ACT score: 33
GPA: 3.9
Activities: cheerleading, competition cheer; cheer captain… media club president… national honors society, italian honors society
I want to go into political science/law/communications… lmk
yes you can, definitely try to ED to one.
I don’t think your grades would stop you from getting into an Ivy. Unfortunately, with admissions rate in the single digits, your chances are also in the single digits as well. Unless you have a hook that will substantially increase your chances, but none of the ECs you listed would be considered a hook.
It’s worth an application, but don’t put your hopes and dreams on it. Getting in is one thing, paying for it can be something entirely different.
Can’t really tell how competitive you would be on the info you have provided. You would need to take a very challenging course load in high school and have top grades on AP exams to have much of a shot. Also you’d need to show how you could make a positive contribution to the school. What are you better at than the vast majority of applicants? Unless you are a nationally ranked athlete or Olympian, or have a rich donor or an internationally influential parent, you would likely need to exhibit some kind of special talent or skill: anything from doing research, starting a business, publications beyond your school, winning a national competition, or similar activity to help you have a better than average chance.
I don’t see anything in your post that would make your application stand out from among a long list of very similar applications. Also, the fact that you are aiming at “an ivy league school” to me hints at the fact that you might not know enough about the 8 ivy league schools, or the similar number of other equally strong schools, to know which one or two you prefer or would be a good fit for you.
Unless I am missing something (which is possible), I don’t think that your chances are any better than the overall admissions rate at each school, and they are likely a bit less since a lot of students accepted to ivy league schools have a significant “hook”.
which one would you prefer? –
Are you looking for a curriculum featuring a core like Columbia’s, an open one like Brown’s, or something in between?
Are you looking for an urban, rural, or suburban location?
Do you care about how many grad students there are, how undergrad-focused the school is?
How do you feel about Yale’s residential colleges and shopping period, Dartmouth’s D Plan and Greek participation, Princeton’s senior thesis and eating clubs, Harvard’s tourists and final clubs, Penn’s party rep and consortium involvement, Columbia’s rigor and compact NYC campus, Cornell’s size and rural location, Brown’s dorms and laid back scene?
Answers to these questions will help you figure out which Ivy fits you best and should be your ED or SCEA school.
Why are you asking this backwards question about which you could get into? You just want an Ivy, any Ivy, whether it’s in a big city or not, has strength in your major or not, etc?
You have no experience in poli sci or comms, just a hs club? (Honors societies are no tip.) Note this is an election year.
First step is for you to research. These colleges want people who are informed, make wise decisions and know their match. They want to see challenge and purpose in your activities, at school and in the community. The competition will be crazy fierce.
It depends, if you are URM, first generation, lower income, rural, inner city, war refugee, celebrity/alumni/wealthy’s offspring or something like that then its possible. If not then its a gamble like it is for all unhooked applicants, even ones with perfect GPA and SAT and solid resume.
“It depends, if you are URM, first generation, lower income, rural, inner city, war refugee, celebrity/alumni/wealthy’s offspring or something like that then its possible. If not then its a gamble like it is for all unhooked applicants, even ones with perfect GPA and SAT and solid resume”.
Or just be the best of those that are unhooked but really qualified applicants with great grades, scores, ECs and a consistently good application. The best of this cohort does get Ivy acceptances.
You will frequently encounter people refer to the process as “a crap shoot” or totally random when the applications don’t yield the desired outcome. To use a colloquialism it is sour grapes. Don’t let others retrospective cynicism cloud your judgement.
Cupcakemuffins comment above and others like it, are intended to “rationalize” their perfect kids not getting into the schools they were “entitled” to. They diminish those kids that are unhooked that get in, they are abusive to those that are hooked and get in, and they present those who are denied admittance as victims giving them a false sense of futility.
Listen to Prezbucky she is entirely on point and ignore haters with a personal ax to grind.
Nooooo it doesn’t matter what college as long as its an………………………Ivy college, well if you can’t get accepted to an Ivy then there is always the “public ivies”, except there is no such thing. However its very clever of the Ivy league to get this free marketing from public universities who apparently see themselves as something less then an Ivy, even though they have 1,2 or many majors that are clearly superior, very clever indeed!
