Chances of Getting Into an Ivy

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I want to attend an ivy and Columbia is my first choice. I’m an incoming senior. Based on my information do I have a good chance of being accepted?

GPA: 4.0 unweighted/4.2 weighted

ACT: 29
Reading:33
Science: 31
Math: 24
English: 28

I’m currently 3rd in my class

APs:
European History: Didn’t take AP test
APUSH: 4
BIO: Didn’t take AP test
Senior year I’m taking: APChem, APCalc, and APEnglish which are ge only others my school offers.

ECs:
Christians In Action: 9th-12th. Meets once a week for a Bible Study and also does things to help the community.

Future Problem Solving: 9th-12th. Practices almost daily from November-March or June depending on how far the team advances. I’ve competed at 3 district, 3 regional, 2 state, and 1 international competitions during HS.

HOSA: 10th-12th(School doesn’t allow you to join as a freshman). Never gotten the opportunity to compete, but still involved in other ways.

FBLA: 9th&12th. Didn’t get to compete in 9th, but I hope to this year.

Gymnastics: 9th&12th. Once a week. I had to quit due to health issues freshman year.

Cheer:12th. Practice 3-4X a week and games.

Volunteering:
Barista at a local coffee shop. Everyone is a volunteer and proceeds go to the local food pantry. 9th-12th

Activity volunteer at nursing home. Painted, talked, served ice cream, etc. to residents. 9th&10th

Babysitting: I babysat for a single mom who was unable to pay a sitter. 9th-12th.

Lead 3 groups of freshman for a tour of the hs. This is only available for Juniors and most only do 1 group.

Served food at senior breakfast. All servers are juniors.

Usher at graduation and all ushers are juniors.

Ran a face painting booth at Relay for Life 11th.

Future Problem Solving coach- 12th

I’m also doing dual credit through a local university. When I graduate high school I will have 24 hours from this university.

2

Your best bet is to find a range of colleges and apply to schools where your grades and test scores place you in the top fiftieth percentile. As it is, your ACT score will be way at the bottom, because the average is 34. Are you hooked? That might help a little, but the odds are extremely slim, as you will know. Retake the ACT if you can. Don’t focus on one school, because that’s a good way to be disappointed.

3

I have about 12 that I intend on applying to. I’m not stuck on Columbia, it’s just my favorite. I am taking the next ACT to try to raise my score. Thank you for your feedback!

4

No one has a “good change” of an Ivy admission. Columbia only accepted 7% of their applicants last year and your ACT is way below their average, making your chances even lower. As the above poster stated, look at schools where your scores fall more in line with their average. Focus your search on match and safety schools.

5

What do you want to study ?

What is your state of residence ?

Will you be seeking financial aid ?

Would you like your college credits from dual enrollment to allow you to start college as a sophomore & graduate in 3 years ?

Do you intend to get a graduate or professional degree ?

6

Do you have Naviance at your school? I found the scattergram charts to be helpful. At our HS an ACT 29 composite would not be anywhere near the stats of previously admitted students. My D applied to schools in the “green zone”–and she was accepted at all 12 schools she applied to. She didn’t apply to any Ivies though!

There are SO many good schools out there! I say, go out there and find some where you will rock–hopefully even get some merit $. Even students with perfect everything are turned down at many of the very most selective schools. Save your energy and heart for some schools where you have a decent chance for admission.

7

No, not very likely because of your ACT, unless you are an URM. That would include the top 20s. You may want to consider taking ACT/SAT again. Your ECs are also average. Try to have a balance list of schools.

8

Yeh, I agree probably not 30 unless URM or other major hook. Showing hardly any AP scores plus the ACTs and ECs.

9

Your ECs are looking good. As someone who has competed in Future Problem Solving, congratulations on competing at the International level. Anyway, your standardized tests don’t seem good enough for an ivy. Bring up the ACT, there’s no way you can get away with that. Also, I recommend taking the AP tests for most of your AP classes. Although you seem strong at academics in school, you seem to struggle when it comes to standardized tests, so definitely work on that. After all Ivies are a reach for practically everyone. Good luck!

10

I plan on dual majoring in biomedical sciences and management.

I live in Kentucky in a very small and poor Appalachian county.

I will receive first aid, as my dad is disabled and my mother was recently laid off.

I do not really care if they allow me to graduate earlier. Im just hoping the make me seem like a stronger candidate, since I have made straight As.

I plan on being a physician or dentist, so I will be pursuing a doctorate.

11

Thank you for your feedback. What is an URM?

12

URM would be black or Hispanic, but being from an underrepresented state will also help. The test scores are probably partly a result of the school, but I would not think you would have a good shot at Ivies.

