- Don't take the ACT unless you have to. Even getting a 36 will not really help your cause. A 2280 or a 2300 is more than enough for elite schools. Your EC's are very good. I have no idea how much weight the fencing thing you have going on has but I imagine it is a very substantial achievement. Keep in mind the three schools you listed have insanely low admission rates. It will be even lower this year so adcoms will be looking even more at the essays than they have in the previous years. I'd say reach for all 3 not because you're not qualified, you're an amazing student excelling at one of the top high schools in the nation, but that your results will be so heavily based on what you write in your essays and how you write them that we cannot accurately predict your results based solely on stats. Also, what do you plan on majoring? That might have some impact on your chances at these schools. For example, getting into Wharton will be so much harder than the other schools at UPenn.