Currently a junior, but just curious as to how my chances are looking so far/what I could do to improve them within the next year
Academics
-quite competitive public high school in suburban Massachusetts (in top 200 of nation)
-GPA: 4.93 W 4.0 UW (A in every class so far)
-APUSH sophomore year (5 on exam)
-AP world history, AP Lang junior year
-AP lit, AP psych, AP gov, AP calc BC, AP Spanish senior year*
-Class rank: not yet released but ~3/380
-ACT: 34 (haven’t gotten writing score yet, studied for about 2 hours the night before but that’s it–probably will take again)
*I was unable to take more APs junior year because I am in a select choir (they would not fit in to my schedule); this is also why I am unable to take an AP science
Awards
-English academic achievement award both freshmen and sophomore year (won by 2 students per grade per year)
-2nd place in poetry out loud freshmen year (out of ~200 competing students), 3rd place sophomore year
-member of Spanish honors society, Tri-M (music honors society), likely NHS, and likely English honors society
Extracurriculars
-theater both in school and with an outside company for all four years (about 4 full scale productions a year); leads in a few productions
-was selected by the English department at my school to enroll in a course called advanced writing seminar and become a writing tutor/founder of my school’s brand new writing center, also on the marketing committee for the writing center
-member of the most selective choir in my school sophomore through senior year (was youngest member sophomore year); in school rehearsals every day, after school rehearsals twice a week, and performances about once a month
-wrote for school newspaper sophomore through senior year
-varsity cross country sophomore year, will also run junior and senior year
-co founder/editor of Key Club junior and senior year
-creative writing (hoping to submit some work to contests/literary magazines this year-- have been commended for my writing by every English teacher I’ve had so far)
-my friend and I have recently emailed some nursing homes/hospitals asking if we could volunteer to read books weekly to their patients, hoping to get this underway soon (we love reading and meeting new people)
Other interests
-reading
-hiking
-listening to podcasts
-debate/discussions
-politics
-yoga
-photography
Intended major
-double major in English (focus in creative writing if offered) and sociology
Also worth noting
-I’m incredibly fortunate in that I can afford to pay full tuition at a school if needed
-My dad went to Harvard Business (not sure if this counts as legacy), but my grandfather and great grandfather went to Harvard undergrad
Thanks for any input! 
Oh, also, how much benefit do you think I would get from applying EA/ED to these schools over regular decision?
Definitely great GPA, Rank, AP Class rigour, and ACT. I feel that since you just started your Junior Year, your current ECs are fine… I would probably wait to see how the literary work ends up turning out to be. It would be better if they were actually published in big literary magazines. I would also wait and see about reading at the nursing homes.
I do, however, will stress the fact that any Ivy you apply to IS a reach. You can be absolutely perfect and published in the biggest magazines in the world and still possibly be declined. It’s really a game, to be honest. Just be yourself and do things because you WANT to not because you HAVE to. In other words, show that you love doing what you’re doing, not just doing it to ‘add another thing’ to your list of ECs.
Personally, ED is a sure way of telling the university “Yes I REALLY want to go here.” However, even though I’m not super experienced with the Chances section of CC, I’m just going to say that if you have any doubt of attending the university if they accept you for ED, then do EA. Only apply for ED if you, in your heart, want to truly go to the university.
Hope I helped even a little bit lol. Btw, can I ask why you wanna double major in English and Sociology? Just for personal curiousness.
That’s all super helpful-- thank you so much!! Yeah, I know that a lot of the schools I’m looking at are kind of a crapshoot no matter what, which is mostly why I posted this so early in the game (see how much more I would need to do to have a decent shot). But I totally agree with you in that the most important thing, regardless of how it looks on a college app, is to do what I love. I’m fortunate in that I found my passions (theatre and writing) pretty early and have been able to pursue them since.
As for the English and sociology major:
I’ve known that I wanted to major in English for quite some time. I remember in third grade my teacher told me I should consider a writing career (talk about starting early, hahaha), and I’ve always loved reading. I write for myself all the time, and my life goal is to be a writer (possibly a professor as well), so this major is the obvious choice.
As for sociology, this is more just because of personal interest. I’m incredibly fascinated by people and how they interact, and, while I was considering psychology for a while, sociology seems as a bit more aligned with my interests. I just love thinking/talking/learning how so much of who we are as people comes from structures in our societies. On top of this, I think that, if I find a particular area of interest within sociology, I could focus in on that, researching and writing about it as part of a career.
Clearly, my career path isn’t super cemented yet. I just know what I love to do and want to continue with these things for the rest of my life.
Sorry that this response is so long. I get too excited about this stuff, hahaha. Thanks again for your response!
Hey, I’m finding this post kind of late but- did you decide if you were going to do EA or ED? And where are you applying? Also, has anything from that list changed since then? Just curious- I’m a sophomore in high school looking for advice haha! I wish you the best of luck in your college endeavors!!!
Dartmouth-Reach
Northwestern-Reach
Yale-High Reach
Harvard-High Reach
Wesleyan-Match/High Match
Hamilton-Match
Amherst-Match/High Match
Brown-Reach/High Reach
Wesleyan and Hamilton profile exactly the same.