I ended my Junior Year with 9 As and 9 Bs. 4 of those were in my freshman year, when I absolutely bombed, and I had 2 my sophomore year and 3 my Junior year. Two of my Bs were because I had an 89.3 average in the class and my teacher absolutely refused to bump me, which I can understand through their philosophy, but man, does that sting. Most of my As are in AP courses, and there is more than one instance of me getting a B in an Honors course that translated to an A in an AP course. I don’t know if that counts for anything. My weighted is somewhere near 4.5 (grades haven’t come back yet).
I anticipate pretty high test scores (1550 ish on SAT, 35 on ACT), and I think I will get some pretty good recommendations from my teachers, since both of them like me. I’m also getting a recommendation from a mentor who has known me for a decade and from an employer who’s seen me when I work with children. I hope to write decent essays, and I think that my ECs (VP of a nonprofit, executive board of another nonprofit, started multiple clubs outside my school) are also pretty good.
Can you give me my chances of getting into a Top 20 school? This would include Ivies, UChicago, NYU, Rice, MIT, etc.
It is going to be tough. 3.7 tends to be the minimum unless you are really hooked somehow, and I don’t see you having any hooks (athlete, legacy, URM). Pick a couple as reaches, but focus your attention more on some schools farther down the list as matches and safeties. Those schools have tons of kids applying whose other qualifications match yours, AND they have stronger grades. Regarding extra recommendations, only send them if the schools specifically say they are allowed. Great recommendations from teachers go a lot farther than external recommendations. Because college is at the most fundamental level about succeeding in the classroom.
I think that you need to focus primarily on matches and safeties, and throw in a couple of reaches but don’t stress over them much. Regarding @Hamurtle’s recommendation of Washington U (St Louis), I really liked the school when I visited a few years ago.
I would not worry about MIT, top Ivies and the like. You can apply to some to 30 schools as reaches. It depends a lot on your how rigourous your courses are, actual SAT/ACT scores, AP / SAT II scores, and ECs. There needs to be other things strong about your application to get into top 30. You may not get into top 75. You will need to make a realistic evaluation and apply to matches, reaches,and safeties.
Are the schools you list more about name or do they each have some specific draw to you? Many of the schools you list accept well under 10% of applicants, and say that they could accept 2 or 3 more whole classes from the 90% of applicants that they reject without any trouble. And fwiw, high test scores and less impressive GPA puts some AdComm people off: it can be interpreted as not living up to potential.
Also, your teachers may well like you, and write you very good recs, but what the top places are used to seeing is superlatives (‘in 25 years of teaching, this student stands out as…’). Obviously, we don’t have enough info here to know if that could be you- ‘@DynamicAero’s grades in my class do not reflect the intellectual curiousity… / the mastery of the material despite the challenges of doing schoolwork while overcoming X obstacle / etc’ - but if it isn’t, that is what you are up against.
So, basically, the same as what everybody else is saying: do the research and pick a couple of super selectives that you think really fit you- not that you are ‘in love’ with, but the ones that really speak to you. Do you love Chicago’s Core or Brown’s unstructured approach? Do you love the idea of rural NH with a really campus-centric experience at Dartmouth, or the independence and buzz of NYU? MIT is a fancy name, but imo it is really ‘fit’ school- do you know any MIT kids? are you one of them? Once you have shortlisted 1-3 of them, put them into a basket of ‘probably not going to happen’ and spend the rest of the summer finding schools that are safeties and matches that you won’t feel sad or like a failure if that’s where you end up. Look for schools that have the key elements of what you liked in the fancy name schools that you shortlisted, except not the fancy name. There are lots and lots of them. Make sure that there are some safeties- both academically and financially. This past admissions round was pretty brutal, and I know quite a few people who have ended up striking out at really credible matches, never mind reaches.
I appreciate everyone’s responses, no matter how brutal they may be. I have one question. If I get all or nearly all As in my first semester of senior year with a lot of difficult classes, do you think that my poor grades earlier may be offset somewhat?
The classes I will be taking are AP Statistics, AP Literature, AP Spanish, Multivariable Calculus, AT Physics (equivalent to AP Physics C) and AT Computer Science.
Upward trend with a rigorous course load always helps, but your grades- which are not ‘poor’ in absolute terms!- have been a pretty consistent mix of As & Bs across all years- it’s not as though you stumbled when you changed to HS or had a bad year for X external reason.
Does your school use Naviance? have you talked to your GC?
@collegemom3717 I’m quite upset about my grades, since two of those grades were a B solely because of one point on a test (and actually, my most recent B only happened because I got the grade I needed but the point value was dropped, so I got a 45 out of 50 instead of the required 90 out of a 100, and that caused a B average).
