Hi I’m not being a jerk I just want some feedback on my chances at said top schools. If you are gonna be a smart aleck then just head elsewhere.
Junior GPA weighted: 4.70
Cumulative Weighted so far: 4.40
SAT Score : 2300
SAT II : Math 2 - 790 U.S. - 770
Senior Schedule : AP Bio, AP En Sci, AP Calc BC, AP Stats, AP Econ, AP Gov, AP Euro
Total High School AP’s : 13
Ethnicity : White
Rank: Top 10% (no actual rank)
EC;
4 Year Varsity cross country (senior captain, team made states 2 years)
4 Year Varsity Indoor Track & Field
4 Year Varsity Outfoor Track & Field
4 Year State Qualifier FBLA (Largest club school history)
4 Years MUN (head recruiter and organizer, looking to run school event next year)
4 Years Foresnics (won various competitions around the area, national bid junior year, looking to improve next year)
President of Chess Club and Member for 4 years and is largest it has ever been
Religious Educator at Local Church (head instructor, every Sunday, 200+ hours by end of year)
Volunteer at local hospice (administrator)
Caddy for 5 years
Partnered with a family friend to do a contracting job over the summer and ran various jobs.
Awards:
National Merit Scholar
Ap scholar with honors
National honor society
Scholar athlete
Highest Honors
Westinghouse Science Honors Institue
I assume you are not a recruited athlete. You look like lots of other very high achieving kids all over the country. They usually end up getting into selective schools, but chances at Stanford, Harvard and Penn are extremely remote without something that makes you stand out from that crowd. What state are you from? If you are from a part of the country from which they don’t get many applicants, it might help.
Since only stats on those enrolling are required to be reported, we don’t know just what % of the approx. 90% of the rejected students at these schools had stats nowhere near yours. Acceptance at any of the most selective colleges is a “crap shoot”. You will be in the group that meets their criteria, based on “stats”, beyond that it is anyone’s guess.
“Hi I’m not being a jerk I just want some feedback on my chances at said top schools. If you are gonna be a smart aleck then just head elsewhere.”
Nice, that is the type of “Donald Trump” assertiveness that business schools are looking for…LOL, now I guess I have to head elsewhere, because I was a smartaleck.
Because of your legacy status, you’ve got a MUCH BETTER chance at UPenn if you apply ED than anywhere else on your list.
I’m sorry, but I have to agree with @20more . A 2300 SAT and NMS is not uncommon for applicants at Harvard, Stanford, UPenn (though they are very solid stats), and your awards section is slightly lacking. That’s not to say that you won’t get it, you probably have better than average chances, but remember that for Stanford/Harvard, average chances means 5% acceptance rate.
And before NickFlynn calls me another rando on the internet, I personally know many people that were accepted into UPenn, Harvard, Stanford and am familiar with the stats these people typically have.
@NickFlynn , You’d be surprised at how high the median SAT score of incoming classes is at some top tier schools. The 25/75 SAT percentiles for Caltech were roughly 2210/2390. Over 25% of the people that enrolled at Caltech had a SAT score of 2390 or higher and their median SAT score for the incoming class was probably around 2300.
“Not uncommon” does not equal “average,” and yes, the OP faces the same uphill battle as other qualified applicants against difficult odds at the most selective schools.
The last sentence in post #9 WAS ridiculous, as was post #12, and the tone of the followup response doesn’t exactly make me regret calling him out for it.
I haven't chimed in before now because I personally found the OP's opening paragraph obnoxious and insulting. I would suggest people asking for feedback to take a less belligerent approach.
I think that this applicant is a good example of the difference between "competitive" and successful. He is clearly competitive, with a 4.0 GPA, good curricular rigor (13 APs junior and senior year), 2300 SAT, NMS, and reasonable ECs. The problem is that "competitive" doesn't guarantee much, as the vast majority of applicants to HYPSM and similar schools are competitive. I don't know that I'd go so far as @20more to call them "average", but they don't do more than get the OP a seat at the table. In all fairness, no scores are grades are going to be strong enough to do much more than that. They are sufficient, but not more.
Former admissions officer Don Betterton suggests that "unhooked applicants" should target the 75th percentile of the 25-75% range:
The 2011 25-75% range was 2080-2380 for Harvard, 2110-2380 for Yale, 2110-2380 for Princeton, 2040-2330 for Stanford, 1990-2340 for MIT, and 2020-2300 for Penn:
The OP’s score is fairly close to the 75th percentile in most cases. Betterton considers early admissions and legacy to be mild “hooks”, and suggests that applicants with these can target the 40th-60th percentile, which is well within the OP’s range. Based on Betterton’s table of academic and personal characteristics, the OP has a solid shot at the “most selective” (HYPMS) and “highly selective” (Penn) schools. I certainly don’t take what he says as gospel, but as a former admissions officer and current counselor he has some experience.
The problem with all this is that it doesn't get anyone very far. The problem, as @ShaunakK98 notes, is "generic-ness". In spite of his considerable accomplishments, there's nothing about the OP's qualifications that stand out very much from all the other highly qualified applicants, which means that his chances aren't much better than the 5-8% average at HYPSM. He's not average for the general population, but he's fairly close to average *for those schools*. How well he presents himself in his application (especially his essays and recs) will be critical. Obviously, reaching the threshold of being a recruited athlete would change things entirely.
Otherwise, I agree that applying ED to Penn is by far the OP's best bet, as it provides 2 weak "tags" (to use Betterton's term): early decision and legacy. I believe the ED admit rate for Penn legacies is around 45%. Wharton is tough, but the OP is certainly qualified.
@20more, the overwhelming problem that adcoms have is differentiating all of the competitive applicants. Test scores don't do it, especially given repeated tests, superscoring, and test preparation courses. GPA doesn't do it, especially given grade inflation and the proliferation of AP and honors classes. Betterton refers to this problem as "bunching", and Asian many applicants are particularly susceptible to it given a strong tendency towards STEM and similar ECs. "Intelligence and performance" only get you so far. You might want to consider how you would differentiate yourself from all the other qualified applicants with similar stats, ECs and background. What would you tell an adcom to convince them that they should give an admissions spot to you rather than someone else?