I am currently a senior in a North Carolina high school. Statistically, my best chance at getting into an elite university seems to be Duke ED, as Duke takes a decent amount of people from my school ED, and in addition, I have done research at Duke and am receiving a prestige letter of recommendation for a member of Duke faculty. However, I have lived in North Carolina for a long time, and I’m eager to leave the state and try somewhere new. My dream school is Stanford, however I honestly do not think I stand a chance of being accepted into Stanford, as I have not accomplished anything amazing in my high school years, and I also do have some flaws in my application (see below).
These are the options I would like to be chanced for:
Brown University ED/RD
Columbia University ED/RD
Dartmouth College ED/RD
Duke Pratt ED/RD
Duke Trinity ED/RDPrinceton University REA/RD
Stanford University REA/RD
University of Pennsylvania ED/RD (consider the various schools)
My stats:
Weighted GPA: 5.14 (on a 1-6 scale)
Unweighted GPA: 3.96 (Got a B in Physics I & II)
Class Rank: 26/289 (my school is a good deal more competitive than most)
ACT:
Highest Composite Score is 34
English: 34 Math: 32 Reading: 36 Science: 35
However, I took another ACT before this one, and I received a 35 in English, meaning that my superscore is a 35. Keep in mind that some schools, such as Duke and Stanford, do superscore.
SAT II:
Math II: 770. Retook, but screwed up the second time around. Not expecting a better score unfortunately.
Physics: Got a 710 the first time… but retook and am expecting/hoping for a 750 or greater.
(I was quite ill when I first took the subject tests)
AP:
BC Calculus (5), French (4), Music Theory (2 (obviously not reporting this)), Physics I (4), Physics II (3)
APs taken senior year: Biology, Environmental Science, Literature, Statistics
Extracurriculars: Co-president of a club, self taught some web development piano (one a prize at a recital), Model UN (grades 11-12), lots of marial arts stuff, laboratory research (prestigious lab)
Volunteering: Retirement home, Duke cancer center, lab-- total ~505 hours
Essays: Great
Letters of Recs: Stellar
Counselor Letter of Rec: Very good
Race: White
Income Bracket: Middle class
Overall, I feel like my weaknesses lie a little bit in my standardized testing and in my GPA, and in my in-school extracurricular activities. I got a B in Physics I & II and my SAT Math II score isn’t as great as it could be. My ACT math subscore was a 32 both times.If it matters, I got an A- in AP Calc BC.I actually believe that I am good at mathematics, but as you all can tell I don’t always perform well on mathematics exams. I would like to apply to engineering school, so I’m worried that this will plague me. In addition, my in-school extracurriculars are poor, for reasons that I won’t delve into here. However, I do consider my out of school extracurriculars fairly strong, especially my research.
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. While I have connections at Duke, and the school has a lot of aspects that interest me, I am curious to explore new areas. Any information that you all can provide would be helpful in terms of making my decision.