still used. Two times is the norm but 3 times is not uncommon thesed ays. I think 4 times would be too much unless something happened to you (sick, disruption during test) during one of your testing administrations.</p>

20

<p>Question: a majority of people envision jump rope completely different from what it really is. It takes a lot of creativity and endurance to do just one routine. Will I have a way of showing them a routine of mine at nationals so they can see what jump rope really is?(video supplement or direct them to a YouTube page)</p>