My school does use Naviance, but I haven’t talked to my guidance counselor specifically about grades. I think she’s more focused on safeties and matches than talking about reach schools. Would it help at all to include on my application that I lost two As on a marginal difference, and show the fact that I get As in AP courses whose Honors courses I got a B in?
I’m really more sympathetic than my posts might appear, @DynamicAero You are obviously bright and motivated, and will likely shine wherever you land- which might even be one of the schools that you are currently aiming for.
But the hard fact of the matter is the reason your GC is focusing on safeties & matches is that it is harder for students to see the real possibilities for a great college experience at those schools than to dream about having a sweatshirt with the fancy name- and s/he knows that is also where most students (including really bright and motivated ones) end up. The math is straightforward: if a school accepts 5% of its applicants, 95% are going to be denied.
Your applications should show you as an asset to their community, not make the case for why that 89.3 kept you from an A or a point value was dropped.* Tell your story: that is what will lift your application. Both MIT and William & Mary run really good admissions blogs- spend some time reading them. Here’s an old one from MIT:
*Btw, if you are in the top level of your class your GPA will be less of an issue - I know at least one private school where there is simply no such thing as a 4.0, and a 3.6 would put you well inside the top 10% of the class
Most people accepted at top 30 or so schools have almost all As in almost all AP classes with mostly 4s and 5s on AP exams. If you don’t have that or some big hooks and something, then you probably should look at that level of school as reaches.
@collegemom3717 My school doesn’t do ranking, but my school is considered incredibly academically challenging and it had a NY Times article written about how stressful it is and how many students committed suicide at my district because of that.
@sattut I have mostly 4s and 5s on my record (except for one 3 in APUSH - but history is not an interest for me academically) and I think that my ECs might compensate for poor grades.
Given the information on the school and the AP scores, you should have a reasonable application to top 30 or top 50 schools. Would need to see the SAT/ACT/SAT II scores though.Still would not worry about MIT and would apply to matches and safeties.
My daughter got into a school with a 17% acceptance rate with a UW GPA that was around 3.6. She had a 35 ACT, was deeply committed to her ECs and wrote truly excellent essays. It was definitely a reach for her but she appears to have benefitted from a truly holistic admissions review. And she’s absolutely thriving there.
HYPSM and Caltech are all under 9% admission rate, not 17%. I think OP has a shot at top 30 schools based on rigor, difficulty of high school and AP scores. Depends on the other test scores and other things. It sounds like a pretty strong application for a 3.6, so it would be a mistake not to concentrate on top 50 or better schools.
@sattut OP asked about Top 20 schools (at least in his/her original post) and the school I am mentioning is in the USNWR Top 20. If there was specific discussion about HYPSM and Caltech, I guess I missed it…
USNWR rankings are weird and don’t mean much. I wasn’t disagreeing with you @Bubblewrap666 . I just think the OP doesn’t have much chance at very top schools, but should be looking at top 50, maybe better.
If your sights are on MIT, Chi, and Ivies, how does working with children come into play? Or an LoR from a mentor? I think you need to understand what those colleges value- and expect. As said, the competition is fierce.
It matters is what you got the less than A grades in. If they’re in cores/courses related to your possible major, that’s risky. You’re thinking about the competition for an admit, hoping you can slide in. But those tippy top colleges are going to be concerned with whether or not you’re competitive for the four year experience, that very high bar, the level your peers will be at, and that professors teach at. Solid A grades next year won’t change the B’s you did get.
Most kids applying for thse schools will have 4.0. And a combination of depth and breadth, school ECs they’re involved in (related to the possible major, as well as others,) not just a few outside things. They want to see how you integrate with peers, the choices, not just founding something. LoRs, as someone said, are not about “liking” you.
Adcoms don’t generally see a B in an honors course as equivalent to an A in AP. That seems the reverse. They’ll look at your transcript for actual grades, not weighted points. And you do not use your app to explain that you just missed an A, not when thousands of other applicants got the A grades. Plus, you have no scores- not just the SAT or ACT, but for any AP classes.
You have lots of work to do. It’s not just what an applicant wants. The colleges do the choosing and you need to be what they want. Do you have a sense of what that is?
OP indicates it is a difficult public high school and OP has almost all AP classes with mostly 4s and 5s, So it may not be Ivies with that GPA, but probably a match for NYU, which OP mentions.It is way different from a 3.6 UW with like half AP classes.
@sattut OP said 50% of grades are B. A 5 score doesn’t change that. And that’s not just a freshman fluke. 2 are in soph and 3 in junior year, when rigor typically jumps.
Plus, ECs don’t magically “compensate for poor grades.”
You are obviously bright and motivated, and will likely shine wherever you land- which might even be one of the schools that you are currently aiming for.