@EyeVeee thanks for your comment. Our Val this year wasn’t accepted anywhere special, but she had relatively no ECs that were notable. I know the two Vals before her ironically well. The one last year got into Princeton while the one before her got into Harvard. However, the one two years ago was a URM, and I am not, so I don’t think it’s that good c comparison.
@T26E4 I don’t think it’s just luck in my case, though. I took the hardest IB courses my school offers (Math, Chem, Bio, English) and the hardest overall schedule over the 3 years I’ve been in school, including 5 APs sophomore year. There was no incentive for me to take APs at all rank-wise because all AP/IB/Honors are weighted the exact same. Also, they don’t even take into account random electives because the rank is only based on required, core classes. I just hope this info is in my school’s profile for colleges.
That being said, I am fully aware of the relatively little weight rank carries. I just want to dispel any notion that it was luck that I got here.
Authenticity is mentioned above. I think that is key. Colleges are not necessarily looking for “grinders” (and that is what some vals/sals are, certainly not all). They want to know that there is more to the student than straight As.
I think you are doing great. Never regret putting efforts towards academic achievements. You VAL status could come in handy if you are waitlisted by your 1st choice school. All those IB’s and Ap’s will get you out of taking those classes again. You will be able to focus on something more advanced and interesting to you. Having a ton of ECs without grades is useless as well.
As far as the admissions go, there are several factors that come to play, But general rule of thumb is
- Class rank/ Academic performance.
- Rigor of the class taken.
- Your test scores. If you are considering HYPMS them my advice is to take SAT and make sure you have the best scores. Take ACT as a backup. Remember it is prestigious to be a NMS finalist not to mention scholarship
- You will also have the distinction of being an AP scholar if have good AP scores.
- Show passion in one area of EC. If it is sports, try to be the captain, if it is music make sure you are performing and competing, if it is research make sure you are researching an experiment designed by you, if you are helping someone then make sure you can publish before you can apply and your name is on the publication. you don't need a ton of EC, but you need to be good at one thing.
- Try to give back: Volunteer anywhere, local soup kitchen, salvation army, tutor younger kids in an inner city, help elderly anything but show you care about the community.
8 Leadership: Show leadership, passion and commitment in the activities you do. Be a part of your school community. the better grades combined with good reputation in school will get you better letters of recommendations. If you are busy with academics and not being a part of the school spirit that could hurt you too.
- Win Win Win; The more you compete and win the better... awards mean a lot. Participate in math leagues, science bowls, or humanities competitions like DECA, MUN, Mock Trial, etc depending on what interests you. I can tell you this if you considering MIT you will definitely get bonus points if you are on a math team at school and even better if you won some of these competitions.
Finally don’t change anything you are doing academically, have a very productive summer, write killer essays and make sure you test scores are the best. Good luck
PS: remember not to get too hung up on HYPSM, it’ awesome if you get in, but if dont there are plenty of other equally good schools out there.
Also, remember other factors that can influence this process , such as legacy, URM, First generation college goer, financial affordability. (both extremes have advantages)
OP: when I mean “luck” is involved, I don’t mean to disparage your great credentials. When I mean luck, I mean you’re simply in a circumstance where another student or two weren’t in your year with even better credentials. That doesn’t take anything away from you
My counselor also told me that my GPA was the highest they’ve ever had in 25 years as a HS; do you all think I should include that on my application or have her mention that specifically?
@Wisdom2share Thanks so much for your response! I do have the wide majority of the categories you mentioned, not many awards though but for Science Oly.
@T26E4 Ah, I understand. Thanks so much to you as well.
I’m not a big one on tooting my own horn, but I would think that this non-important point would only come across as self-aggrandizement. If your GC happens to mention it, fine. If not, no big deal.
List all the awards you have, and I am sure your school will have lots awards too… look through the university websites under Merit awards, some schools have it available through high school recommendation in junior year. For eg, RPI Medal, University of Rochester’s Bausch and lomb award etc, even if you dont apply there it is a good bargaining chip for money from other colleges ( both are good safety for you) Since you are interested in research may be you should use your summer to write a paper on a topic that interests you and consider Siemens Math, Science, and Technology Award, Intel science or google science award. Its a feather in your cap if you even qualify as a semi-finalist. JHU now offers a similar competition… if you are good at science then use it to your advantage by going that extra mile.
The top GPA in 25 years thing is absolutely something to avoid mentioning. That comes from your GC or in a faculty LOR. I think it also only matters if they would be willing to rephrase it as you are the best student the school has seen in 25 years. Colleges don’t admit GPAs, they admit students.
I see a couple people mentioning that val doesn’t hurt. I hope that’s not because they are seeing people on other parts of the forum saying being val hurts. Of course it doesn’t hurt, that would be ludicrous if it did. Does it help? Yes, of course it helps. Let’s take a look at Brown since they publish the following breakdowns:
Overall admit rate: 9.5%
Val admit rate: 18.5% (1.95x the general rate p<0.001)
Sal admit rate: 14.3% (1.51x the general rate p<0.001)
Top 10% admit rate: 9.9% (=the general rate p=0.23)
2nd tenth and below admit rate: 2% (0.2x the general rate p<0.001)
No rank admit rate: 10.2% (1.07x the general rate p<0.01)
So yes, being val/sal helps. Vals/sals are twice/1.5x as likely to get into Brown as the general population…but notice that over 80% of vals and over 85% of sals are still being rejected
source: https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts
@johnjohnson12388 Congratulations on your superb record of academic achievement. Assuming your standardized test scores are consistent with your GPA, your application will probably receive some initial consideration by HYPS adcoms and not be tossed immediately on the reject pile. If you’re as smart as your record suggests, however, you know that being admitted is statistically improbable, even for the most well qualified.
My advice to you would be to find some safeties and matches that you genuinely like and can afford and then apply to your reaches and see what happens. I’m sure you’ll have many great options!
I agree with other posters, leave it to your GC/recommenders to put your academic performance into context with respect to the recent history of your school.
@johnjohnson12388 just wondering, what are your safeties? I may have missed the post.