Chance me for HYP etc. Schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I know full well that the odds are stacked against me, but what are my chances at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. ?

I am a current high school junior in a competitive private school.
SAT - 1580 (780 Reading/Writing 800 Math)
SAT II - Math 800
*Will probably take chem and physics after this school year

GPA: 3.98 (an A minus or two in freshman year, but straight A’s in sophomore year)

AP’s
Euro - took sophomore year, got a 4
Currently in:
Calc BC
Physics 1
Chemistry
US History
Lang

*I will be taking 5 or 6 more AP’s Senior year, but I am not quite sure which they will be yet.

Extra Cirriculars:
I mainly focus on music and robotics. I am principal cellist in my local youth orchestra as well as my school orchestra, and I have been employed by my school to play with professional musicians at events like fundraisers or musicals. I compete in competitions, and I have won some regional awards and performed solo pieces with professional orchestras.

I just joined my school’s Science Olympiad team as well, but I have not competed yet.

I am part of my school’s Vex Robotics team and First Robotics Competition (FRC) Team. Won state and regional awards, went to world championships for both. Didn’t win anything at worlds.

I’m also passionate about the environment so I founded an organization in my school dedicated to environmental sustainability, and worked with administration to get rid of plastic water bottles, silverware, and straws entirely, as well as added compost bins and some other minor things around campus.

I co founded a STEM club as well, we just do fun experiments and the occasional fund raiser at our events.

Varsity Swim Team Captain

I really like chinese language, so my teacher set me up with a paid job tutoring recently moved Chinese people in English.

Summer Activities:
Sophomore summer: I attended UCSB’s Research Mentorship Program. Had a great time and I have a full research paper written, but I don’t think it is publishable.

Junior summer: TBD (I am deciding between doing a paid internship at an aerospace engineering company or emailing a professor at a local college to conduct some research. RSI and SSP seem a bit out of reach)

Hooks: I am just a regular white guy with no legacy at prestigious schools. Both of my grandfathers were math professors though, so maybe that counts for something? Probably not, but I can dream.

In sum, I suppose a better question than ‘what are my chances’ is probably ‘am I on track to have a decent shot.’

2

With single digit acceptance rates, you’re right. The odds are stacked against you. But they’re zero percent if you don’t apply, right?

3

ECs are very generic. Everything else looks okay.

4

Looking over your EC list, I see MORE of an interest in robotics, music and swimming than I do environmental engineering – and AO’s will see that as well. What research topic were you involved with during your sophomore summer?

5

@gibby

I don’t think I was really considering environmental engineering as seriously as I am now back when I wrote the original post.

I was working in the mechanical engineering dept. and programming mathematical models of neurons to create better treatments for certain brain diseases. The project was extremely math heavy. Speaking of which, I have been working on this paper extensively for the past couple months, and I will actually be presenting it at a reputable engineering conference in December of this year.

And you’re right, the last few months I have spent the majority of my time on my research/robotics and musical activities. I figured the combination of engineering and my environmental sustainability organization would suffice as interest in environmental engineering, especially if I made sure to synthesize them in my essays. However, since I made the original post back in September, I have actually spearheaded a very serious environmental engineering project working with my school’s administration, and I believe this is probably much more substantial proof of my interest than anything in the original post.

And again, I am still not totally sure if that is the route I want to take. I am also passionate about applied math (which is what my research was focused on) and physics. I’ve also applied to SSP astrophysics because it is so math heavy (fingers crossed), but if (when) I get rejected I plan to do environmental research at my local university and take some college math classes over the summer as a back up plan.

Thank you for taking the time to share some of your info with me, I really appreciate it.

6

I don’t think you have anything unique enough in your profile that will get you an SCEA admit to HYP. Look around and see if there is an ED school that you would love to attend because it offers something you really want. If not then go for SCEA route and expect a deferral to RD (chances go down with a deferral). Make sure you have some good schools as a back up plan.

BTW if your at a competitive private school I would think your counselor would have a decent idea of your chances.

7

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2095312-generic-chance-answer-for-super-selective-colleges-p1.html

8

YOu are definitely a competitive applicant. However, HYP is super hard to predict and some of the best students get rejected every year.

9

Maybe you are selling yourself short by limiting yourself to 3 schools. There are hundreds out there and some may offer you more than these three. Learn about what’s out there!

