Buy yourself a copy of the USNWR rankings and look at the rankings for selectivity and standardized test scores. It is pretty easy to identify those schools whose selectivity and test scores seem high as compared to their overall rankings.
Among the top tier schools, Chicago, Columbia, Hopkins, Rice, Vandy, ND seem to dig the stats a bit more.
Hmm… I assumed he really had no ECs. He probably has a decent shot at a school like Johns Hopkins, then. It is really only the top 10-15 colleges that want very high level ECs. He should have a lot of choices.
I second Vanderbilt.
Wash U favors strong stats, but it also likes applicants to express interest in the school and what makes it unique.
It’s not that he has no ECs. He has strong long term ECs but nothing of National and international calibure with impressive awards as most top applicants seems to have. His interests are local,deeply invested in his school and our town. If we were from a big metro or inner city or even a rural area, it could be more interesting on paper, however ours is a generic middle class suburb.
Right. But unless he is set on Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc, he is probably fine. Even there, if there is any uniqueness to his ECs (even if they are local), he could have a shot. We see kids out here with no ECs. That is a challenge.
Among US private schools, relative to USNews rank and overall “prestige” – these schools have higher average SATs than at least a few schools ranked higher overall (or thought of as being higher-ranked, in Chicago’s case – like Stanford & MIT):
Caltech
Vanderbilt
Washington U
Tufts
UChicago
I’d say some of the most holistic schools relative to rank/prestige might include (meaning, several schools ranked below them have higher average SATs):
Stanford
Columbia
Brown
Penn
Cornell
JHU
Georgetown
Vanderbilt gets my vote. My older son is an alum (graduated 2013) and he has strong feelings about this issue - not positive ones 
i probably could have written the same thing about my son - similar stats and longterm ECs but no national or regional awards. We eliminated HPYSM for that reason, but figured the rest are all within reach. I think there were some good suggestions with Vanderbilt, Wash U, Rice, JHU, Tufts - good schools that like to take some really top students when they apply.
Chicago, WUSTL focus on test scores heavily.
Cornell is the Ivy that a strong academic student has the best shot.
Vanderbilt claimed a 34-36 Middle 50% ACT range for the class of 2021. So I’m thinking test scores were pretty important.
WUSTL for sure. Northeastern University, also.
UChicago. There is a reason why they report amazing average test scores, but decline to release their GPA average.
Carnegie Mellons and Vanderbilt seem to be all stats. I also applied to the University of Connecticut, and didn’t have to tell them about my extracurriculars or even write an essay
Schools like Brown, Emory, and Tufts are going to be very holistic, as well as UChicago despite some of these schools having higher stats than their rankings suggest. The medium holistic ones are Rice, non Brown Ivies, such as Cornell and Penn. (Cornell seems to be very holistic to anyone lower than a 1560 SAT or 35 ACT, after you reach 1560 or 35, it becomes pretty stats oriented) Finally, the least holistic ones will have to be schools like Carnegie Mellon, Vandy and WashU and state schools like UCLA.
Sorry, but UChicago isn’t going to be as holistic as Brown. If it doesn’t improve their ranking, they’re not doing it these days. They are tied with Yale in their year’s ranking, and gunning to move up. Of course you need solid ECs for them, but they salivate for higher test scores.
@Hopefuld23 “The medium holistic ones are Rice, non Brown Ivies, such as Cornell and Penn”
Penn is holistic and puts less weight on test scores than the other ivies. However, they put more weight on GPA and being in the top 10% of your class. About 95% of students were in the top 10%. Once you are in that group however, they shift focus to extra curriculars, test scores, recommendations, and essays.