Chances to get into Ivies, UNC, Pitt despite underwhelming awards?

Chance Me / Match Me!
, ,
1

Asian
US Citizen
Pennsylvania
Public High School
Male
Biology/neuroscience

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Class Rank: 3/320
    *SAT Scores: 1550, taken once

Coursework
Already taken AP Bio, AP Calc AB + BC, APHUG, APUSH, AP Lang, AP Stats, 5s on all.

Taken Honors Trig+Pre-Calc, Honors Physics, Accelerated English, French 1-3

Taking Honors Anatomy, AP Gov, AP Lit, and AP Chem this year

Awards -
AP Scholar w/ Distinction
National Honor Society
French National Honor Society
Honor Roll
Perfect Attendance?

Extracurriculars
1.) Leader of Genocide Relief Awareness Club, raised money and awareness against Myanmar Genocide through Shirts, food, talent shows. (3 years)
2.) Speech and Debate, participated in weekly meetings and occasional tournaments, not nationally ranked and no notable awards. (3 years)
3.) National Honor Society, meetings and volunteer work
4.) French National Honor Society, same as above
5.) Student Council 3 years
6.) Overcome Together club against discrimination, 1 year
7.) Track and Field throughout middle school and picking it back up spring of senior year
8.) work at sheetz for 28 hrs a week for about a year.

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays and LORS are solid

Cost Constraints / Budget
None

Schools
ED to Penn
Safety Penn State

  • Likely Pitt
  • Reach UNC, Duke, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth

Ultimately, will my underwhelming awards hold me back despite good academics and okay ecs?

1 Like
2

I’m assuming you’ve already applied to Pitt? If not, do so ASAP. Be thankful you have a great in-state option like Pitt for neuroscience. My S20’s classmate took the full scholarship and medical GAP at Pitt over attending Penn.

As for your other schools it’s a gamble from the beginning. Maybe add a school like Case or Lehigh. Emory would be nice. Good luck

2 Likes
3

If you are happy with the possibility of attending Penn State-- and if it’s affordable- you should go ahead and not give another thought to your “underwhelming awards”.

Your reaches are reaches- nothing you can do about that. If you want to figure out another match/likely school, that’s probably a better use of your time than worrying about your awards or the lack thereof… since there’s nothing you can do about that at this point, and none of your reaches are going to care about your awards if they find something compelling about your application.

Is Penn State an affordable safety?

2 Likes
4

Based on your interest in neuroscience, consider adding Amherst to your list.

5

Your awards aren’t underwhelming. Most say they have ap scholar with this or that or honor roll.

Awards should mean something. These don’t. My point is most kids don’t …and that’s fine. You don’t do stuff for an award.

You are raising money to combat genocide. Quantify how much you raised etc. there’s no award you can have that’s more meaningful than that!!

So Pitt and PSU are both safeties but get PItt in now for a chance at merit.

Are you interested in med school or med studies ? Your academic largesse will score you cheaper than your in state tuition at Alabama. Google the MCCullough Medical Scholars. Or a more diverse campus such as Arizona. Bama tuition would be like $5k a year and Arizona $9k and both have Honors. Miami of Ohio is one closer to home.

You might look at W&L and their Johnson Scholarship. Or schools like Rochester, Case Western, Vandy. Rice is great as are Middlebury, Bates and Hamilton.

There’s no school in the country that is out of reach for you. But many are reaches based on sheer # of top applicants. Pitt would be a fine choice. With grad school likely, you might help your folks by keeping costs down. You’ve earned it via your profile.

You have a great resume. Well done.

2 Likes
6

Congratulations on your achievements. Your academic achievements and EC credentials make you a competitive candidate at any and all schools. The photo below are comments from Duke’s Dean Of Admissions 5 years ago and are representative of many of the schools you are targeting. Regrettably things have gotten more competitive not less.

image
image736Ă—934 143 KB

The translation being you will have to stand out amongst a crowded and competitive pool. Your ECs are compelling (don’t worry about awards). You will need to show passion, leadership, determination etc in your essays and need your personal narrative to be supported by your LORs. Given your class rank and obvious commitment to help others I am sure you can put together a consistent application package. Consider all aspects of it and focus on the details of what makes you special, what appeals to you about school X and how you can contribute to the schools community and leverage your education to have an impact once graduated.

Great to hear so I am assuming you weren’t looking to pivot the discussion to lower cost alternatives? Please note however that kids looking for Ivies with stats such as yours with no cost constraints will likely have a variety of great options and should focus on fit (academic, geography, social, etc).

As an example you self identify as Asian. While cheap Alabama has less than 600 kids who describe themselves as Asian amongst a community of more than 38,000. Given your EC I considered you may have ties to Myanmar. With 600 students in total representing the entire geography of Asia you could be one of very few from your specific cultural background. For some it doesn’t matter but something to consider.

Otherwise your list seems well considered, somewhat consistent and balanced assuming that you are fine with your safety Penn State. Good luck!

7

I’m assuming you mean your parents can pay the full cost of attendance anywhere you get accepted…which is terrific! So, really, no need to offer less costly options unless you would like some.

I agree with above posters. Get your application in to Pitt NOW. And to Penn State as well. Please let us know how your early application to U Penn turns out.

