Hello! I’ve never done one of these before so I’m not really sure about the structure but any input is strongly appreciated. I would love advice on how to improve my application as well.
Demographics: Asian female from Minnesota
Stats:
SAT: 1480
ACT: 34
GPA: 4.5 W/3.9 UW
ECS:
Founder - organization promoting women in tech
Founder - national non profit promoting voting among immigrants
Co-founder/President - Amnesty International Club
Editor - school newspaper
Vice President - club promoting women’s education
Communications Director - international nonprofit for women in tech
Lead Web Designer - magazine for women in tech
Soccer - all-conference academic and captain
Awards:
National AP Scholar
National Merit Semifinalist
Aspirations Awardee for Minnesota
Colleges:
UMN
UW-Madison
Uchicago
Princeton
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
MIT
CalTech
Pomona
USC
Berkeley
WashU
Duke
Northwestern
UPenn
Dartmouth
Cornell
Brown
You have a list comprised almost entirely of reach schools. They are reaches for all applicants. All these schools have in common are top overall rankings. What is your intended major? Some of these schools couldn’t be more different in terms of vibe, location, size, etc…
Many of these schools also recommend (and in some cases require) SAT subject tests.
Apart from Minnesota-Twin Cities and UW Madison, that looks like a laundry list of schools with very little in common except for being all Top-25 schools. With MIT being an outlier.
One more thing-Asian females are usually considered ORM, but Minnesota Asian usually equates to Hmong. And there might be something that resonates with an admissions officer.
If you don’t realize 1480 is on the low side, that it’s not the SAT total but the individual scores, that it’s not ACT composite, but subscores, and that all those founder and other titles aren’t the “it,” I wonder if you understand just what those schools do look for.
Try figuring it out. You’ve got 17 uber reaches there. They each expect you to understand them and your match, not just what you want.
Don’t consciously make this a crapshoot. Do the due diligence. Or you risk your app/supps missing the mark.
UC Berkeley for example gives little to no financial aid to OOS students, so you are looking at $65K/year or $260K for 4 years to attend if accepted. You can go to some very good schools at a much lower cost.
What year of high school are you in? If you are a senior, then you do not have much time to finalize your list.
As others have said, you are applying to a lot of reaches. You need to find out what your budget is. You also need to figure out what you really want in a university.
What is your intended major? Are all the schools on your list actually good for your intended major? Wrt MIT and Caltech, how do you feel about being surrounded by other students who are stronger than you are, and having exceptionally difficult classes with piles of homework for four years?
Okie dokie. I was going to say that you have several DIIIs on your list that have given some nudges for recruited athletes in the past, but you would really need to love playing to fit it into your academic workload (DIs have already pretty much filled their recruiting classes)