Chances? A little nervous

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

My son is just finishing up applications. I think he will be ok, but he has a top heavy list and is trying for a top engineering program (biomedical is his first choice, but he is not sold). Any chances or advice appreciated; see questions below.

-Male, White, Midatlantic, 100k+
-GPA: 4.0 UW/ 4.21 W, highest level of classes offered at large, well regarded public HS
-ACT 35 composite (36 E 34 M 34 R 36 S)
Sat II: 800 Math II 760
HS Class Rank: Unreported, but top 5-10 out of ~500

-AP’s: BC: 5 Physics 1: 5 ELC: 5, USH: 4 WH: 4; 5 APs this year

-EC: will be 4 years varsity lacrosse (class captain as junior); heavy lacrosse accolades/ league and district honors

  • varsity swimming - one year only; letter as freshman
  • Hospital volunteer 50+ hours junior year
  • Community volunteer with lacrosse team 1-2 hours each month
  • Student council, secretary senior year
  • Peer tutor
  • Ski club

-Recs: AP Physics and AP English teachers; both should be very solid

-Essays: Very interesting and unique Common App essay, and supplement dealing with lacrosse related injury and setback

Schools:
Harvard (SCEA), Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Penn, Berkeley, Yale, Duke, Dartmouth, Penn State, Delaware

So, he is a normal, white, suburban WRBK, but no outstanding math/science competitions/accolades.

Questions:

  1. What do people see as his relative chances at each of those schools above, engineering declared when able?

  2. I know the chances at any 1 school are difficult to predict. What do you all think his chances are of getting into at least one of: Harvard, Stanford, or Princeton (his top 3 choices)?

  3. What other schools might be good for him (with his stats and profile) to consider as reach/match/safeties for engineering, and specifically biomedical engineering?

THANKS!

2

Well he’s definitely in at Penn State and Delaware. He certainly has a shot at the others but so hard to predict who those schools accept if you don’t have a hook. He doesn’t seem to have any match schools - he has safeties and then the super selective schools that are a reach for all. Would he be happy at Penn State or Delaware? If so, that;s fine. If not add in some matches. Maybe Bucknell, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Rice?
Without reading the essay, I have to say, that the topic he chose is one that ad coms sometimes warn against writing, so that does raise a little bit of a red flag.
Good luck

3

Great test scores and grades. It doesn’t sound like he is being recruited for lacrosse which is his main EC so I would put his chances right around the admissions rates for the schools he’s applying to. Good luck to him!

4

@wisteria100 I like the idea of some more ‘matches’. I agree. That was part of what was making me nervous. He does like Bucknell, and that would be a decent fit. I’ll look at the others. As far as the essays, his main common app essay is really very good. Definitely not cliche, and very personal. One of the essays he wrote as a supplement essay for some schools could be a ‘little’ on the cliche side, but it ties together his main academic and EC interests very neatly, and is not focused really on his ‘climbing up the mountain’ or things like that. He has some others that he has on the drawing board as well for some short answers.

@Falcon1 I agree, and sports may not be his ticket, just an EC. I’d love to know the individualized stats on someone with his grades/ACT/ECs as far as getting into at least one of Stanford/Harvard/Princeton. I’d guess around 25-30%, and this is only a guess. I am guessing that the typical applicant with a 35 ACT and 4.0 UW GPA has a 10% chance at each school statistically. So, the chances that he does not get in any one school is 90%. 90%x90%x90%=~73% chance of getting denied at all 3 schools.

Anyone else have an opinion on his chances, and any more school recs?