<p>I got deferred from Columbia ED, and though I plan on being an active deferred student, my confidence is pretty shot and I would like to know how my chances are with a few other schools...
SAT: 2400
SAT II: 750 Chem and 760 USH
Rank: 2nd out of 265
Captain of two varsity sports, solid amount of community service, some relatively generic awards
I got a good public high school in CT
I am pretty bummed about my deferral, and am now scrambling to fill some more apps out...</p>
<p>While I would agree that you still stand a good chance at top schools, you need a list that’s not so top-heavy this time around. Make sure you have safeties and safer matches.</p>
<p>Not sure why you have those two LACs on a list with Columbia and JHU, two research-focused colleges. Add another NYU-type safety, if you are full pay.</p>
<p>Chances are very good that you will be accepted to one or more of those you list. However, that is not a certainty and you have no safety listed. A safety is one you are most certainly going to to be admitted to both because you are in the top 25% of those usually admittted AND the college has a high admission rate, greater than 50%. None you list has a high admission rate. Every year on these boards there is someone who applies to a list of colleges like yours, has high stats and then gets rejected or waitlisted by all of them. What happens is that they wrongly assume that a college with a 30% admission rate is a safety. The advice given above that you should not worry and don’t apply to any safeties is something you should ignore. THe risk that all those you list will reject you is quite low but there is still a risk.</p>
<p>My daugther was in the similar boat 4 years ago. She didn’t have as good of SAT as you did, but she did have 4.0 UW GPA from a top private school. She was deferred from Columbia and ultimately rejected in April. She applied to 10 more schools over the holiday break (20 new essays), and only got in 5. She was waitlisted at Cornell and Duke because they didn’t think she would go (other kids from her school with lower stats were admitted, and adcoms told her GC). She ultimately got off both of those WL and ended up at Cornell. She is extremly happy there. She felt someone up there must have been looking out for her for her to be rejected by Columbia. The only reason she applied to Columbia was because of NYC, and now she is going to graduate from Cornell and work in NYC.</p>
<p>Now, that’s my daughter’s story…Your stats look great, what you need to look at is your application as a whole. To be admitted to a lot of those schools on your list, “fit” will come into play. For lower tier schools, you will need to demonstrate your “interest.” Your essays will need to be crafted for different schools. JHU and Dartmouth applications are easy, but Dartmouth needs a peer recommendation. Haverford is a very small school and take very few students. They called my daughter’s friend if she would accept before they made the offer (legacy with very high stats). I heard JHU is looking for more normal kids (lower stats and more rounded students). You may have a good shot at JHU if you are captain of two varsity sports.</p>
<p>You have very shot at most of schools on your list, but I would have some true safeties. My daughter had Colgate (double legacies), Tufts, Trinity College on her list. She did receive a full scholarship to go to Trinity.</p>
<p>Getting deferred/rejected at ED is a tough blow, but you will end up some where good. The only advice I would give you is “you must keep up your grades.” Most of those top tier schools will want to see your mid semester spring grades. I don’t want to whisper the WL event, but to get off the WL your spring grades going to be very important. My daughter fought all the way to the end, and her senior grades helped her.</p>
<p>“Do not apply to safeties” is reckless regardless of financial status. One would think these stats would get the OP into Columbia early, where there is less competition…but they didn’t. It’s foolish to ignore the ED results.</p>
<p>I applied to Northeastern, UCONN, Boston University, and University of Chicago, of which the first three should be safetys for me. I am definitely applying for financial aid, and I think as second in the class I have a good shot at a full scholarship from a couple of the schools I applied to, so that will always be an option. THank you all for your posts, they were really insightful, especially that of oldfort…thanks again, and if you have any more input I would be glad to hear it</p>
<p>sorry to read of your disappointment cocorico.</p>
<p>To answer your question, I think you will get into 4-6 of the 10 as follows:</p>
<p>Princeton/Cornell/Upenn/Dartmouth/Yale – I think you will likely get into 1 or 2
Amherst/Haverford: 1 or 2
Johns Hopkins/Northwestern/NYU – 2 or 3</p>