Hey guys!
I was wondering if you guys could chance me on the Ivies as well as other schools, such as Duke, Berkeley, JHU, WashU, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt etc;
I have a 3.7 UW as far as the GPA goes.
I go to a highly-ranked school in CT, and my workload is relatively tough (AP AB Calc, AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Phys, APUSH). I am planning to take ACT II’s for all of these subjects.
My ACT is a 33, and i got a 1900 on the SAT (probably won’t submit that).
I think I can get 4 recommendations easily.
My essays will be strong
My extracurriculars are where I am worried, as they are on the weaker side. I have listed most of the stuff I have done below:
-Mu Alpha Theta chapter founder
-French National Honors Society Member; 3 years member
-Math League Member: represented my town at many math competitions at the state and chapter levels; 4 years member
-Treasurer and VP of the Leo’s Club; member for 6 years
Local Public Library Board of Trustees; I help my public library make decisions about how to run the public library efficiently
-School JV Baseball Player, Tennis Varsity player
-Volunteer at a local well-known hospital in the summers; work with doctors (summer)
-Local Little League Volunteer-- i was assistant coach for a team which went to the states
-Volunteered a total of 300 hours in one 12-month period; Nov 2013-2014
-Highest AMC10 score in my school as a freshman
-Local Kumon employee-- 5 years
-Kumon math program completer; second from district
-HOBY School Selected to represent at state
-HOBY World Leadership Conference ambassador
-DECA Club
-Invited to the National Society of High School Students (i paid the fees for this, and I probably will get into it)
Co-President and Co-Founder of a non-profit organization that takes books and transports them to Africa (we’ve been very successful so far!)
-Founder of a Tutoring Program where all profits go to charity
-Went to a college for college prep courses in the summer regarding Biotechnology. It was a good experience in a lab setting (i was one of 40 selected out of hundreds)
Thanks in advance for helping me out! I will take any and all criticism in a positive manner.
Oh and one thing that I forgot to add: I am planning to go into the medical side (I know my previous posts said Finance but I asked someone and I don’t think Finance is for me)
-Your GPA is good, although most applicants have a 3.9-4.0 UW. Your course load is good and will temper out the GPA.
-Obviously, your ACT score is good. SAT IIs are a must for Ivies; good luck on those!
-Your ECs are fine, especially the library board (how old do you have to be? are you elected), tutoring program and athletics. I wouldn’t worry.
I would say you’re a high match for an Ivy and Duke and a match for Hopkins and Vanderbilt.
Your only major weakness is your GPA, other applicants may have 15-20 AP’s with a 4.0. For your ECs, they are definitely not on the “weaker” side, though they do focus more on finance stuff than medicine. It’s still pretty good, very involved in the community in multiple aspects, pretty impressive!
You just need a bit of luck and will definitely get into a number of those schools.
Ivies - The top ivies are low reaches, the bottom ivies (Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth) are matches.
Duke - high match/maybe low reach
Other schools listed - Match or safety.
I think you will get into one or two of HYPSM, get into two of the three ‘lower’ Ivies (penn, cornell, dartmouth), get into Duke, and get into the rest of the schools you listed.
Your application looks really, really good and you basically have everything those colleges are looking for.
^Wow. SMH. This is why this entire “chance me” forum is useless. @MrWiggles ’ advice to you is completely unsound. To say ANY college with an admit rate ~10% is a “Low reach”, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Duke are a MATCH and you can “expect” to get into one or two HYPSM is 100% disconnected with reality.
OP, go to the individual colleges’ fora and look up the results threads of prior years. You’ll see that everyone has a slim chance. Are you viable? Sure. And that’s about what anyone can say. Just be sure to apply to a variety of truly match schools (academics and financial). That prior poster’s opinions about your “matches” should not be a guide in any way.
@T26E4 I stand by (most) of what I said. Okay, HYPSM are more than low reaches, definitely mid to high reaches. However, if OP was being honest, his ECs are outstanding and I think are good enough to get him into those colleges. Stats aren’t a good as they could be, but they’re enough to get him into many of the top colleges.
Can you link me to a old thread of a person who had a hefty application and didn’t get into any of the schools he was shooting for? Unlike a lot of people, I think that the college application process isn’t as big of a “crapshoot” as many people make it out to be. A lot of people have skewed perceptions of their application. (i.e. great stats, mediocre ECs) They’re missing a big part of the 'package. When they end up going to what they thought was their safety, they’re surprised and disappointed. Sometimes I am truly amazed how some people aren’t admitted (like the Kevin Lee kid who didn’t get into Stanford but got in everywhere else). However, overall I think it’s a very structurally fair and sound process.
@T26E4 Kevin Lee got into every school but Harvard/Stanford. Very odd that Stanford didn’t accept him, so I guess that’s an anomaly. Surprising, but he still got into every other school.
