Chance Me: Georgetown, Notre Dame, et al.

Hi everyone,
Thanks in advance for your thoughtful replies; I appreciate any feedback.

Potential colleges:
Reaches: Dartmouth, Brown, UChicago
Possibles: Georgetown (School of Foreign Service), Notre Dame, Vandy
Likelies: UVA, Boston College

Personal Information:
Race: White
Sex: Male
Ethnicity: Armenian
Religion: Oriental Orthodox Christian
Graduation Year: 2018
Income: upper middle
Intended majors: Political Science and Arabic
No legacy status

Academics:
Unweighted GPA: 3.77/4.00
Five AP classes: 4 Bio, 4 Euro, 4 English Lit, 5 Latin, 5 US (AP Scholar with Distinction)
Top 20% in class of 85 (prep school)
Subject Tests: 730 Bio, 800 Latin, 800 US
ACT Score, April 2017: 36 Composite (36 English, 34 Math, 36 Reading Comp, 36 Science)
Senior courses: AP Calc AB, AP Physics 1, Greek, American Politics (history), Debate (English)
ECs:
Graduate of elementary Arabic school (basic level of understanding)
Assistant to Gary Johnson’s/local campaigns (cold calls, door-knocking)
Member of the following at school: glee (director of communications), admissions, diversity group, political (Young Republicans head)
Varsity member on following sports: cross country, nordic skiing, track
President of altar boys/church youth group
Tech crew for plays in tenth grade, now a cast member

Volunteer/work experience:
Coach in local middle school basketball league (girls)
Little League umpire (home plate umpire in local All-Star game for three years running)
Cashier at two local stores (minimum wage): about ten hours a week during school year, thirty in summer

Honors:
Recipient of school-wide Latin prize
Five-time semifinalist in school-wide public speaking event
Poetry recitation finalist (also school-wide) in ninth grade
Five-time National Latin Exam gold medalist

Let me know if you have any additional questions!

CHANCE ME (so that my thread appears on searches)

I think your reaches are more like hard reaches. Even though your ACT is stellar, your GPA is really low.

Your ACT and EC"s are good, but your GPA is hurting you. Also Brown might favor somebody who helped on the sanders campaigning.

I agree with you completely; my guidance counselor at my school said as much. HYPSM is probably out of reach, unfortunately, but hopefully Dartmouth/Brown works out… thanks so much for the response! @mellamousted

@Firewoksworld Honestly, having visited Brown, I didn’t feel much of a liberal vibe; however, I went in the summer, so perhaps the lack of student representation altered my perception. I’ve been in communication with my state’s governor’s office about an internship, and he’s a well-known moderate, so that may help. Thanks for the response!

@mellamousted what GPA do you think a likely accepted student at Dartmouth would have? my friend (we have pretty much the same standardized testing scores) has a 3.9. To be more precise, my school uses a 12-point system; I have a 10.23, and he has a 10.85 (http://lhs.eacs.k12.in.us/students/guidance/conversion_table_12_pt_-_4_pt). Thanks!

My daughter is at ND. I think the essays can make you or break you. If you’re passionate about politics, speak to that, but you never know who’s reading the essays, so I wouldn’t mention party affiliation one way or the other. If it were my essay, I’d speak to the jobs as a cashier and why you’ve had them and how they might’ve affected your GPA but were necessary for other reasons. I’m not getting the vibe that a lot of kids looking at these schools have worked these kinds of jobs, so that makes you different. That’s the key, really. What makes you stand out and become an interesting part of the campus community?

Do you have any safeties?

My daughter is also at ND and was admitted EA to Georgetown. I agree with the parent above who said the essays could really help you. I think your test scores and ECs are great. But your class rank and GPA are not outstanding. ND has a really high percentage of students who were in the top of their high school class. For 2016-2017, 62% were top 1%; 83% were top 2%; and 93% were top 10%. So if there is a work or family reason that maybe could explain why your grades weren’t a little higher then that would be important to get across to admissions. They do look at the “whole pie”, but I think senior year rigor and GPA are an important part of that pie.