Chance Me! Duke, Cornell, Michigan, Virginia

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a junior at a decent public school in NJ. I just want to see other people’s input of my chances at these schools. I want to major in some business field, so for Cornell for instance, I would apply to Dyson school of business. Duke is my dream school, and I would likely ED to their arts and sciences school.

Ethnicity: Asian(Sri Lankan-American)

Income bracket: top percent

Weighted GPA: 4.64/5

Unweighted GPA: 3.95/4

Class Rank: 8/276

^^Weighted GPA expected to drop to 4.58-4.61/5 after this semester and class rank to 10 to 12/276 because I took regular English this year.

Course Load: Pretty good, I have taken mostly honors courses.

Freshman Year consisted of: personal finance(regular/1 semester), intro to design tech(regular/1 semester), honors English 1, honors geometry, gym/health(required), honors biology, honors world history, honors Spanish 2, lunch
-All A’s, one A- in english

Sophomore Year consisted of: Honor CP Accounting, honors english 2, honors human development, honors algebra 2, gym/drivers’ ed, honors chem, Honors/pre-AP US history 1, honors spanish 3, (Skipped lunch this year)
-A’s except two A-'s in english and Chem, two B+'s in algebra 2 and history(lol i messed up)

Junior Year consists of: gym/health, regular english 3(dropped honors to manage time), honors precalc, AP Stats, Honors physics, APUSH 2(school splits into two years so I took AP 1 as a soph), Honors Spanish 4, lunch
-Expecting As except A- in precalc, stats, physics, apush(maybe B+ in one of those if I mess up like sophomore year)

Senior Year will consist of: AP Calc, AP Spanish, AP Econ(micro and macro), AP Chem or APES(prob AP Chem b/c APES might look bad being easier), regular English, digital photography(required to take one year of art), gym/health, lunch
-Expecting As/A-'s first semester

SAT I: 1480/1600 in June of sophomore year, 750 math, 730 english, taking again this June and hoping for a 1500+
ACT: not sending in
SAT II: will be taking Math II and US history, expecting anywhere from 700-800

EC’s:
-captain/second leading scorer(maybe I will get an honorable mention or third team all conference award) of varsity basketball team as junior(as a senior, that will be 3 years varsity and two year captainship)

-organized Project Backpack fundraiser, giving backpacks and school supplies to underprivileged kids(raised around $9,000 myself by writing to local companies and bigger ones like Macy’s, helped 150 kids)

-attended summer programs Summer Institute for the Gifted at Princeton/Yale freshman and sophomore year, Cornell University Summer College(took Intro to Bus Man and did better than most students to earn a general rec letter from the professor), applied to UPenn LBW this year(hopefully I get in, chance me at this if you want!)

-took Mandarin outside of school for three years, passed HSK Level II standardized test(allow me to work in businesses in China)

-VP of school JSA chapter

-2010 TeleBrands/Liberty Science Center Inventor’s day winner(on news networks)

-have been volunteering at a rehab/homeless center since 7th grade, serving food

-organized a coat drive in my community

-volunteered at orphanage in Sri Lanka(I am Sri Lankan)

-volunteer basketball coach in rec league 2014-2015

-worked as a basketball camp counselor every summer in high school

-National Spanish Exam Honorable Mention award

-member of DECA and FBLA(1st in virtual state marketing for DECA last year, good chance of making FBLA nationals this year), member of Peer leaders, stuco general assembly, Spanish Honor Society, (applied to NHS and national business honor society), students in action, key club(frosh/soph year only)

Any input would be useful. Thank you!

2

Note: I am male. Both my parents attended college. One finished grad school. I am also hoping to be selected to attend boys state this year by my guidance counselor.

3

Your profile is lot more impressive than mine! Lol. Anyways, you should be good for UVA based on what I have seen from kids from my school. Michigan is also likely, and another great option. I think you should be good for Duke, but be careful, because I know someone who got denied with a 2360 :(. But I think with good essays thats a good bet. Cornell and Penn are toss ups but no one is a sure fire acceptance into an Ivy. It will help for sure that you took the time to go visit those schools and did programs. Shows good interest.

4

Thank you so much! No one from my school has gotten into Duke in recent years, but some kids have gotten into Cornell. I will just have to try my best! Good luck with your applications!

5

No one from my S’s school gets in either, but many to Ivies. Who knows.

My advice, and take it as just my opinion, don’t waste the ED on Duke. If your school doesn’t have that connection, it probably won’t happen. I would ED Cornell Dustin bc it is SO much harder to get into RD. This is my son’s one regret…wasting that ED.

6

@HRSMom Thank you for the advice! I have thought about this a good amount, and honestly keep switching back and forth between Duke and Cornell ED. While I like Cornell a lot and know people that have gotten in through ED from my school in recent years, I really love Duke and their ED acceptance rate is only one percent lower than Cornell’s. I still have a lot of time to think about it, so we shall see. Thanks again!

7

It is 1%, but in reality it is way lower for kids from the city suburbs area. And the Dyson acceptance rate is only 7%. So you need the boost in my opinion for such an impacted program.

You have lots of time tho. Good luck!

8

Cornell and Duke are match and any above average kid can get into michigan and virginia so they are your safeties

9

^Oh that is pretty funny.

10

^^^^Duke and Cornell are NOT matches for you, especially as an ORM Male. They are high reaches considering your average test scores and ECs. I would listen to @HRSMom 's advice instead of tawhidkhn63’s.

11

Thank you all for the input. I am definitely aware that Duke and Cornell are reaches for me. Do you think Michigan and Virginia are closer to target or reach?

12

closer to match, maybe low reach

13

If you can get that SAT over 1500 there is a chance for Cornell, but given that is about a ~10 percent acceptance, your chances are as good as anyone else’s.

Cornell ED is weird. This year my son’s school had only 2 ED acceptances to Cornell (both female). There was 1 deferral and his GPA and test scores were higher than the 2 accepted. He happened to be in a bad demographic (South Asian male). According to my son none of the East Asian/South Asian males in his school got in to Cornell ED this year-they were deferred or outright rejected (this is a top 25 high school in California).

14

Michigan and UVA are low reaches-remember that you are OOS and New Jersey kids with good scores/grades are pretty common. Would you consider BU or NYU? Your profile seems like a low match for them, although NYU is pretty darn expensive.

15

I was accepted to Michigan with 33 ACT/1500 SAT. Also accepted to Georgia Tech, IU Bloomington, UColorado Boulder. Deferred at UChicago. I am waiting to hear back on Cornell and 3 other schools. I am from a rural Illinois community and attend a public school. Weighted GPA 4.4, unweighted 4.0. I am 1/230 in my class, STEM interest. No AP classes as my school does not offer them. If you want business have you looked at IU Bloomington - Kelley Scool of Business which ranks in top 20 business school nationally? Always nice to have a solid safety in the mix. @bluedevil8130

16

@crunge17 Ivies don’t consider interest.

17

@Hamurtle Yes, I am actually looking at NYU, Notre Dame, Northeastern, BC, Wake Forest, and Villanova too. I think Rutgers, Villanova, and Wake Forest will be my safeties @STEM2021. Good luck with your Cornell application! In the past few years, a couple kids with similar class ranks and GPAs as me from my school got into Cornell ED, so maybe I will have somewhat of a chance there, as opposed to Duke. I am really hoping to get my SAT up a bit and do well on my subject tests-- will all come with studying. Thank you all for the help.