Chances For Northwestern

Hey, I’m a senior in high school and am getting ready to decide what schools I definitely want to apply to for regular decision. Northwestern is a top choice for me alongside Vanderbilt and Cornell but I’m not sure how I should expect my application to play out. Also looking at Wash U, UIUC, Case Western Reserve, and Minnesota Twin Cities. I’m from Illinois and have visited NW and I think it’s really worth trying but I want to be realistic (I’ve also visited all of my other schools).

High School Type: Public
Location: Illinois
Race/Gender: White Male
Prospective Major: Biology, or Bioengineering, maybe pre-med

Unweighted GPA: 3.61/4.0 (had a very bad freshman year of 3.25 and then about 3.75-3.8 for the following years)
Weighted GPA: 4.4 (3.7 freshman year and about 4.73 for the following years)
Class Rank: No class rank but my HS does have stats for gpa: median: 3.27uw, 3.47w; while the highest gpa is 4.0 uw and 4.88w.

ACT: 33 Composite (English: 34, math: 33, reading: 30, science: 34); I have another 33 composite from another test which superscores to a 34 (Wash U)
SAT: I got a 1440/1600 the one time I tried it.
Subject Tests: Bio E:770 Bio M:780, will be taking math level 2 shortly

Courses: I’ve taken nearly all honors/AP classes with the exception of pre-calc. It also should be noted that I do have 4 years of credits for French, I went up to french 4 honors and the first year was actually part of middle school french (so a total of 6 years of french).
AP’s I’ve taken or am taking: psych (soph), lang & composition (junior), us history (junior), AB calc (junior), art history (junior), bio, physics C, statistics, literature, and European history.
AP tests: 5 on psych and 4 on AB calc

Extracurricular activities:
*I’ve made a large commitment to volunteering at my local hospital doing various jobs/tasks including front desk/reception, surgery reception, newspaper delivery, worked in outpatient lab, helped out in pathology, as well as delivered flowers/food for patients.
*I’ve also volunteered a lot at my local library which involved both backroom work, helping older people learn technology tips, and helped setting up a few events.
*Helped heavily with my church in setting up and working Rummage sales for several years in a row
*Tennis team Freshman Year
*Played on competitive chess team as various boards (~7-8th board)
*Have Taught/assisted Sunday school at my church for a couple of years for k-5th graders
*Probably have a few more things to add, but this is the general idea

Demonstrated Interest: I’ve visited and attended an information session as well as a visit to my HS from NW rep.

Work Experience:
*I started working at Target the summer before junior year and worked through the school year on sales floor.

Awards: (not much to show for here)
*Won a few chess team tournaments
*Honors Society
*There may be a few other things but nothing I can think of right now.

Recs:
*Will have a very good counselor rec
*2 solid junior year teacher recs (math and apush)
*1 extra rec from my tutor/family friend who is a Berkeley Alum and also worked at Northwestern for research (engineering).

Essays: They’re a work in progress but should be solid as well and not a problem.

Extra: I have a sibling that attends, not sure if that’s relevant or not.
*Also first generation

I realize that I’m far from a perfect candidate but honesty would be appreciated for NW in particular but also any of my other choices. I’m also not applying ED anywhere since senior grades are a pretty big deal as are finalized test scores.

Thanks for any responses and input about anything relevant.

You will improve your chances at Northwestern considerably if u apply ED. Northwestern, probably moreso than Cornell & Vanderbilt, struggles to get students who really really want to be there (too often its students are there because they didn’t get into an Ivy or Stanford). So they seem to really like it when an applicant indicates their #1 choice is Northwestern by applying ED.

While some schools might try to “lowball” ED applicants in their financial aid offers. I haven’t heard this about NU. Its fin aid office is very professional & very generous.

^ can confirm about the generous FA. I applied ED and got way more than I expected to. They’re also very understanding when changes occur in your family’s income between when you got in and when you actually start going to school (which is common because it’s about 9 months between the decision and when you get to campus). I lost a parent’s income and they almost immediately updated my award with a substantial increase in FA.

What’s great about NU is that they’re comparatively small to the size of their endowment, so they can afford to give out generous financial aid offers.