I’m not going to go through every single post in those links. However, I browsed through each post on the first page in the Stanford 2019 RD results. I believe that everyone in the first page who was rejected deserved that rejection, each one of those people had a glaring flaw in their application - whether it was something they could have controlled (ECs, essays), or something out of their control (URM status). They all had some glaring flaw in their application compared to those accepted.
Hmm…NO ONE is a match for Ivy League schools. Reach for EVERYONE.
And, there’s no probably about it, you should NOT submit that 1900 SAT - that score will get you denied to all of those colleges immediately.
I’m afraid that you have been given some way-too-optimistic chancing on this thread.
ALL of those schools are a reach for you. I know a guy who had a better ACT than yours and was a National Merit Finalist who was waitlisted at WashU.
I think you COULD get into some of the non-Ivies on your list (still a small chance), but I do believe you will be denied at ALL of the Ivy League schools, and it would not surprise me if you were denied at all of the schools on your list.
You have to be realistic. My daughter just graduated from a very good public high school. Of 334 in her graduating class, 15 had a 4.0 UW GPA. 3.7 UW would have been about at the 20% line…and that’s just one high school. Are you near the top of your class?
Cornell University - the 25th percentile for them includes an ACT of 32 (you are one point better) and a 3.72 UW GPA (you are slightly below or you could consider that equal). The problem is that at the 25% level, those students are either recruited athletes or have some other amazing EC or quality. Other Ivies are about the same or more difficult.
It is not unreasonable for you to apply to an Ivy or two just as reaches, but you should not expect to get in as your GPA is just not good enough to be thinking that way. Again, I think you will be denied to any Ivy League school. Good luck though.
@stepay Uh… what? Did you even read his post? First off, no offense, but you seem like the stereotypical parent who weighs GPA and standardized test scores way too much in the college application. After a threshold it doesn’t really matter. OP’s test scores (33 ACT, 3.7 UW) are high enough for most of those top schools for them to disregard them and look at his/her extracurriculars.
@stepay knows a ‘guy who had a better ACT than yours and was a National Merit Finalist who was waitlisted at WashU.’ That says next to nothing about the applicant. He’s smart, and he is good at testing. So what? He had better standardized test scores, but what about his extras? I bet his extras were all generic, “I played sports for 3 years in high school and was on the debate team.” Heck, I was a national merit finalist and had a higher GPA than OP, but looking at his post, he is WAY better than me in terms of ECs.
Co-President and Co-Founder of a non-profit organization that takes books and transports them to Africa (we've been very successful so far!) <-- Colleges love this, especially if they are actually successful
-Founder of a Tutoring Program where all profits go to charity <--- Colleges love this as well
-Went to a college for college prep courses in the summer regarding Biotechnology. It was a good experience in a lab setting (i was one of 40 selected out of hundreds) <-- Sounds pretty prestigious to me, and research experience is good
Do you think every Cornell student has ECs as good as this? Absolutely not. My best friend is going to cornell and he didn’t have a SINGLE big achievement. He got in being the president of Rotary club (some local organization), being the cross country team captain, and that’s it. He had a 3.8 UW GPA and a 2200 SAT.
@TheAmazing777 Don’t listen to the above poster. If what you posted accurately reflects your achievements, your chances at the Ivies are very good.
wiggles: I stand by my assertion and concur with @stepay I’ve been recruiting & interviewing for my Ivy for +25 years and while I agree that the OP is viable, to say he/she has a “good” chance is simply mind boggling.
Do you understand the odds? 95% of H and S applicants – 19 out of 20 were rejected. Stepay displayed basic CDS data yet you persist. If OP is TWICE as likely as others to get in, that’s still 10%. How can you even say he/she is so much head and shoulders above the other applicants? Look at stepay’s stats. heck, even look at yourself compared to the OP. Your stats are better than his/hers. You applied to Duke. Was it a MATCH for you? SMH
I fully believe that the CC admins even created this lint-trap forum because the endless “chance me and I’ll chance you” posts clogged up serious discussion and advice on the other fora. I won’t comment on this thread further. I wish the OP the best of luck and again, advise him/her to craft a realistic list of match schools.
@Mrwiggles - You and I will have to disagree. 3.7 UW GPA is actually not high enough for most (or any) or those IVY League schools. I’ve already shown that a 3.7 UW and an ACT of 32 is at or below the 25% line at all of the Ivy League schools, so that’s about where the OP stands. The ECs for the OP are good but not outstanding enough to stand out at those Ivy League schools. If you are at the 25% line at ANY college, you’d better have some compelling reason why that school should take you. Just trying to be helpful to the OP, but I don’t see it. As I did say though, it is not unreasonable for the OP to apply to those Ivy League schools. I didn’t say they were Out Of Reach, only that they were reaches, and in my opinion none will be acceptances. I hope the OP comes back and proves me wrong. Stats say there’s very little chance.