Chances for MIT, T20s, Ivies, NC State, UNC

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Basic Info:
-Male
-White European
-North Carolina
-Legacy at Duke
-Going for Chemistry

Stats:
-GPA: 3.84UW, 4.22W (First 2 years of HS I lived in a town of 6k without honors/AP so my weighted is bad)
-ACT: 32(34E,35M,28R,32S) superscore to 34 with a 33R
-SAT Subject: Math Level 2 (760) and Physics (740) retaking both in August
-Rank: School doesn’t rank, but I am definitely top 10%.

AP/Honors Classes:
-AP Calc AB: 4
-AP Calc BC: 3
-AP Lang: 3
-AP Stats: 2 (lol not gonna send)
-AP Lit: (taking in senior year)
-AP Chem: (taking senior year)
-I take dual enrollment at a local university that is part of the UNC system. I took/am taking College Physics 1 w/Lab, Calc 3 w/Lab, and College Physics 2 w/Lab.

Honors:
-NHS (11th/12th grade)
-Mu Alpha Theta (12th grade)
-Would’ve had an AP scholar but AB subscore doesn’t count.

ECs:
-Published research on solar cell technology with a professor @ that local university. Included some GATech professors. Should be published around December
-Math Team in 12th grade.
-Volunteered at several organizations that my brother (has CP) went to. Also have like ~100hrs of volunteer work through NHS.
-Club Lacrosse throughout HS
-Scuba Diving, Sailing, and Kayaking throughout HS
-Tutoring in-person through Mu Alpha Theta and online on my youtube channel. I have a full catalog of calc overviews. Probably around 10hrs of content on my youtube channel, and ~50hrs of in-person tutoring with Mu Alpha Theta
-Science Olympiad in 10th/12th grade
-Skeet shooting team in 10th grade before I moved

Summers:
-Volunteered at several organizations my brother went to during my freshman summer
-Took Pre-calculus/Trig over my sophomore summer, so I could take Calculus my junior year.
-Took College Physics 1 w/ Lab during my junior summer
-Worked on the research during my junior summer

Additional Information: Keep in mind that for my first 2 years of HS I lived in an area with practically no resources, and didn’t offer AP/Honors courses. I moved cross country after 10th grade, so I was unable to enroll in NCSSM.

Schools I am applying to
-Reaches: Brown, Caltech, CMU, Columbia, MIT, Cornell, Duke, GATech, Dartmouth, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Princeton, Rice, UChicago, Upenn, Vanderbilt, Yale, Berekely
Safeties: UNC, NCSU

2

Your academics are okay, and your EC’s are okay. Your probably competitive enough to make the crapshoot but not anything higher; that means for Har, UChic, Columbia, MIT, etc. your chances are at or below the average admit rate.

Not sending AP scores with the class on your transcript, with 2 3’s on your AP scores might hurt your chances at top 10 colleges. The logic I follow is that if you don’t send a score, colleges assume it’s a 1 or 2, so not sending AP is still bad.

3

Any chance you’re a competitive racing sailor and could be recruitable for sailing? Of all the things you’ve listed, that has by far the highest chance of getting your foot in the door followed by the Duke legacy.

All the colleges you’re targeting use holistic admissions, so there’s really no way for people to guess what your chances are because the colleges will be reviewing your entire app to see what it shows about you. None of the stats listed are particularly impressive, but your overall app could be appealing for other reasons, just no way to know.

4

Obviously UNC and NCSU are essentially guaranteed, but schools like the Ivies are going to be a little difficult. Your GPA makes you qualified, but when it comes to standardized tests, you don’t seem too great. ECs are pretty good. I agree with @pieguy54321, send in your AP scores even if they are low. I also recommend taking the chemistry subject test over physics, since your major is going to be chemistry. Also for competitive schools, make sure your math 2 score is at least 780 minimum. Good luck!

5

no not really recruitable I kinda just do it for fun every now and then. My main concern was whether or not I can get into at least one of my reaches (preferably MIT) because I don’t really want to go to a safety (I’m kinda indifferent to UNC). I am hoping to write strong essays and get good recs since I’m fairly average at most of my reaches.

6

If you aren’t happy with your safety then that’s where you need to spend more time. Your reaches are all just that, reaches, and there is a good chance you wont get into any of them. Take the time now to find some match and safeties that have you excited.

