<p>Hey guys. I think I'm a pretty strong student, but I don't have a lot of ECs and it's making me really nervous. </p>
<p>Schools (applying to the regular college at each): Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Chicago, NYU, William & Mary (out of state), Irrelevant Safeties </p>
<p>GPA: 4.0
Class Rank: Top 10 out of 800
AP Classes: Calc BC, Chem, Physics, Bio, Psych (self-study), U.S. Gov (self-study), U.S. History, Comp Sci, English Lit (only ones at my school I didn't take were Music Theory and Statistics)
SAT: 2310
SAT IIs: 800 Chem, 800 U.S. History, 800 Math II</p>
<p>ECs:
Hospital Volunteer (200+ hours)
Science Tutor
NHS
XC/Track (probably able to make teams but not good enough to be recruited or anything)
Religious Ed Teacher</p>
<p>Essays: Stellar
Recs: Solid</p>
<p>Please rate in terms of high-reach, reach, low-reach, match etc.</p>
<p>I think your definitely in at NYU and William and Mary, so much so that the could be almost safety schools.
Chicago - essays really matter, so good essays will make up for any lack of ecs. Right now its a match.
Dartmouth is a match I think. Maybe a slightly high match.
The others are high matches mainly because your sats are so good(so are the subject tests), and your class rank and gpa are amazing.
Really though, make your essays amazing. </p>
<p>Wow, you have excellent academic credentials. I only hope I can get triple-800s on the SATIIs.</p>
<p>Your ECs aren’t too bad, but there is a lack of leadership which colleges usually like to see.</p>
<p>All in all, you have a good shot everywhere.</p>
<p>Penn — Low Reach
Columbia — Reach
Dartmouth — Low Reach
Chicago — Match (if you have good essays)
NYU — In
William & Mary (out of state) — In
Irrelevant Safeties — In :P</p>
<p>Yea, I pretty much agree with guitarpleyar…W&M, NYU, Chicago you are probably in…but Penn/Columbia/Dartmouth look for really well-rounded people and leaders…besides being a teacher there’s nothing that really makes you stand out in terms of leadership…those SATs are nasty though :)</p>
<p>Your ECs aren’t that bad. They won’t make your app but you shouldn’t freak out over it. With good essays and recommendations you should have solid chances at all of your schools.</p>
<p>Uhhh? I don’t see how any of those schools are a reach. He’s ranked in the top 2 percent at his school and is easily in the top 1 percent of SAT scores, and his ECs seem pretty darn good to me.</p>
They’re lacking leadership and/or contests though. I don’t have any connections for science research competitions, but maybe I could’ve/still could do something with writing.</p>
<p>IMO all the schools are matches except for perhaps, if any, Penn, Columbia, and Chicago for low reaches. Your stats are stellar. I’m assuming the GPA is UW?</p>
<p>I think you have a very good chance at all of them, but Columbia and Dartmouth will be harder. I think Penn is a match - I’ve seen kids with much worse credentials and EC’s get in to Penn. Good job on your great stats!</p>
<p>In:
William & Mary
NYU (oddball choice compared to the other schools on your list. I would personally have Boston College and Tufts on your list, too).</p>
<p>Reaches:
Everything else (Chicago is low reach, the others are reasonable reaches).</p>
<p>Try some better state flagships, like UCLA, UC Berkeley, Uva, UMich, and UNC-Chapel Hill. They tend to look at statistics more than EC. Also try some liberal arts colleges if you are confident in you essay writing skills.</p>
<p>The question begging to be asked: Why are your ECs so weak? You obviously are aiming at top schools-so why did you ignore such an increasingly important part of the college application?</p>
<p>Ya your ECs arent that bad. If that’s what you like to do, then its atleast better than the ECs of people who “fake” doing things in HS to build ECs.</p>
<p>@Batllo
Like I already said, I don’t have any connections so I couldn’t have gotten involved with any of the elite stuff that people on CC have done. Plus I didn’t know about them until it was too late. The only EC I can think of that I “turned down” was student government, we don’t even have anything like Model UN at my school. What was I supposed to do?</p>
<p>Even if he had the opportunities (he didn’t), if he didn’t WANT to do them, why should he? If he DID do them, he wouldn’t really care about it and he might be sacrificing his personal integrity knowing that he was putting himself through something he didn’t want to just for the sake of college admissions. I know that I would surely feel that way.</p>
<p>I’m answering your question, not giving excuses. If I didn’t acknowledge the fact that my ECs were horrible I would have given excuses in my opening post. </p>