here are 5 reaches.. can you order them

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Don't worry i'm applying to other safeties and matches but here are 5 reaches that I want you guys to put in order so I know which I should and shouldn't apply to. I'll appy to two of them.</p>

<p>Cornell University
Brown University
University of Pennsylvania
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University</p>

<p>Basic:
Male, Born in India, From VA
Go to average public high school for 3 classes and a Governor's School for 3 classes (math, science, technology ones). I've taken a couple of CVCC credit classes and some of my classes next year are also CVCC credit. </p>

<p>Academics: (after senior year will be around)
GPA - Unweighted: 3.95 ;GPA - Weighted: 4.3 to 4.4
Class Rank: 10th - 12th of 360,</p>

<p>Scores:
SAT: Took 3 times, best in June (770 M, 730 CR, 720 W) so 2220 and 1500 M+CR</p>

<p>AP Euro: 5. AP Eng Lang: 4. AP USH: 4. (self-study) AP PSY: 5 (self-study)
senior year AP's: AP Stat, AP Calc BC, AP Environ, possibly AP Bio</p>

<p>Taking SATII's in october: Math II, History, maybe Spanish to get out of some requirements</p>

<p>Extra Curricular:
-NHS -will probably be officer at our school (find out next year)
-Varsity Club - those with Athletic and academic varsity letter
-Key Club, Spanish Club, Latin Club</p>

<p>Leaderships Positions:
-Governor’s School Student Activites Board
-Train people at Hospital (will have around 200hrs)</p>

<p>Sports: (20 hrs/week - all year round, including summer)
-Indoor Track - Varsity Letter - senior co-captain
-Outdoor Track - Varsity Letter - senior co-captain
-Cross Country - Varsity Letter - senior-co captain</p>

<p>Volunteer/Service Work:
-Volunteering at the Lynchburg General Hospital (200 hours)
-Relay for Life - Made my own team that has over 40 people.. organized entire event and all fundraisers.. raised over $1000
-Various races for charity: 9th Annual Central Virginia Kidney Association Race, Turkey trot (cancer), other running related volunteering activites.</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:
-Accepted to Central Virginia's Governor's School - a school for Science and Technology.
-Participated at annual school trig-star tournament (trigonometry) - placed 3rd sophomore year
-Chosen to be one of four ambassadors to represent CVGS at NCSSMST conference - an association of Specialized Secondary School
-Participated in Research Symposium (top 10) and Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
-Accepted to VJAS (state science fair), Placed 2nd in the Psychology Category.
-AP Scholar with Distinction and aiming for National AP Scholar</p>

<p>College/ Summer Programs:
-Taking classes at local community college (CVCC)
-Boys State - elected as senator and clerk</p>

<p>Extra (academic):
-Research project about memory and perception because I'm interested incognitive science and neuroscience.. reserached neuroscience program at UVA
-My only two B's were in 9th grade year in easy classes and have improved and gotten straight A's since</p>

<p>My essays will be about my world (india-NJ-VA) and (try to) humor ones, and my passion of cognitive science
Guidance Counselor Recommendation will be very good because I'm first one at school to self-study AP's and the teachers will be also</p>

2

<p>From VA you say? Apply to the two that are farthest from home if you are only going to apply to two, and have a good safety lined up.</p>

3

<p>can you rank them in terms of how hard it is to get accepted for me? thats what i meant</p>

4

<p>This is not coming from an expert, but from my tiny experience here goes:
(From hardest to easiest):</p>

<ol>
<li>Brown </li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>JHU</li>
</ol>

5

<p>Which of these is not like the others??? Brown, which may arguably be the hardest to get into. But there are a lot of excellent students with great EC's from northern/central VA. I agree with the previous poster you need to work on safeties.</p>

<p>When I see Brown mixed into these other choices, I'm thinking the calculus = prestigious schools that are less selective than HYPS.</p>

<p>If you really like Brown, I would reconsider (but not necessarily discard) the other choices. If you really like JHU, Penn, etc., by all means apply to them all.</p>

6

<p>I would order them this way, in terms of selectivity and compared with your stats (the acceptance rate is next to the school)</p>

<p>Brown University (14%)
University of Pennsylvania (16%)
Cornell University (21%)
Duke (23%)
Johns Hopkins (24%)</p>

<p>I don't agree with the advice to apply to the two farthest from your home. A lot of people think that schools value geographic diversity far more than they actually do: they overestimate the importance of geographic diversity. Providence, RI is much farther from you than Durham, NC, but getting into Duke will certainly be easier than getting into Brown. Besides, it doesn't make sense to do it like that -- you have to do it by fit and desire. Each of these schools has a different feel to it though they are all relatively similar (ex. U-Penn is in the middle of a large city whereas Duke is more in a suburban small city).</p>

<p>Besides selectivity, weigh these other factors.</p>

7

<p>"and have a good safety lined up."</p>

<p>"I agree with the previous poster you need to work on safeties."</p>

<p>"Don't worry i'm applying to other safeties and matches "</p>

<p>but thanks for all the responses! I didn't know UPenn was that hard to get in to and yeah distance does make a difference but the opposite of what you guys think (want closer). I think I'm going to apply to Brown and either Cornell or Johns Hopkins</p>

8

<p>the two i would apply to would been Penn and Duke.. but thats just me and which of the two schools i would like best. </p>

<p>really it depends on what you want, what programs, and what your looking for your college life to be like. because pretty much the only thing these schools have in common is that they are great and competitive to get into. otherwise they will provide different social scenes and an overall different "feel"</p>

9

<p>While admissions rates tell you something--they are by no means the whole story for evaluating a schools selectivity or student body. This is because the applicant pools are not identical and some schools are more popular with applicants, sometimes for reasons having little to do with academic quality. For example, Georgetown is more popular with more applicants than U Chicago and, correspondingly, has a lower admit rate. Does that make Georgetown more selective than Chicago? Statistically speaking, yes--Georgetown admits a smaller percentage of applicants. But Georgetown's applicant pool is not a strong as Chicago's and the typical Chicago student is probably better qualified than the typical Georgetown student. So which one is "harder" to get into?</p>