7

"I am hoping to write strong essays and get good recs since I’m fairly average at most of my reaches. "

It’s completely possible there are some things here I’m misinterpreting or that don’t really show well on this type of checklist, but I think the idea that you’re “average” at these reaches is optimistic. You’re not describing compelling ECs. Some of those test scores are on the low end, course rigor has been light and even with that, the AP scores don’t show strong mastery. Again, admissions are done on a holistic basis, though, so depending on what/how you present yourself on the app, the total package might be stronger than the individual pieces showing here.

A couple things you might want to focus on:

  • What does a strong essay mean? What are you trying to show and how will you do that? How does that match with what those colleges are looking for?
  • Very, very important to find some good matches and safeties. You don't have any listed since you mentioned you wouldn't be happy at UNC. Instead of adding to your list of super-reachy, highly unlikely reaches (because that's what everything you've listed except for UNC and NCSU) is, finding matches and safeties should be your #1 goal right now.
    Seriously.
8

Does your HS have a strong guidance counselor or department that can help you with your self-assessment, picking colleges you’re likely to be admitted and reviewing your app? If not, are either of your parents fairly current on how college admissions works now? I’m asking because I’m worried there’s possibly a disconnect between how strong you think your chances are and what they actually are. What you’re listing in your OP was enough to get your parents into Duke, but is not a very strong app for Duke today. Either it’s just not presented well in the OP or you could be at risk for being one of those kids who has decent raw material but hugely overreaches and gets shut out on all his apps, leaving him to go to a “safety” he doesn’t like. Do you have access to some help IRL?

9

19 reaches (& 21 apps!) is a lot of essays and applications to wrangle. Have you picked any of those colleges for a specific reason, or are they just the usual big names?

MIT is specific that you don’t need to re-take mid-700s subject tests.

Do you know why the Calc BC exam was a problem for you? not beating you up: it is a relevant question

What (besides prestige) do you really want from your university experiences? do you have an idea of where you want to go after college? a particular interest?

10

If you want to make the most of your legacy status at Duke you should apply ED

11

My main reasons for picking a school are as follows:

  1. Student body caring a lot about their education. I really don't want to go to a school where 90% of the kids there don't actually care about their degree and are just there because they want to impress their parents. Basically I want a motivated student body that is commonplace at top schools.
  2. I care about research opportunities. Even my safeties have fantastic research opportunities, but in picking my reaches I wanted to be surrounded by opportunities that I can take advantage of so I can have a strong app for grad school.
  3. Student life has to be decent. I want a little bit of freedom. I am willing to be lenient for amazing schools, but generally I don't want to live in a refrigerator box with nothing to do.
  4. I don't want to pay OOS just to go to a state school, so I am not applying to UT Austin, UMich, or UIUC. Although I did consider UIUC.

I visited MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UCB, UChico, GATech, Caltech, and Vandy and loved all of them specifically the first 3. I’m only applying to Duke because I am legacy there, and have heard their chemistry program is good. My uncle went to GATech, and have worked with several researchers there so I know I would like it if I got in. I was recommended to apply to Northwestern, Princeton, and Rice by a professor. I think I’d like CMU, Cornell, and Yale so I am just sending out my application not really expecting much. Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Dartmouth are honestly placeholders for now, I may not send my app there. I would go to them over my safeties but that is simply because I know they are overall good schools with lots of resources and great grad schools. Honestly the more I read about UNC the more and more I realize it is actually a very very good school for chemistry, so that is probably where I would go out of my safeties. NC State is just a safety.

12

How much higher do you think my chances would be then? My only concern is that if I ED to Duke and get in, but I also somehow get into MIT, or any of my other top choices. I know how rare that would be, but I don’t know if I could go on knowing that I missed a chance to go to my top choice because I wasn’t confident in myself.

13

I really just don’t want to load up an app with schools that I am not realistically going to go to over UNC. I guess I was too harsh when talking about my safeties. It isn’t that I would hate to go to UNC it’s that I would much much prefer to go to a T20. Like I don’t see a point in applying to schools like Fayetteville state or ECU when I will likely get into UNC and just go there and not care at all about whether or not I get rejected from ECU. I don’t want to pay OOS for a state school when UNC is a top chemistry school.

I guess my question was less of “how likely am I to get into MIT or any specific school”, but more of “how likely am I to get into any one of my reaches”. I am ok with going to UNC and then working on my grad school app, but I would go to any school I listed in a heartbeat over UNC.

14

To be honest, your GPA, ACT and AP scores are at the very low end for most of the reaches. So the chances are not very good unless you have hooks/legacy/big awards.

