Chance Me: NYU Stern, Cornell Engineering and AEM, UMich Ross, Amherst, Dartmith, Tufts, Vanderbilt

That could be a hindrance as you do seem a little all over the place. You should pick bus or engr and then tighten your app to reflect more of a focus. If Cornell is you clear first choice apply ED to AEM and EA to Ross and see what happens. You should have a good chance at NYU RD but Tufts RD is a reach, it’s 16% overall and if they have ED, you have to figure that their RD could be closer to 12-13%. Amherst, Vanderbilt and Dartmouth are high reaches and frandkly don’t have as good business program as Cornell, UM, NYU.

In your brutally honest opinion, do you think I have a good shot at Cornell? Or do you think I have a better shot at NYU Stern and should ED there to secure my position in a good business school vs taking a risk with Cornell and potentially not getting into neither Stern or Cornell?

@theloniusmonk Tufts overall is about 14%. RD is closer to 10-11%, and engineering accepts in the single-digits rate.

Thanks for the honesty. What about my realistic shot at AEM? I think it’s really low but what do you think?

You got great quality in each area, the only thing that I think needs work is your “spike,” work with what interests you. The admissions officers want to see particular interest in something then see it being developed through the different academic factors (courses, EC, competition.) Like, say you’re really into IT and you want to emphasize that into your application, something like NHS or medical research won’t do you much good. But, that intern for a software company would help. I would not stress so much about your GPA as long as you can really beef it up before applying. But otherwise, you got a ton of stuff you have already done in extracurriculars that you can shift around to show your career passion.

Awesome job! Good luck

Thanks so much! And that is true, a spike is really important. My spike in my application is helping immigrants as I plan to help immigrants with my state office influence, my organization that I founded helps immigrants financial literacy, and the staffing company I interned at “staffs” immigrants (it helps immigrants get jobs). In my common app essay I discuss how I have found my purpose which is to help immigrants and show how Ive acted on it by incorporating these EC’s. But after reading your response, it seems like the “spike” should be in a career path such as Comp Sci or Finance or something, while “helping immigrants” is not a career path. Do u think the spike of “helping immigrants” is a weak one as it is not career oriented? Again thanks for the response

You have a better shot at NYU ED, their acceptance rate was 38%, but again ED is really if it’s your clear first choice. It looks like Cornell is your first choice, however in these times ED does give a boost, so if feel you might get shut out of both, apply NYU ED to Stern.

Full pay, bright (SAT) but not the hardest working (GPA) Asian kid = Stern ED.

Do you think I will have less of a benefit at NYU Stern for banking/trading vs Cornell? In particular, I want to do both finance and engineering which are both strong at Cornell but engineering is weak at NYU.

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