<p>So I'm planning on basically applying to HYS and safeties (BYU, University of Oregon). Please tell me what you think?
I'm a white male from Oregon, and I have legacy at Stanford (both parents, if that makes a difference).</p>
<p>Statistics:
SAT I: 2400 single sitting first try (11 essay)
SAT II: Math II 780 Chem 780 Lit 790
ACT: 36 (36 36 36 36 Combined E/W 35)
GPA: 4.0 UW/ ~4.4 W (no differentiation between A- and A)
Class rank: something like 13 out of ~600
APs: F- APUSH S- Bio, Lang, US Gov J- Lit, Chem, Calc AB, Micro/Macro. All 5s except a 4 in Chem.
Senior Year: Top band and Choir, 4 APs (Spanish, Calc BC, Physics, Music Theory), Dual enrollment English.</p>
<p>ECs:
Secretary of school MUN (So-Sr)
Music Director of school men's a capella group (So-Sr)
School Choir, extracurricular choir, both auditioned (So-Sr/Jr-Sr)
School Band, auditioned (Fr-Sr) and Marching Band (Fr-Sr)
Yearly School Musical Theater production (Fr-Sr)
Boy Scouts (Fr-Sr)
Chairperson of local church youth council. (Jr)
NHS (Jr-Sr)
Debate (So-Sr, went to state Jr)
Piano for ~10 years
Alternate to state for solo bass voice
~125 volunteer hours at a local library (Fr-So, maybe Sr)
Achievements or whatever:
Eagle Scout
AP Awards
3rd place in state in an economics competition only teams from my school participated in.</p>
<p>Summer stuff:
Internship at a government corporation, working in IT, 2 months 9-to-5.
Choir Academy at the Oregon Bach Festival, 12 days, auditioned, directed by choir director at St. Olaf College, arguably the best university choir in the US.</p>
<p>So yeah, that's about it. I know a lot will depend on essays and recommendations, but your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>This is my first time responding to a “chance me” post. Honestly, it’s a crapshoot, especially with Ivies. Just going off my nephew who is now a part of Harvard Class of 2016, I would say this: you have geography going for you; your scores will get you past rejection round 1; if you really want a specific school, apply early decision (or whatever variation they have now), and line up your impressive backups. This disturbs me:
That’s your plan – reaches and safeties? There is a whole fat wide stripe of “matches” that you should explore (Northwestern; Emory; UVa; plus many others). </p>
<p>What are you passionate about? What makes you get up in the morning? What wrong exists in the world that you want to make right? What can you give to a school, because remember – it isn’t just a one way street.</p>
<p>This is such a fraught time. I understand why people post on the “chance me” forum, but I really think you need to build a solid list of places where they like you and where you can get in. Just Ivies and safeties means you might end up at a place you don’t want to be.</p>
<p>I agree that you should have some matches. Obviously, perfect scores and grades will get you very far. I don’t know if Stanford takes legacy into account (the CDS says it’s “considered”), but you also have plentiful ECs, so I think you will be very pleased come March/April of next year.</p>
<p>What draws you to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford? What is your intended major? You could probably get some merit aid at a lot of highly-ranked colleges (WashU, Emory, etc.).</p>
<p>fyi, the reason I’m only applying to those colleges is because of BYU. It’s consistently ranked very on best-value rankings (even #1 by Princeton Review in 2007), and it is extremely cheap. For LDS students, total cost is usually 5K, and I’m nearly certain that, with my grades and scores, I could get a nearly full-ride scholarship. To me, really only an extremely outstanding university like Stanford etc. would be worth paying lots of money, as opposed to none at BYU.</p>
<p>I think you’re right. Most private schools aren’t worth the really high tuition.</p>
<p>so sorry guys… bump.</p>
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<p>That depends on what you want out of your college experience. BYU has several characteristics that make it quite different not only from HYS but also from quite a few other selective, private universities. It’s huge (> 30K students), with relatively large average class sizes (45.5% < 20 students, compared to > 70% for some of the Ivies/etc.) At BYU, the most popular major by far is business/management/marketing (17%), compared to the Ivies and peer private schools, which often don’t even offer a business major. Education majors account for 9% at BYU; engineering another 6%. This is a very different academic profile from what you’d see at most selective private schools, and is likely to affect the classroom and campus atmosphere significantly. Then, too, there is the question of geographic, ethnic and religious diversity. Do you care about the broadening experience you’d get at a school with greater national drawing power? Maybe not (since you might feel you’re already getting that out of your LDS mission experience).</p>
<p>Other than selectivity, there really isn’t any bright line separating Harvard, Stanford and Yale as “extremely outstanding” compared to quite a few other schools. For quality of the undergraduate classroom experience (small classes, lots of discussion & writing assignments, minimal use of TAs) you probably could do at least as well at a couple dozen others. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it’s hard to beat “free”.</p>