Chance Me- all ivies

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Possible major: Biological Sciences

Objective

SAT I (breakdown): 1440 (730 math, 710 Reading) Not Submitting
ACT (breakdown): 33 (34 E, 36 M, 34 R, 28 S)
34 Super score (34 E, 36 M, 34 R, 32 S) Hopefully Cornell Superscores*
SAT II: 760 M2, 700 Bio M
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.8 unweighted, 4.554 weighted
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): NA
AP (place score in parenthesis): 3 on AP Chem, not submitted
IB (place score in parenthesis): NA
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Gov, AP Lit, ECE (Early College Experience) Biotechnology, and AP Physics 1
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): NA

Subjective

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Chess, research at hospitals, (heavy involvement in agriculture because I am in a special agricultural program at my school) , FFA club (Future Farmers of America) (leadership by serving as an officer), doctor shadowing, and violin player.
Job/Work Experience: NA
Volunteer/Community service:Hospital volunteer doing research about genetic diseases, certified EMT, soup kitchens, community based volunteer organization.
Summer Activities: Attended a summer program at Yale Univ for Bio-analytics, pursued EMT training, and played in chess tournaments.
Essays: Pretty good. For my Common App, I talked about my fascination of chess and how it related to my view of life. For the CALS supplement, I talked about my love of Biological Sciences and my involvement in the agriculture program at my school, and how this would have an impact on the Cornell community. Also mentioned that my visit to Cornell enabled me to choose the academic plan I want to pursue (go on a premed track and eventually go on to Weill Cornell Medical School)
Teacher Recommendation: Had 2 of them. Both very good, I believe. Both teachers a have PhD’s, one studied at Cornell for grad school.
Counselor Rec: Good as well. I meet regularly with my counselor and we chatted before she wrote my letter, so hopefully it was specific and addressed who I am in the context of my school.
Additional Rec: One from the Yale summer program.
Interview: Waiting for one!
Other NA

Applying for Financial Aid?: Yes
State (if domestic applicant): CT
Country (if international applicant): USA
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Indian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: about 100,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): NA

2

I know that this is heavy with Cornell stuff…

Please look at without emphasis on just Cornell but as an applicant to all the ivies.

3

You’re a little below the competitive level for the top Ivies (Harvard, Yale, Princeton), but you have as good of a chance as anyone (of course, that’s still just 10% at most) at the others, including Cornell. What works against you is the fact that nothing immediately stands out about your resume, and you risk getting rejected by default, out of blending in too much with the crowd of “good stats, nothing special” applicants.

4

Please don’t tell me you’re applying to all the Ivies. Their only commonality is that they’re all part of the same athletic conference. Applying to all 8 just shows a lack of research and a lack of understanding about what you want to get out of your undergraduate years. Do you want to be in a city? Countryside? In-between? Do you want a big university feel? Or a smaller one? Do you want your school to be competitive? Or collaborative? A school with a focus on undergrads? Or a school that focuses on its graduates?

Really find out what you want in a school instead of applying to all Ivies because of their title. If you’ve already applied, there’s nothing you can do. But if you haven’t yet, I would try to save some money and not apply to all 8 just to increase your chances of getting into one.

All that aside, your GPA is a tad low for those schools but your test scores will get you through the academic threshold at all of them. I do agree with the above poster, though. There’s nothing that really makes you stand out. You may just seem like another high-achieving Asian applicant to Ivies.

Best of luck!