One piece of free advice…please don’t list “perfect attendance” as an award. The others, fine…but not that…please.

And make sure you really rock all of your essays!

Good luck to you!!

Oh…do you want suggestions for more match schools?

1 Like
8

If perfect attendance means that for one quarter, or even one year, you never missed school, I wouldn’t mention it. If it means that you NEVER missed a single day of school all through high school, I would say that is pretty impressive. It’s fodder for a creatively done essay about perseverance, the importance of just showing up, day after day, to do what you’ve set out to do, and to do it well, day after day. That’s certainly what you’ve done. BTW, if you’re planning on going into medicine, the unspoken rule is that if you’re not sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, you’re well enough to be working at the hospital (in my day, for 100 hrs/wk), and honestly, if I were interviewing you for med school, I’d take that into account, that you show up. The rest of your record really stands for itself - fantastic grades, a string of 5’s on the AP exams, great SATs, your work in Genocide Relief and Awareness. You have all the elements. For you, I think it’s going to come down to your essay, and your recommendations. If you can somehow figure out a way to stand out, to be both memorable and likable, I think you might make it into a high reach or two.

4 Likes
9

I also noticed you work(ed) part-time? If you look at a school’s CDS it will tell you if they consider work experience for admission and how heavily it’s weighted. Might give you a bump somewhere.

2 Likes
10

Congratulations on a great record! Your course rigor plus ALL 5s on APs so far, and the 4.0uw with the high rank are outstanding. You are easily within the top half of the applicant pool with that combination, for the reaches. Knock the essays out of the park, and if your recs speak of you highly I think you have about double the chance of the average applicant at your reaches, more if your essays are well done. Consider adding some matches unless you are 100% sure you are fine at your safety. Thinking Emory, Boston College, Wake? William&Mary?
Make sure your application makes the working 28 hrs a week obvious: don’t put it last. That is a huge time commitment.

3 Likes
11

If your username is a reflection of your real name, I would urge you to change it. For instructions on how to do so, see How Do I Change My Username?.

Does this mean you have no cost constraints (i.e. your family is willing and able to pay $80k/year for 4 years) or does it mean you have no budget (i.e. you need the university to cover your full need)?

As others have mentioned, you definitely don’t want to hide the fact that you’ve been working 28 hours a week while taking all these AP classes (and earning 5s of the exams) and keeping your GPA where it is. For any of your activities, try and be as specific as possible. Raised $x amount of money for genocide relief or coached/mentored y number of students in Speech and Debate, or successfully advocated for z programming through Student Council, etc… The fact that you’ve been doing those activities for three years shows longevity and commitment in your interests as well. I think you will be a strong candidate if you convey what you’ve been doing throughout your years.

Would you be happy to attend Penn State or Pitt if those were your only choices? Are those affordable for you? Except for UNC, all the other schools on your list are much smaller than those, so I want to make sure you’re happy with your likely/extremely likely schools. You will be very competitive for your reach schools, but because there are way more highly qualified candidates than there are spots, there will be top applicants who walk away without an offer of admission. It seems as though your college list has schools that are sub-10% acceptance and then likely acceptances with little in-between. Do you want other schools to help fill in that gap?

2 Likes
12

Perhaps ED to Dartmouth instead of UPenn if your goal is to maximize the chance to an Ivy and if you’d be content at D instead of P.

13

Play up your extracurriculars with as much specificity as possible.

Honestly, your reach schools are all realistic possibilities. They are all still reaches in the sense that virtually nobody has a better than 50% chance of getting in to them. But you’re about as strong as any other unhooked applicant. While not guaranteed, I suspect you’d get into at least 1 of your reaches. Check your school Naviance/Scoir to get a better sense.
That said, you should add a couple more matches and even high matches.

14

Just curious, why do you think Dartmouth is an easier ivy admit than UPenn? IT may be, I am just not aware…is it something specific with this student?

15

ED admit rate is higher at Dartmouth than UPenn; the lower percentage of Asian-Americans (overall, not class specific) at D than at P (mid teens vs. low 20s) might give OP an edge as well.

1 Like
16

I’m not sure I would say Dartmouth is any easier. Yes on the surface their ED admit rate is 26% vs 20% for UPENN but it’s about a third of the size and when you remove all the Athletes/Donors/and other preferred admits it may be closer from a percentage bases and certainly less from an absolute number

17

Just for fun, I did some back the envelope math. Both schools report about 1000 athletes so lets say 250 per class that are being admitted through ED

Year - # of ED Applications - Number Admitted - ED rate - ED rate (without Athletes)
2022 UPENN - 7961 - 1183 - 14.9% - 11.7%
2022 DART - 2664 - 669 - 25.1% - 15.7%

2021 UPENN - 6450 - 1256 - 19.5% - 15.6%
2021 DART - 2070 - 543 - 16.2% - 14.2%

2020 UPENN - 7109 - 1280 - 18% - 14.5%
2021 DART - 2474 - 574 - 23.2% - 13.1%

I know there’s a lot of people that post here whose only goal is to get into any Ivy, but I would recommend choosing a school to ED because its your first choice. I would also assume that by applying to your first choice the “Why XXX College” essay will come across more genuine

2 Likes
18

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.