13

Okay, so you are going to need a college that meets full financial need.
And you also need a college that’s good for premed/pre-dental.

And it needs to be someplace you can get into with an under-30 ACT

Those criteria leave you some good possibilities, but adding a firm requirement of a business/management program is going to cut the list way, way back… because a lot of your best options are smaller schools that don’t have business programs. They will, however, have econ majors/classes. So I’m going to take the liberty of suggesting schools that don’t have formal business programs, because IMHO the best (business) decision you can make is to finish undergrad debt free so that you can actually afford to go to medical/dental school.

I’m going to ask you to take a good look at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester MA. Because:

Holy Cross is the only full-need-met, no-loan, need-blind school that is not a high reach for your stats.
(And fwiw, applying early decision would double the odds of acceptance. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…)

Other possibilities that meet full need and are no-loan for low-income students, but are need-aware
Wesleyan University (test-optional) (22% RD acceptance rate; 39% ED acceptance rate - fills half its class through ED)
Connecticut College (test optional) (38% acceptance rate; 70% ED acceptance rate)

The non test-optional schools in this category are all reaches (depending on the school, you might have a shot ED)
Colby College
Carleton College
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Oberlin College

Colleges that meet full need but will have loans in their financial aid packages - most are need-aware
Claremont McKenna (virtually no chance unless you apply early decision)
UMichigan (reach for Letters & Science, high reach for business school, super-high reach for dual major)
UVA
Bowdoin (test optional and need-blind)
Bates (test optional)
Bryn Mawr (test optional)
Mount Holyoke (test optional) < - match
Smith (test optional)
Skidmore (test optional)
Trinity (CT) < - match
Dickinson <— match
Macalester College
Franklin & Marshall ← high match
St. Olaf <— match (safety if apply early decision)
Occidental <—match
Scripps
Pitzer (test-optional)
Union College (test-optional)
Wake Forest (test-optional)
Whitman (test-optional, meets 93% of need) <—low-match

Look into these schools and run the Net Price Calculators on the ones that interest you, to make sure that the financial aid will be enough. (Example: https://www.holycross.edu/financial-aid/financial-aid-calculator Every college has one.)

In your situation, getting the best financial aid package you can is crucial. If there are one or more schools where the aid looks good, you like the school, and applying early decision would solidify your chances of getting in, then you should seriously consider picking one of those schools for an ED application. Some schools (like Wesleyan) also have a second round of early decision after ED1 decisions come out, so you could potentially apply ED to a second school if the first one doesn’t work out.

Hope that helps. I know that there are only a few schools that have the universal name-recognition that would be really nice… but the result of that name recognition is that admission rates for those schools are ridiculously low, and no matter what they say about “holistic” admissions, it’s extremely rare for students below their 25th percentile in stats to get in unless they’re recruited athletes, legacies, URM’s, or otherwise “hooked” (sometimes more than one hook!). Literally all the schools listed above can be considered elite colleges, and have strong records for getting students into graduate and professional schools. Only top schools like these can afford to offer full-need-met financial aid. You would be in great shape to attend any one of them, but of course a full-need-met, no-loan package is the brass ring!

14

@aquapt
Great information for the OP! It sounds like Holy Cross would be a really good option. It sounds better than Wesleyan with its super lefty, activist vibe or Connecticut College with its large number of east coast boarding school students. Given the OP’s background as an active Christian from a small, poor town in Kentucky, Holy Cross seems the best fit for him/her. It was so kind of you to find and post that information for the OP.

@shaycollett
Did your parents attend a 4-year college and graduate with bachelors degrees? If not, your “hook” would be that of a “first generation”
student which would definitely increase your chances of admission. I recommend you focus on getting into a good college that’s the right fit, and that offers you the right aid package. When it comes time to apply to medical school, your background will give you a really unique story to enhance your application.
If you’re able to get your ACT score up, I recommend you take a look at Princeton. Princeton offers the best financial aid, hands down, of any college I’ve seen, including all of the ivies. In addition, they’ve made major strides in creating a more diverse student body. They’ve done away with grade deflation and they’ve adopted a residential college system which makes for a warm and welcoming environment for new students. Think carefully about Columbia because NYC is extremely expensive, even with aid, and it can also be more difficult to find a sense of community at Columbia—not impossible of course, but not as easy as other schools. Being from Kentucky will give you a bit of boost when applying to east coast schools.
I wish you the best of luck!

15

I agree with @aquapt that Holy Cross is a great idea. Add Bates College to the list too. It is test optional, would like your geographic diversity, meets demonstrated need, is close to Portland, Maine, and just two hours from Boston, is next door to two hospitals in Lewiston, and has an excellent acceptance rate (81%) to med school. It’s a reach, but if you apply ED, you can up your chances. Bates likes interest, so arrange to have an alumni or Skype interview.

