African American
gpa: 3.71 (unweighted on a 4.0 scale at a private school)
ACT: 34 with an 8 on writing (not a good English student)
AP Comp sci: 5 (I plan to major in computer science)
AP Spanish: 3
AP US History: 3
AP Chemistry: 3
AP Biology: 3
I plan to take AP Stats, AP Government, AP Calculus AB and AP Physics C.
Do you think I can get into any of those schools?
I spoke with a former dean of admissions at one of those schools just a bit ago-- withholding name for privacy reasons. You should get in to one of those if you write very well. We spent a few hours talking and he very much emphasized the importance of the essays. Ill share with you some of the writing advice he gave me:
He told me that you want your first few sentences to be interesting but NOT cliche. Also, though they are respectful of all situations, there are some which prove very common and thusly, can become cliche if not written very well. These topics are:
Moving to a new country or school, being LGBT, overcoming sports injuries.
Based on what I have seen you should be fine if you write a good essay and have extracurriculars which you have become meaningfully involved in. Best of luck!
There are others that have better stats than you (AP scores, ACT, grades especially) that get rejected. What makes you special?
Personally, I would forget about Stanford and MIT. Unless you have exenuating circumstances, you really have no excuses for your grades. You don’t list any ECs, and your AP scores are not even outstanding. You haven’t even taken your subject tests for MIT yet, so your chances there are 0% right now. You are not a year ahead in math either, so that puts you even farther back for MIT.
there are people with MUCH better stats that have gotten rejected from all those schools. but there still is a small chance you can get in if you write a strong essay (URM hook can only go so far)
Being LGBT gives you a better chance into applying? I’m guessing that would have to be with the essay talking about the struggle of coming out. I’m LGBT but I never really had an issue coming out, everyone was pretty accepting, didn’t really struggle there.
@geekygeek depends where. If you are in liberal California, maybe not. The members of the LGBTIQA+ community are a special type of minority, and people have been very successful with essays regarding the acceptance of their sexuality, struggles/fallout with families, etc.
I disagree with some of the posts, I think while Stanford and MIT will be a reach, there are not out of the question. Rice and USC you have legitimate chances for admission. The bigger task lies in you articulating in your personal statement why Stanford and MIT? Best–
Stanford is one school that doesn’t care about stats. I remember one year one Hispanic kid with 1700 SAT got accepted. Another year, Mr Tubbz, an African American with about 1880 got accepted, I specifically remember him because I has PM from him. He is now mayor of Compton, IIRC. But he won a few writing awards, unusual circumstance, like father was in jail.