Chance me? Top Non-Ivy Schools

Rising senior from Connecticut looking at high level schools away from New England
Applying to: Washington and Lee University, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University, Georgetown University, Washington University at St. Louis, and Duke (excluding safety schools)

SAT: 1500 (superscored)
GPA: 3.88 unweighted, 4.85 weighted (5.0 for A in Honors or AP Class)
Rank: #2 in the class at the beginning of sophomore year, will remain in top 5
ACT: 33 (superscored)
Ethnicity: White
Sex: Male

School:
Public School- High rigor for public school, many students have been accepted into Ivies over the past 5

Courses:
8th Grade- Honors High School Algebra
Freshman Year: Geo H, Spanish II H, Latin II H, Global Studies Level 1 (step before Honors), English 9 H, PE/ Health, Gen Science H
Sophomore Year: Algebra II H, AP Euro History, English 10 H, Latin III H, Spanish III H, Bio H, PE/Health
Junior Year: AP Language/Composition, AP Statistics, Spanish IV H, AP US History, Honors Pre-Calc, Honors Chem (only AP class available in schedule I didn’t take)
Upcoming Senior Year: AP Calc BC, AP Physics I, Early College Credit Spanish V, AP Government, World Lit H, 20th Century Fascism and Communism, Personal Finance

Extra-curriculars:

Eagle Scout for Boy Scouts of America
Senior Patrol Leader of my Boy Scout Troop
Varsity Hockey Team Captain- been playing on the team since sophomore year
Volunteer for Hockey Learn to Play program- Using my love for hockey, I help out with clinics teaching young athletes how to skate and play the game of hockey
High School Junior Varsity Baseball- Freshman and Sophomore Year
Member of competitive Travel Baseball team- Junior Year
AHM Youth Director- I serve as the representative of the youth community for local organization that provides extensive programs for drug prevention, mental health, and counseling.
Connecticut Governors’ Scholarship- Semi-finalist (chosen as ‘Top Scholar for my class’)
Chosen for and participated in School Exchange Program to Spain (incredible experience in my junior year that my essay will be based on)
Tutor for English and other humanities
Red Cross Certified Lifeguard (Trained in CPR and work in the summers)
Instructor of the Handicapped Swimming Instructor- Using my certification as a lifeguard, I help mentally and physically disabled individuals learn how to swim and exercise one day a week during the school year.
Member of Future Problem Solvers since Freshman Year
-State Competition Participants for all years of involvement
-(Important)- Using FPS, we created a CmPS (Community Problem Solvers) project, in which I assisted in raising awareness about the issue of domestic violence within our school and community and helped run multiple donation drives to receive clothes and materials for local domestic violence shelters. We won the state competition and our group attended he International Competition in Wisconsin.
Member of Mock Trial in Freshman Year
Member of School’s Investment Club
Member of National Honors Society
Representative of Class of 2018 for School Referendum on New Alternative Grading System

Awards:

Semi-Finalist for Governors’ Scholar Award (Top Scholar for School)
First Place for State FPS Competition for work on Domestic Violence Initiative Project

Recommendation Letters and Essays:

I have lined up two very good recommendation letters from two teachers that will be able to advocate for me and can both write well.
I have also forged a good relationship with my guidance counselor, so I will not have to worry about a generic letter from her that may hurt me.
I am confident in my essay, as I can draw experiences from my exchange trip and show my personality.

Potential Major or Path in College:
I am hoping to major in political science and minor in economics on a path towards graduate law school.

Concerned over my ability to get into these highly-selective schools. It would be great if you could chance me or provide any suggestions on how to improve my application.

It looks like you have great chances! Your stats are well matched to the schools that you’re looking at, and you’re quite involved in ECs. You may want to start prioritizing which ECs are most important to you- There’s not much space on the Common App to list them.

Can you give us the individual scores of your ACT that you have superscored? I ask this because most schools will not superscore the ACT and recalculate a composite as you have.

For my best ACT: I scored a 32. 34 on English, 30 on Math, 33 on Reading, 31 on Science

UNC and UVA are tough for OOS applicants, so they can’t really be considered matches, despite your strong stats.

You should have a very good chance of admission at Wake Forest and W&L.

If you are really keen on Vandy, your odds of admission will be greatly enhanced if you opt for applying ED. Duke, JHU, Georgetown, and WashU are all reaches, but perhaps a bit less ED-centric than Vandy. Your odds at the latter two are probably higher than at the former two.

If you are interested in W&L, you might also want to consider CMC, which is very strong in econ and political science. Rice is another school that you might want to take a look at.

Your stats look pretty good for most of these schools. Your GPA is actually really good (especially weighted) and your test scores are also decent. I would recommend submitting your SAT score instead of your ACT score because a 1500 on the SAT equates to higher than a 33 on the ACT. If you decide to submit your SAT score, make sure you also take a few subject tests along with it in order to show colleges the extent of your knowledge in particular areas. For poli sci, I recommend you take Literature and History (US and World) since they are related to poli sci. Your ECs look pretty good and I can see how many are somewhat related to poli sci, so I think you are pretty set on that. Most of the schools you have listed are low reaches and high matches (I think JHU, Duke, and Georgetown may be solid reaches though since they have such low acceptance rates). Overall, you are a pretty competitive applicant. Good luck! I would appreciate it if you could chance me back here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1995754-chance-me-low-gpa-rank-cornell-rice-wash-u-ucla-etc-p1.html