15

I do, and honestly I wouldn’t hate UNC. My main concern is that I go to UNC and a lot of the kids there aren’t motivated. I don’t know if it is just me being dumb, but in HS I felt like I was the only one who actually tried, and it sucked being around kids who didn’t really care. I know that UNC in-state isn’t that selective, and that there will be students there who didn’t try in HS. I really just want to go to a school where the people who got in actually put in the work to get in, and I feel like UNC isn’t that. I won’t hate myself for having to go to UNC, but man do I hope I get into a school I’d be proud to go to.

16

Is my GPA really that low considering I didn’t have AP or honors for 2 years? I was under the impression that a 3.85 was around average for most top schools, and that a 4.2 isn’t that bad considering my situation. I know a 32 is relatively low for a lot of the schools I am applying to, but some of the schools I am applying to will superscore and see a 34 which is good enough. Also I didn’t think that AP scores were important in admissions.

17

“Is my GPA really that low considering I didn’t have AP or honors for 2 years? I was under the impression that a 3.85 was around average for most top schools”

It’s not that it’s low, it’s that the rigor was low too. When you see a 3.85 as an average for top schools, most of those students will have that while taking mostly honors, AP and advanced math track classes.

You’ll see varied answers about whether AP scores are important in admissions - varies by school. But you only had a few APs to begin with and didn’t really hit the test part out of the park. Again, the problem is how you’ll appear in comparison to other applicants. Many of the other applicants will have multiple APs and they’ll be reporting 4 and 5s as scores. You will have only a few and the choice not to report those scores will leave a question mark. And some of that will even serve to put a question mark on your few ECs - like how the heck are you claiming to be a YouTube calc expert and tutor but only get a 3/4 on the AP? Inconsistencies like that won’t help.

Same thing with the 32 ACT. It’s not a bad score at all! The problem is it is low in comparison to the competiion.

You have some solid stats, the problem is that they won’t be competitive for just about any of those reach schools you’re targeting, especially coming from a white male with Duke educated parents (expectations are higher for ORM groups). There are many, many great schools out there where you would match and maybe even get scholarship, but your current list does not show you understand the field you’re up against. I’m saying this not to be harsh, but because you still have time to wake up and do something different: your biggest risk is NOT getting into Duke ED and having to pass on an MIT acceptance, it’s not getting into any of those schools at all.

18

Fwiw, on the QS rankings UNC-CH > Duke, Vanderbilt, CMU, Rice, Chicago, UPenn, Columbia, JHU, Brown, and Dartmouth for chemistry…I know that the ‘local’ school seems less exotic, but that doesn’t make it less good- and grad schools will know it. I get the part of wanting to be with talented, motivated peers - but hand on heart, you will have plenty of them at UNC (in particular, within your major, which will be a core group)

I am confused by this:

I can’t think of any school that would require you to live in a box with nothing to do, or that wouldn’t give you more than a little bit of freedom! Also, there will be plenty of research opportunities at schools well past the top 20.

Other factors to consider, as you narrow your list are things such as:

=structure: strong core curriculum (eg, UChic) v nearly no structure (eg, Brown)?
=coa: can you graduate without debt? your future self will be profoundly grateful
=what is it that makes ‘decent’ student life for you: sports, with games to go to? is it access to an urban area? is it particular activities that you enjoy? is it someplace with good outdoor activities?

Also, what happened with BC?

19

A couple of things, remember that everyone else gets to “superscore” also, while this doesn’t usually help the 35/36 scorers it does help you and a whole lot of other people. Super scoring overall tends to deemphasize standardized tests. GPA is dependent on school, so some of those 3.7/3.8 GPA’s come from rigorous high schools which you may or may not be attending. Finally their are the hooked students, who the university will admit with lower scores/grades for their own reasons. These are some of the reasons why you may be on the lower end of applicants.

20

Your ECs are good enough to get you in the mix at top 20s IF your scores were good enough. Unfortunately they are not great and your AP scores are weak without a single 5. If you were getting As in the classes where you received a 3 or a 4 that could also be a red flag to colleges as a sign of possible grade inflation. And to your point that you want to go to a top 20 because you want the students to be super motivated, many of the students at top 20s cut class and party all the time and fail. UNC is also a great school with great students, and its ranking of 30 is not super far off. Since it seems you are planning to attend grad school, save yourself 160k and attend UNC. It is a school you “can be proud to attend”. It seems you do not know too much about it so I would look into it and see if it is a good fit.