Chances/How to better them (ONLY A FRESHMAN) NYU Stern, UPenn, U of Mich, WUSTL, Northwestern

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Looking for advice on how to build on/strengthen my future application. I’ve been told a lot I’m only a freshman and should not worry about college, but I’d love to have an idea on where I can do better.
Chance me for: NYU Stern, UPenn, U of Mich, WUSTL, Northwestern, Cornell, Columbia, UC Berkeley
My Stats:

School Type: HIGHLY competitive, rigorous private school
GPA: UW: 3.7 W: n/a
Rank: Top 10-15%

Projected Courses:
Freshman: 1 honors
Sophmore: 2 honors, maybe 1 AP depending on if I choose to or not
Junior: 3 honors, 1-2 AP
Senior: 6 AP

Awards: Investment Club 1st place? (see below) How do people have such great awards on here, what opportunities can I take to try to apply for awards ? Haha appreciate any input on how to get some awards!

SAT/ACT:
Only a freshman so haven’t taken yet but brother got a 32 ACT so I’m expecting at least that.

ECS: please tell me where if these music related ones are pointless for a business school, I love music but I feel like they may not think it’s a “real ec”

1.) Investment club… won 1st place in investing competition out of 100+ people. Planning on being leader senior year.
2.) A Capella… We practice 4-5 hours a week and have awesome gigs. For example we performed live at a charity event featuring really well known broadway/tony winner x2 singer Sutton Foster. May be leader senior year.
3.)Trumpet… Again love music, leader in trumpet section
4.) Chorus… leader in Tenor section and solo a lot. May join chamber choir, is it worth it?
5.) Entrepreneurship Club… We talk to really cool, interesting people who are extremely successful entrepreneurs and we learn how to make ideas reality. Planning on being leader senior year
6.) Creative writing/poems… Really love poetry and writing in general.
7.) School Newspaper… Planning on being editor in chief or at least co-editor in chief senior year. I love writing!
8.) Track and Field + Cross Country… Probably will be team leader senior or junior year for at least one of these.

Essays: Should be great
Race: White
Gender: Male
Language: English
Major: Hoping to major in finance
Income: 600k+
Hooks:
Legacy - Father + grandfather went to UPenn.
Father went to med school at WUSTL (not sure if it counts)
Brother went to NYU Gallatin (again not sure if it counts)

Community Service: Starting to work at a elderly home once a week.

So again I’m not predicting anyone will be able to fully chance me; I haven’t taken acts/sats yet or ap exams. However, I would really appreciate it if I could get some ideas of ways to improve my chances. For example, should I start DECA or FBLA? I keep hearing about it and have no idea of what it is (if someone could enlighten me I’d appreciate it.) Also what should I be doing over the summers, my parents have me signed up to take classes of journalism and editing/publishing at Yale Explo to help me as a part of a school newspaper writer.

In conclusion, thanks for any/all help that may arise, and hope to get some valuable feedback!

2

You should focus on school and try to get the best grades with sufficient course rigor. It is too early and a waste of time to do chancing right now as you don’t even have a test score. However, for schools on your list, you do need to bring up your GPA and class rank. Just work as hard as you can and see you can achieve in the next couple years.

3

You have a good start, I’d say the mainly you should try to improve your GPA (unweighted) to like at least a 3.8 while still taking honors classes (or at the very least don’t let it drop between now and Junior year). For the harder schools on your list like UPenn, Northwestern, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley you’ll need an ACT of at least a 32, preferably 33+ to be competitive. You have really good ECs planned keep at them. Essays are really important too but as a freshman you don’t have to worry about that for a while. Also you may want to consider applying ED once you have an top choice. For example NU (northwestern) has a 33% acceptance rate early decision and lots of ppl with an average GPA of 3.8ish early decision, but regular they have a 5% acceptance rate and you need like mostly straight As in all honors classes by Junior year to be considered. Overall your starting on the right track for all these schools, just try to be conscious on building a max upward trend in grades and you’ll be fine!