Listen to @prezbucky
Thanks guys. I wish i knew more about the Ancient Eight but at least we can get the OP to recognize some of their differences and unique characteristics.
OP, Spend the time reading up on them, look at the photos, compare and contrast them, and choose based on your preferences. They are different animals and have (in some cases) more in common with schools outside the Ivy League than they do with each other.
I find Nocreativity1’s post perplexing. I hadn’t noticed anyone talking about perfect kids or having an axe to grind. If anything, letsgocollegexxx herself sounded like the entitled one. Perhaps because she is new to these boards she doesn’t realize that it helps to post far more information than she did in order for anyone to assess her chances of being accepted at any given college. Perhaps she doesn’t realize that a good ACT score alone doesn’t mean she’s entitled to entry into an Ivy league college. Perhaps she isn’t aware that 30,000 students a year apply to Harvard and 95% will not get in. For perfect students, with very high grades and test scores and amazing extracurriculars very few will gain acceptance to HPY, and it doesn’t appear from the limited information provided that she would be competitive with those students. She can apply to a hundred schools if she wants. That’s up to her. She can apply to all the Ivy’s if she wants. Won’t affect me at all. But she asked for information and it sounded like people were trying to provide her with it.
OP lives in MD, has a good ACT & is probably being told that with a 3.9* + 33 s/he should be aiming higher. From OP’s other posts it looks as though it really is a genuine question - other threads ask about a wider range of schools.
OP, be true to you:
*turns out that is W/ not UW, with 6 APs.
33 ACT will put you in the running if you are URM but likely knock you out if you are an unhooked non URM. That’s just the way it is (and no, no sour grapes here - I really couldn’t care less about ivy admissions from a personal point of view).
And best of luck in your applications!
MyrtleD the distinction is the OP is a 17 year old looking for guidance. Clearly lumping urban/rural, structured curriculum/open curriculum, 15,000 students/5,000 students schools together under the banner Ivy League suggests the student needs to do more work. That was why I suggested following Prezbucky’s suggestions.
In terms of my rebuke of Cupcakemuffins comment it once again is a matter of context. A 17 year old who is clearly naive asks a question. Cupcakemuffins responds in part by telling them if only they were a war refugee you be advantaged. I don’t think most war refugees would feel lucky.
Not only is it tangential but in the totality of her comment suggests the student can’t impact her own future. She specifically uses the term “gamble”. Such advise can demotivate an impressionable student.
Other post by this individual consistently gripe about the unfairness of addmissions, life’s challenges, and prople who have faith in God. When providing kids with advice we should offer paths to success not harp on what we perceive as life’s inequalities.
This student has an uphill battle if an elite school is their eventual once informed goal. As adults we are obligated to support that process not detail it as futile.
In other words, there’s backstory, as is often the case on CC.
I’m with those who find all this implication that certain categories of applicants can just apply and be practically auto-admitted to be incompletely informed and dismiss the very real strengths kids of all backgrounds can offer.
In holistic, it all matters, top grades, rigor, a good balance of ECs, responsibilities. and how you actually complete your app.
OP does have work to do.
I guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. But the following comment really is misleading.
“Their acceptance rates are all in the single digits, so are your chances.” That is a totally wrong statement. Some will have a much higher chance of acceptance and some will have a much lower chance of acceptance. For example, at one Top Three University, the Dean of Admissions stated 1/3 of the applicants are dismissed upon opening. Read, they had 0% chance of acceptance (only very slightly above not applying at all). There are going to be applicants that have perfect test scores, perfect GPAs, mediocre ECs, good but not great essays and recommendations and their chance of acceptance is going to be much greater than single digits. And their are going to be Great Test Score, Great GPA, Great ECs, Great Letters of Recommendations, Great Essays, and be a recruited athlete. Their chance of acceptance is going to be nearly 100%. The moral of the story is not everyone has a X% chance of acceptance. That is one number that describes the population. Each individual has a different acceptance rate. I suggest using the X% as a baseline and then look at your application and ask yourself do you increase that or decrease that.
So to the OP, based on the so very little I see in your post, I can only say that your chance of being accepted if you don’t apply is zero. Where you are depends on the entirety of your application.
0.4 percent of all college students attend an Ivy League college.
No one can tell you which school you can get into