Demographics: Hispanic first gen that goes to a competitive magnet school
Intended Major(s): Biochemistry (or Biology)
ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1530 (780M/750EBRW)
UW/W GPA and Rank: 4.0uw : 4.7w. I should be in the top ten of my class of 400
Coursework: 12 Honors, 14 APs/DEs, and 8 Academic Courses (all A’s) (I have taken AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics C, and two consecutive Honors Engineering courses, and in tenth grade, I had already finished AP Calculus BC—I got a 5 on that exam)
Awards:
National Merit commended scholar
National Hispanic Scholar
AP Scholar with Distinction
I placed in some writing competitions (writing is something I do for fun)
National Honor Society
MuAlphaTheta
National Science Honor Society
Hispanic National Honor Society
Extracurriculars: (Not the strongest point of my app -_-)
Founder of a community outreach organization that partners with many local libraries in the area and helps students learn to code
We have nearly 40 teachers
I frequently meet with leaders of industry (tech CEOs etc.) to discuss sponsorships and what we’re doing with the program
We are already planning on scaling our operations to a national scale
All of our work is provided free of charge to students. Equity is one of our biggest priorities
Science, Spanish, and math tutor
Member of Robotics club
Member of DECA (didn’t spend too much time in this club, but I participated in 9th grade)
Speech and debate
HOSA (I helped the debate portion of our team go to states)
Wrestling
Track and Field
Advocate for adding classes to our school’s curriculum (like AP Spanish Literature and, for a separate school in my district, AP Calculus BC). Occasionally, I have been invited to public speaking events to promote the AP curriculum.
Spanish interpreter for various community groups
I worked at a Popeyes over the summer
I currently work as an article writer for a watch investment group. I love watches, and the side cash isn’t bad.
LORs:
In general, 10/10. The people from my magnet school are known to write killer letters of rec.
Essays:
I don’t know if I can fairly grade my own essays, but I will say that I get paid to write, share opinions, and entertain readers on the internet, so I would like to say that they were pretty decent.
Schools: I’m looking at Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and other schools like that. Is that even realistic? What should my safety schools be?
I can’t chance you, but your application should be competitive at every school you apply to. With that said the only schools you mentioned have single digit acceptance rates.
Have you been accepted/deferred/denied anywhere yet?
Where else have you applied? Have you applied to at least one affordable safety? What is your budget for college, per year?
I think I might have been unclear there. My bad. When I say looking at, I mean interested in. I have sent in applications at those schools, safeties, and matches. I am waiting to hear back, though.
I have been accepted to George Mason University and Virginia Tech, both of which are affordable for me. When it comes to my budget for college, I should be able to afford the colleges I am applying to, assuming I get some form of financial aid.
Since you have been accepted to George Mason and Virginia Tech, there are your safeties - your chances of acceptance are 100%, and they are affordable. If you would be OK attending either, you no longer have to think about safeties.
As for the rest? As others have written - you are competitive, but unfortunately, the great majority of the competitive applicants to these colleges are rejected. Your chances are better than average, but these are colleges with a 3%-5% acceptance rate for RD. So even if your chances are 3x or even 5x the average, some 80% - 90% of the applicants who are like you are not being accepted.
You’ve done REALLY well, so congratulations on all of your accomplishments, and on two excellent choices already.
You and your parents should run the net price calculator of each school you applied to so you can see an estimated COA. The NPCs will estimate how much aid you will receive and the T20s you mentioned (Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell) all meet full need…so, your FA package shouldn’t be a surprise, assuming you fill out the NPC accurately/completely.
NPCs may not be accurate if your parents are divorced, own real estate beyond a primary home, or own a business…are any of those the case for you?
First of all, you are already accepted to two very good universities. If you were to get accepted to Cornell, Columbia, or Dartmouth College, and if you graduate from one of them, then about five years from now you are likely to find yourself working alongside coworkers who graduated from George Mason and Virginia Tech, and you will discover that they are very good coworkers, they know their stuff, and you can work together very well.
You also have great high school stats and great SAT results, and great ECs.
You have done very well up to now. I expect that you will continue to do very well regardless of which university you attend.
I think that this is exactly right.
Relax. Wait for the results. You will be studying at a good university in September. You just do not know yet which one it will be, nor whether you will need to purchase a very good winter coat and boots (which you would need for either Dartmouth or Cornell).
Given where you’ve been accepted I assume you are from Virginia ? Hopefully you applied to W&M which is a very strong alternative to the Ivys you listed which will come at a strong price (if in-state) and would be a likely. And since you’ve gone large, I’ll throw in UVA.
Hopefully, assuming you are in-state, you applied to them.
Since most application deadlines have passed, not much to say other than that you sound like a VERY strong applicant. I hope you get some more acceptances. I think it is possible, since you have everything the committees are looking for, and URM status might help. And as all have already said, if the choice comes down to Va Tech vs George Mason, that’s not bad at all.
No matter how good your stats are, the acceptance rate to these schools hover between 4-7%. At some point, applications become so homogeneous, it becomes a smart person lottery. And each school uses different subjective criteria, making the whole process a moving target with a blindfold.
Don’t worry about your friends. Luck is a very fickle thing. You have no control over the outcome. Just be grateful for the opportunity of getting into college and make the best of what you have. Elite universities are grossly overrated anyway.
I have read comments like this from you numerous times.
For the sake of context, which elite university (I suspect you didn’t attend “all” of them) did you (or your kids) attend and experience upon which you base this generalization?
Should I take that “non response” response to mean you have first hand experience with all, none or something in between of the “elite” schools you generalize as over rated?
Either way your posts can be enlightening but your direct experience can provide context for your biases or accuracy.
