Chance at Top Schools- Harvard, Stanford

<p>No your school, for the most part, will not hurt ayone when applying. You've clearly made the best of it anyway. Definately apply to your favorite school first, ivy's won't admit it, but it up s your chances X6. Since you will have the pick of the litter with those stats you should apply to Harvard or Yale EA so you can see what other ivy's you get into. In any case you'll get into at least one. What is important for you to solidify your chances, is to write a really unique essay that seperates you from the scores of other high-achievers. Even if it sucks, you've still got a pretty good chance though :). Nice work.</p>

<p>Would applying as a bioengineering major ruin my chances, or should I apply undecided?</p>

<p>The people that say all Ivies are always reaches are nuts. While none but a VERY small hyper-elite can call HYP "safeties," which in my book means ~80% admit chance, the fact of the matter is that excellent students with unique ECs can have considerably better than the 30% or so chance that seperates a match from a reach. The lower Ivies (Penn, Brown, Cornell, no offense to their fine student bodies) take 20-25% of all applicants, so it's not hard to estimate that someone well above the average applicant has a better than even chance of acceptance.</p>

<p>Yes, that is true....but I don't think there even that many people with more than a 30% chance....</p>

<p>I've changed my mind. I want to apply ED to Princeton. Does that change anything or is there anything that Princeton looks for in particular?</p>

<p>You will not have a very good chance at Princeton. Princeton, unlike Harvard and Yale, looks for different kinds of students. Judging by your stats, you would have a significantly better chance at Harvard EA.</p>

<p>What does Princeton look for that Harvard/Yale don't?</p>

<p>Wait a second, are you on my team? That's weird. I did not expect this.</p>

<p>12 hours a day? do you go to school?
I would watch that you don't exaggerate on apps. Colleges prefer people with a passion for something than people who write down crazy amounts of hours. Even if you do have that many hours, they might not believe you b/c almost nobody does that. Write a mean essay about your ecs instead.</p>

<p>Don't talk about my teammate like that. I'm not a businessman. I'm a business, man.</p>