16

Christ was an activist.

17

@aquapt thank you so much! Your answer has provided me with a lot of information I did not have. What does “hooked” mean? I am able to get into every college in Kentucky, and there are a few that I am considering, since Kentucky does the KEES program. Through the program I have earned $10,000, but it is only applicable in state.

18

@GoldPenn my mom has went back to get her bachelors and she graduates this May. Would I still be a first generation? Thank you for the information about Princeton, I was unaware of their aid package being so good.

19

Are you considering Berea, @shaycollett ? I would think you’d be a competitive applicant there - just didn’t mention it in my earlier posts because I figured you already had your in-state bases covered and were looking for schools in that zone of competitive schools outside KY that might be worth leaving the state for, but that are also realistic targets.

A “hook” is just something that gives you a particular admissions advantage - they vary in their impact. If you were a national-champion athlete, for example, that would be a huge hook at schools who wanted to recruit you. Being the child of a wealthy donor is a pretty big hook, whereas being a child of an ordinary alum is a smaller hook that’s more helpful at some schools that others. Being an under-represented minority also varies in impact, but definitely helps at most private schools whereas different states have different policies about considering race.

As to your specific hooks - yes, “geographic diversity” is a thing, and 1st-gen may be too. For the most part, these are hooks that reduce the “lottery” aspect for students who are already competitive stats-wise. Say for example that you had a 34 ACT and were applying to Princeton. The vast majority of students with those stats are still denied, because the admit rate is so, so low. But if they’re looking at ten applicants with 34 ACT’s and straight A’s and only have room to take one of them, you might well be the one, because the other nine would likely be from the nearby mid-Atlantic states and California… and they would be like, hey, all things being equal, we need more kids from Kentucky! But for this to happen, you have to be sorted into the same pile with those other nine applicants on the first pass… and with a 29 ACT, that isn’t likely to happen at Princeton or Columbia or any school with a single-digit admit rate. You’d have to have a much bigger hook than this to make the first cut and be seriously considered.

I know it comes off as very negative and pessimistic to be like, “Don’t even apply” re the super-elites. It isn’t that I have any objection per se to the “It doesn’t hurt to try” mindset… except that keeping that lottery-ticket-odds dream alive keeps too many applicants from going all-in with a serious application to an otherwise perfect-fit, excellent match school that would give them great full-ride aid. Some students like you end up thinking, “Wow, I really like [realistic-reach school], but I just can’t bring myself to apply ED there because I want to see what happens if I apply SCEA to Princeton.” And then they end up not getting into either, because they passed up the chance at an ED advantage that would really have moved them from “the bubble” to a solid yes.

It really depends on how you feel about your in-state options. Some students are like, “I am totally happy to stay in-state, and the only thing worth leaving the state for is Columbia - otherwise I’d rather just be close to home.” If that’s the case, then by all means, buy the lottery ticket! But other students are like, “Staying in-state is a last resort. I really, really want a change of scene, a school where I’ll be among students from all over the country and the world, a small-elite-LAC experience, etc” and if that’s the case, then being realistically strategic about where your application will be truly competitive is essential. My sense is that you’re somewhere in between those extremes, so you have to decide how to calibrate your strategy. But the important thing in my view is to get to know the also-excellent schools that you may not have heard as much about, but that are genuinely top-notch and worthy of consideration. To consider only the super-elite name brand schools is, in a way, kind of like deciding that you aren’t willing to date anybody who isn’t a celebrity, rather than being willing to get to know people that you haven’t heard of before meeting them. Maybe it worked for Meghan Markle, lol, but for most people it’s a rather limiting approach. :wink: (Not saying that’s what you are doing - but we see a lot of the Ivy-or-bust attitude here on CC.)

20

Why a bio major and didn’t take the bio AP test? Columbia will wonder why it doesn’t show on the app. Is this because, despite an A, you feel there were learning issues? The ACT math 24 and Englsh 28 are on the low side for a highly competitive. It’s true you can apply to a test optional college, but it needs to be the right one(s.) They focus on the rest of your app to find strengths.

HOSA and vol at a nursing home won’t be the level of ECs for stem that Columbia looks for or the competition brings. A number of top colleges may find the ECs on the light side.

The best advce is to learn all you can about what Columbia (and any other top college) expects, from what they themselves say and show, not blogs, forums or other secondary sources, then carefully assess how you match that. The whole app/supp is key and the more you undersand, the better you can try to present in the app package.

It’s true a lower number of kids from KY apply, but that also includes kids from top city hs and the private preps.

OP, did you get a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges or the Princeton Review guide, to learn some college choices that fit you and your wants?