Chances for the Ivy League and other top schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Asian Male from a Big Competitive State (not CA)

Chances For (sorry for the long list; please classify as reach, match, safety, etc.)
-Princeton
-Columbia, Dartmouth
-Brown
-Cornell
-JHU
-WASH U
-Williams College
-CMU, Tufts
-Vanderbilt
-Swarthmore
-NYU

Have safeties and more matches (state unis, etc, but don’t need chances for those)

SAT I (breakdown): 2260
New SAT: 1550
SAT II: Math 2: 800, Chem: 790
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/~220 (valedictorian; highest weighted GPA of the classes of 2015, 2016, 2017)
AP (place score in parenthesis): World 5, Calc BC 5, Lang 5, Chem 5, US 5, Micro 4
Senior Year Course Load: 5 AP’s
Awards
-Qualified to the State Math Tournament by being a top performer in my region of the state
-All-State Violinist by achieving a perfect score in my state level audition
-Harvard Book Award
-Science Fair 2nd place in Chemistry
-School Departmental Awards in Math, Science, History, Independent Research, Spanish, Arts/Music, Athletic Achievement

[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
-Math Team ( 9-12, Captain): A Team Starter, Advanced to the State Competition, Hold and Organize team practices. Am usually the top scorer for our team

-Local County Math Circle (9-12): Attend a local county math circle for motivated math students. held at a local university. 2 hour meetings each week

-Co-Founder of Science Club (10, 11). Weekly meetings with group or individual scientific challenges. Won some of the challenges

-Student government (9-12). Help organize spirit weeks, fund raisers, etc.

-Varisty Tennis Team Captain (8-12). Play singles for our varsity tennis team, starter since eighth grade, Winner of the scholar athlete award (9, 10, 11), rookie of the year award. All-League, All-Conference, and All-Section Honors

-School Orchestra concertmaster (9-12). Lead orchestra in tuning, bowings, fingerings, etc. We won first place at the Music in the Parks Competition 2015, and second place in the same competition in 2016

-School Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster (9-12)

-Local county youth orchestra (9-12). First violin. Play annual concert at Carnegie Hall

-Piano for many years. Earned top distinction at state music audition/competition

-4 honor societies-2 leadership positions

[ *] Job/Work Experience:
-Student Researcher at Ivy League University (10,11). Collected data and learned laboratory techniques: PCR, Western Blot, cell culturing, etc. Over 300 hours of research time in the lab. Wrote/writing my paper on my own original research

-Unique tennis job; very unique not saying for privacy (9, 10, 11) 180 hours total

[ *] Volunteer/Community service (~200 hours total)
-Tutor (10, 11, 12). Help hispanic students in my school with math. Also lead end of year finals reviews for high school students. Go to the elementary schools weekly to help kids with homework (75 hours)

-Violin community service (10, 11) (80 hours)

-Volunteer tennis camp counselor (11). Helped run a camp designed for autistic children and other children with disabilities (30 hours)

2

Princeton- Match
Columbia- Match
Dartmouth- Reach
Brown- Reach
Cornell- Reach
JHU- Reach
WashU- Match
Williams- Match
CMU- Safety
Tufts- Match
Vanderbilt - Safety
Swarthmore- Safety
NYU- Match

3

-Princeton: reach (for everyone)
-Columbia: reach
-Dartmouth: high match/low reach
-Brown: reach
-Cornell: high match
-JHU: match
-WASH U: high match/ low reach
-Williams College: high match
-CMU, Tufts: match
-Vanderbilt: high match/ low reach
-Swarthmore: high match/ low reach
-NYU: safety

4

Swarthmore, Vanderbilt and CMU are not safeties for anyone. Be careful with chancing opinions from other 17 year olds.

5

I’m not sure wtf writer80 is talking about saying Cornell is a reach while Princeton is a match. That’s why I’m not really a fan of chance posts on here.

6

any other more serious responses? @ap012199 thanks for the chance!

7

All the Ivies are reaches. All the colleges on your list are reaches (maybe except for Tufts). Consider more options. Ivies aren’t everything.

8

bump

9

Agree. Every college on your list is a reach except NYU and Tufts (still high matches). Apply to a few safety/match schools if you don’t want to risk getting completely shut out.

10

Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Williams and Swarthmore are super reaches for everyone. The rest are reaches, except NYU, Tufts Vanderbilt, CMU and JHU which low reach/high matches

11

@SJNccc Do you think that I am least qualified for those schools? @chembiodad thanks for the response

12

You are “qualified” but there are 4 or 5 times the number of qualified applicants than can be accepted.

13

Also could NYU be a safety? According to my school’s naviance I thought it would be

14

Low match perhaps. a safety is a guaranteed acceptance and NYU can be quirky. Also can you afford these schools? NYU give stingy financial aid.

15

Yes, you are qualified in what you showed. But it’s one thing to say you will likely make it past first cut, another to predict how you will come across in the app and supps and whether you will take yourself further. What’s violin comm service? Other than camp, have anything in the community that takes you out of the hs box? Know what your targets look for, after stats and rigor?

16

@tomsrofboston yes as you noted NYU is VERY EXPENSIVE. I can afford these schools though fortunately. Honestly I think it would be a good “fallback” option but I doubt I would attend because of the cost (I do love Stern though). I always hear of the classic NYU ‘scholarship’ of 1,000 a year to cut the cost to like low 70k s

17

@lookingforward no my community service is a bit thin. I just didn’t want to volunteer at the hospital or something and blend in with everyone else even more. Also what do you mean by"know what your targets look for, after stats and rigor"?

18

It’s a misconception that these colleges just want academic excellence and some ECs, some titles. They’re looking for attributes for their communities. The more you can learn about what the schools value, the better you can, in theory, position yourself. Your math, music and sports are good, as is the internship. But you will add meat to the bones via the app and supps, themselves. Those adcoms (possibly ex NYU) will be looking for the level of your thinking that comes through. Broad example: what Swat wants to see will be different than Columbia. Could you answer a Why Us for each school on your list? That’s more than the level of academics they offer or how they prep you for your future. It’s different than the sort of structure you learn via hs writing. You’re smart, now try to be savvy about this.

And have safeties. Most on your list will be balancing majors, geo diversity and more. Depending on where you live, the competition can be tough.

19

-Princeton (Reach)
-Columbia (Reach)
-Dartmouth (Match/Reach)
-Brown (Reach)
-Cornell (Reach)
-JHU (Match/Reach)
-WASH U (Match)
-Williams College (Don’t know too much about this)
-CMU, Tufts (Don’t know too much about Tufts, would say Match)
-Vanderbilt (Match)
-Swarthmore (Match???)
-NYU (Safety/Match)