Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Asian Boy from Massachusetts

Looking at majoring in econ, maybe with a political science/ethics concentration

GPA UW: 4.0
GPA W: 4.59
SAT I: 2370 - 800CR, 800M, 770W, 9E
SAT II: US History 800, Math II 770…will take literature in October. Probs won’t submit my 720 Chem
Class rank: 1,2, or 3/350
AP: Stats (5), CompSci (3), CalcBC (4), Calc AB subscore(5), Macroeconomics (5), Microeconomics (4), US History (5)
AP Scholar with distinction award
Yale Book Award

By end of high school, will have taken 10 AP Classes, the rest honors

ECs (years participated):

JV Baseball (9, 10)

State-level Piano Audition Honors 6 Years in a row
Prestigious private Piano Award - 1st place (probably the best single award)
International Piano 1st Honor Award, 2nd place another year (not as great as it sounds but still pretty good)
Performed in Lincoln Center and Carnegie

Volunteering Club (9, 10, 11, 12) - officer
Spanish Club (10 ,11, 12) President
Newspaper Business Staff (10, 11, 12) - Head of Business Staff
Stock Market Club (10, 11, 12)
National Honor Society (11, 12) - officer
Created program that teaches underpriveledged kids about technology, won a community service award for it, about 150 hours so far
DECA Business competitions(11, 12) - States finalist, States Test award, States 1st place overall, Internationals Test Award, Internationals Role-play Award, International Top 10
Finance Research Team (11, 12) - my main EC right now, love it! Spend over 10 hours per week. Won a semi-finalist award at a tri-state competition

SUMMERS:
Counselor in Training at summer camp (9), head counselor (11)
Took PreCalc over summer (10)
Research internship at Boston College Lab (10)
Boys State - was a party elected official on the state-level, was appointed to one of the “big five” positions of the state executive government

I know all these colleges are crapshoots and there’s a huge chance I will be denied by all of them. Please do let me know what my chances are at being accepted to 1 of them. Is it worth using my one and only early application to try and get a boost in admission chances, rather than using my early application on a “lower” Ivy (allowing a higher chance of acceptance, but being bound to the decision if accepted)? Gracias amigos

2

Chance at one of them - crapshoot. Your academics are fine. Your ec’s are okay. But you don’t stand out to me in particular. Early is up to you. Pick a school you want to go to the most and do early there. That is the point of early decision/action.

3

I’m curious as to how you can create an entire program for “underpriveledged kids” and not know how to spell the word.

How did you create that program and how did you fund it?

4

@JustOneDad LOL, how embarrassing. I created the program on my own and ran it through local libraries; I basically approached a few different libraries with a typed proposal and pitched the idea. They said that they wanted to participate, so they advertised it for me and let elementary schools know about it. I went to my National Honor Society adviser, and we teamed up so that Honor Society members who need volunteer hours to get credit for the club can get those by helping me. A few of my good friends also help me out when I need them. Since the program is run through my local libraries, they generously provide me space and materials so that there is no funding needed. I would let you know more details about the program, but I will limit myself to this vague description due to privacy reasons since there are articles written about me through the award I received.

5

I confused as to why you are targeting HYPS. I have no idea from the OP who you are as a person, what you want to do, what kind of environment would fit you best. One of the “lower” Ivies might very well be a better fit for what you want to do. What is it about these schools that appeals to you other than the prestige/name, and what specific resources or programs would you target?

6

@renaissancedad Don’t worry, I have oversimplified my original post and have done extensive research and contemplating about the schools I wish to attend. To be more specific, I am considering early-ing to Yale, Princeton, or the “lower” Ivy of Columbia. I love the independent research aspect of Princeton and their famous econ department. I love Yale’s residential college feel on a traditional campus, and their social sciences programs are arguably the best in the world (which is important to a potential lawyer/economist like me). Both schools stress undergraduate focus, which I find important. On the other hand, I love Columbia’s core curriculum a LOT, and I would love the internship opportunities that are available all throughout the year bc of proximity to Wall Street and the rest of the city, but obviously Columbia university is the odd man out when compared to Yale and Princeton: it is in a very urban area, is known as a world-class graduate-focused university, is without a traditional campus or residential housing, and its econ department is not as strong as the other two’s. That is why I was wondering whether it would be “worth the risk” to early to Yale or Princeton rather than take the (marginally) safer route by choosing binding early decision at Columbia (which I would be super happy with, but if accepted, I might have that occasional “what-if” thought lingering). No offense to Columbia at all, but I do know that ED at Columbia is safer because more and more of the class for that university is being decided by the early round, and thus early applicants have been getting more and more of an advantage, so the decision is now tougher. Again, I would be thrilled to get into any of these 3 schools but I do want guidance on this choice (which might not make any difference in the end to be honest)

As for Harvard and Stanford, their econ departments are also top-notch and the recruiting they get from investment banking and consulting firms is second to none (other than Wharton, but I want to get a liberal arts education and not a business degree). I would be lying to you if I said their names alone are not good enough reasons for me to attend. Plus, Harvard is so close to home for me, and California weather is awesome year-round :). At this point, however, I don’t know enough about either school to make a judgment and might not apply to one or both of them. But since these 2 universities are of roughly the same caliber as Y and P and C and I was considering them, I decided why the heck not to just get others’ opinions of my chances at those 2 as well

7

Everything you just said about the colleges on your list is pretty much the standard lines everyone says about them. Except, where did you hear that Columbia has no residential housing?

