<p>Curious about my Daughter's Chances at Notre Dame (legacy) Princeton (Legacy) Northwestern, Rice Vanderbilt Boston College Penn</p>
<p>Senior in a Competitive suburban Catholic HS
ACT 31 (Low math 26, 34 Reading 35 Language)
GPA 4.1 weighted abt 3.6 unweighted --Class Rank 45/400
AP Scholar: Soph AP Classes World History (5)
JR AP English (5) US History (4)
Sr AP Psychology and Euro History (A class she convinced the school to add)
Advanced a grade in primary school, only 16
Extracurriculars are excellent: Student Council President Sr YR. Secretary Jr Year, Clas President as Fr-Soph. Her school gives a ton of responsibility to the president - She reads the announcements every day, presides over honors night and most school assemblies
Swim team captain - 4 varsity Letters
Water Polo Captain - Aide in school recruiting office.
Built houses in Appalachia last summer, deliver coats to homeless, Religious retreat group leader
Church lector and youth group leader</p>
<p>Reaches/high reaches for most. Boston college is more reasonable. Also to be frank, those EC’s are only okay for the schools she is looking at. Excellent EC’s would be something like genetic research at Harvard over the summer, major awards.</p>
<p>Also, the 26 on the math part of the ACT REALLY hurts her. Plus GPA is pretty low for Princeton, ND, NW, Penn and Vanderbilt. I’d consider looking at schools on a little bit of a lower tier. Judging by your name, I’d guess you went to Princeton. Legacies can only help so much</p>
<p>Point taken tyrtle, thanks. We expect her letters of recommendation will be stellar; best leader they have seen, one of the top students in English/social Science .</p>
<p>Just to put it in perspective, I have a 3.8 weighted GPA, 32 ACT, got back surgery, president of 2 clubs, helped raise 8k for the red cross, 300 hours shadowed for a surgeon, run a youtube channel, founded/run my own fitness forum, exchange student, and the track coach is pulling in for me at Emory…and I’m only hoping to get into Emory ED.</p>
<p>I know two people who have gotten into Princeton. The first was Valedictorian of my school, applied ED, and had a ridiculous list of EC’s. The second person had a 2240 SAT, 4.2 weighted GPA, and was the #2 discus thrower in the state. Top schools like that are truly a crapshoot, especially when everybody at the top level who applies is the same.</p>
<p>Whoops didn’t see the edited version of what you said! Anyway, letters of rec should be very helpful if they are great. I’d still try applying to schools around 18-30% acceptance rate, though. You don’t want to risk being rejected from those schools during regular decision because you applied to an out of reach school ED.</p>