10

@lostaccount

Though I am interested in HYP, I am certainly not ONLY interested in them. I just meant the term HYP to be synonymous with ‘highly selective school.’ I am also not only limiting my self to the top of the heap, as I recognize that in my state we have a great system of public universities and other schools that aren’t impossible to get into, but will still provide excellent education.

However, I do want to know how I stack up so I can strategize and adjust my expectations accordingly.

11

I was going to say you sound like a STEM major so you may want to consider maybe CMU, Case Western, along with the public flagships - Michigan, Purdue, Ga Tech etc. in addition to a couple of safeties. If you’re in CA then most CSUs and less selective UCs would be good safeties. I’d probably replace HYP with MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech as the toughest STEM colleges to get in. Good luck.

12

What other schools are you currently looking at? You seem to be a strong student with a STEM focus, and there’s plenty of other top schools that would be good to look into as well. Have you looked at any of the other schools @theloniusmonk mentioned above?

13

Just a few things.

  1. Try to get 5s on all your APs. Start studying now--it is hard to study for this many APs all on top of each other. This will help a lot.
  2. For you, it will mainly be about your personality, seeing as you are already very strong academically. Make sure to write very strong essays that show off your personality. Show that you are a thoughtful, interesting, and interested person. In the meantime, you should work on becoming a more thoughtful, interesting, and interested person (not saying anything about you in particular--these are always things all of us can work on). Top schools basically like to see that you are one of them and that you would fit in on campus.
14

Thanks everyone for all the replies!

@student0514

Other reaches include Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Caltech, Northwestern, Columbia (for some reason Columbia takes a disproportionately large # of kids from my school each year, not sure why).

Less selective target schools I’m looking at: UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC(Another sibling here), UIUC, U of Michigan

Safeties: UCSB, Univ. Wisconsin Madison

It’s a preliminary list that will likely change a bit as I meet with my in-school college counselor. I also probably should have mentioned I have a sibling who’s a freshman in Cornell engineering, but I don’t think sibling legacy counts for anything.

@TheSATTeacher

Will getting 5’s on all AP’s really make that much of a difference? It obviously can’t hurt, and I will definitely still aim for straight 5’s, but I am just curious why you put a special emphasis on that.

I totally agree with your second point. I’m not entirely sure what the best way to become a more interesting person is, but I suppose that’s for me to figure out.

15

  1. Yeah. I think APs make a big difference. I think getting 5s across the board conveys academic strength and also makes your GPA look better insofar as it suggests that As aren’t just casually given out at your school (consider what it would look like if you had straight-As but only got 3s). I also got the sense attending one of the US News top 5 schools, that people were more impressed by a lot of 5s (e.g. more than 10) than by high SAT scores, which suggests to me that fewer people among the accepted applicant pool have 5s. In other words, a bunch of 5s–unlike high SAT scores–is not just something every admitted applicant has.

  2. Yeah. It’s tough. Just make sure you do things–especially things that are interesting and things people would be interested in hearing about. So while research is great, it’s not the most exciting thing in the world to hear about (also a lot of other applicants do research and admissions officers know that high school research isn’t usually the most meaningful thing in the world). Instead, try something a little more out there. Think: would you like to hear about someone else’s experience doing this if you were at a dinner-party. You mentioned being interested in the environment. I am not sure where you are located, but maybe you could do something with this? Or something research related with this? Outdoors, engaging with nature sounds good. Maybe something like being out in the field protecting and revitalizing some endangered animal’s habitat? I think that sounds interesting and doable. There is something more visceral and sensory about it.

16

How fast a swimmer are you?

17

If you are interested in the Science part of STEM, rather than Engineering, UIUC should be a safety for you.

18

I strongly disagree with the view that strong AP scores will “make a big difference”. None of the adcomms people that I have ever talked to or heard have said this (but many have said that they value the grade in the class over the score on the test). And the various AP ‘awards’ are not given much weight as important evaluative elements.

Spend more time thinking about which of those schools appeal to you most (Cornell & Columbia are not natural pairs, for example). Each of the competitive places that you list has a personality, which is in part shaped by the AdComm. The AcComm, working from a very big pool of eminently qualified applicants, chooses candidates who they think will add to the community: as the MIT Dean of Admissions puts it, they look to build a perfect class, not the perfect class. As veteran CCer @lookingforward keeps saying: the more you understand about what the school is looking for, the more you will know how well you fit- and how to tailor your application.

These vintage MIT posts still hold up:

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula/
https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/