<p>Hey guys! I'll be applying to MIT, Columbia, Princeton, UPenn, Brown, Cornell, Stanford, and Tufts. My school doesn't do GPA's, class rank, or honors either but I'd say I'm in the top 10% with honors every year.
Nationality: Asian
Gender: Male</p>
<p>SAT I: 2250
SAT II:
Math II - 790
Chem - 800</p>
<p>Senior Year:
AP Physics C, AP Calc BC, AP Econ</p>
<p>EC:
11 Years of Tae Kwon Do, 6 years teaching
9 years Violin (stopped in high school focus on sports and schoolwork :/ )
4 years Varsity Swim Team
President of Peer Tutoring
Columbia University Science Honors Program
2 years Columbia Summer Program
Certified Life Guard</p>
<p>Again, my school does NOT do class rank, GPA's, honors, or AP's in English or History so I'm taking the highest possible classes available. Thanks :D</p>
<p>You’re obviously very intelligent, and it’s clear that you’ve definitely worked hard throughout high school. Your course load and SAT scores are pretty much where they need to be, but the one area that might hold you back is your ECs. They don’t really show focus in one specific area, and I think that this might be a potential problem only because a lot of people applying to the top schools have ECs that reflect their potential major etc. It’s really hard to say though, and I’m sure that you’d be a great addition to any of those schools. I think your chances for Cornell and Tufts are pretty good, but I think that the other ones might be a little iffy, mostly because their admissions are crapshoots. Especially Stanford. Best of luck!</p>
<p>There is nothing particularly wrong with your application, but there are not enough hooks to prevent you to be thrown to the pit of “Hey Highly Qualified Applicants with No Hooks, Write the Greatest Essay Ever or BE REJECTED.” </p>
<p>Schools:
MIT/Princeton/Stanford: Crapshoot
UPenn: High Reach
Columbia: Reach (lots of interest in the school? Apply ED?)
Brown/Tufts: Low Reach (Write a sexy essay and you are in)
Cornell: ??? (Uses 1600 SAT score, so please help).</p>
<p>For the level of schools you list, you are missing activities that show you can do for others, outside the hs context. The competition will have this- and likely have more in the hs, too. Are you in hs in Asia? Will you need finaid?</p>
<p>Your SAT scores are acceptable for every school you mentioned.
Your class rank – hard to say, if you’re in the top 5% or top 2% you obviously have a better chance than if you’re barely in the top 10%</p>
<p>Bottom line – All of the schools you are mentioning are a crap shoot to a certain extent. Some of them, such as Princeton have positively miniscule acceptance rates, especially RD (<5%). Others are relatively better (Cornell/Tufts 15-17% RD, higher ED), though are still extremely competitive.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to apply to wherever you might want to go – but none of these schools is a shoe in.</p>
<p>Thank you guys so much! I forgot to mention that I have a legacy at Columbia so that’s why I went to the programs haha also, my class has less than 100 people so it’s hard to get a real determination of my class rank :/</p>
<p>Now – I’m going to nit-pick a bit and offer advice. Your class has FEWER than 100 people, not LESS than 100 people. I know that everyone here (myself included) posts quickly here and doesn’t take the time to catch all grammatical errors. However, these schools are so competitive that if you get a reader who picks up on this kind of thing, it could hurt an otherwise excellent application.</p>
<p>For CC – it doesn’t matter. For your applications, read it through very carefully and get a second (or a third) set of eyes. (I know you would have anyway!!!)</p>