8

@falcon1 I meant as in residential college style housing, and I heard that on the campus tour

9

What kind of technology do you teach the kids about and how did you publicize your program?

10

@BostonBrotha, my best guess is that if you apply SCEA to Yale or Princeton you stand a decent chance of getting in, and at worst would be deferred. Princeton took 19.9% of their SCEA applicants, and they defer almost all the rest. A rejection is generally a sign that the applicant has over-shot their aspirations, which isn’t likely to apply to you. They rejected only 1.3% of SCEA applicants last year. Yale accepted 16%, and deferred 57%, and Harvard accepted 16.5% and deferred 75%. Stanford, on the other hand, makes final decisions whenever possible due to the massive volume of applications, and only defers around 10%, with 80% being rejected outright.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/01/24/early-programs-not-created-equal/

Columbia doesn’t release early decision rates. They had about the same number of applicants as Princeton, and my guess is that their acceptance rate wasn’t much higher than Princeton’s 19.9%.

CC super-poster @gibby had the following take in applying SCEA:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1804334-does-applying-scea-give-you-an-advantage.html

Are you a “high end student”? I would think so, based on @gibby’s criteria:

  • Your class rank is in the top 1-3% of your class and you have an UW GPA of 4.0
  • You have a 2200+ SAT with lots of AP classes (4's and 4's)

In addition, you have some “pop” that could make you stand out in terms of your piano performance (Yale music is awesome), community service and Yale book award. Not earth shattering, but fairly strong.

I don’t see enough reason or advantage to apply ED to Columbia. I’d pick whichever of Yale/Princeton you prefer and apply SCEA. Yale sounds like the better fit from what you wrote, but that’s your call. I’d make sure to present yourself as focused in your application with a clear interest in economics and the social sciences, but wanting a liberal arts education. I’d also take a hard look at Duke, which I think is every bit as good as Y-P and which has terrific economics. It’s fine to apply non-binding SCEA, but I would broaden your scope a bit, and look at Duke, UChicago , Dartmouth and some other places that could be just as good or better fits for you.

11

I agree that your stats certainly make you competitive for any school. Imo, it boils down to your piano playing ability and I am certainly no judge of that and how you stack up compared to the other super-talent pianists that are applying.

I am not as excited about the prospects of being deferred at some of these SCEA schools as @renaissancedad, because it is almost always just prolonging the agonizing wait before rejection. It is nice to think you have two bites at the apple, but if you look at the RD rates at these schools, they are brutally low (Harvard was 2.8%) and you are now competing with some of the kids who already were admitted EA or SCEA at other top schools. Plus, it’s human nature for adcoms to feel that if they didn’t accept you the first time around you are not good enough during the second pass (it is almost as if they are admitting they made a mistake), I used to think, that you need to do something on the order of win Intel to get in after being deferred but this past year, I know a kid who was deferred SCEA at Princeton and became an Intel Finalist. They were accepted everywhere RD (Harvard , Columbia, Stanford,etc) but still rejected by Princeton which they had communicated was still their unconditional first choice after the Intel award. I’m on my phone so I can’t link to it but you should follow the posts of ambitious19 in the Princeton SCEA thread last year. By everyone’s reckoning she was a shoe-in for Princeton but she was deferred which really rattled her. Fortunately, she was accepted with a likely at Penn which bolstered her confidence and then later she was a accepted everywhere else she applied (Yale, Stanford etc.). She was, however, still rejected by Princeton. The point is, I don’t think it is wise to place to much weight on deferral rates in making your decision where to apply. Try to focus on where you would be most happiest and that you would be a good fit for and then give it your best shot. If deferral rates were that important, no one woukd or should apply to Stanford, but that clearly is not the case. Good luck to you!

12

FWIW, I think ED to Columbia, is easier than SCEA to HYPS because while the applicant pool is as strong at the very top it’s not as deep. They do get world class piano players applying though who are interested in the joint program with Juilliard (kids like a Tiffany Poon).

13

@Falcon1 makes some good points, and I certainly didn’t mean to imply that deferral necessarily is a sign for optimism. I believe that the RD admissions rate for deferred SCEA applicants is HYP is generally around 10%, though those data are hard to find.

14

^^ I know that is was has been bandied about historically but I question if it still holds true. I do know that a lot goes on behind the scenes once a student is deferred for those who get go on to be accepted. Intense lobbying and/or major developments often come into play. Sometimes, it’s just plain good fortune as in the student was a trombone player and the committee wanted to see who else would come along but no one better did. Idk, my advice is to always move on if you are deferred and fall in love with some other schools. This way, if you end up getting accepted RD after being deferred, you might end up with several great choices.