Im taking AP calc AB this year as a sophomore, and am planning on taking Calc 2 and Calc 3 next year at a community college, and then Differential Equations also at a CC senior year. Im doing this because I genuinely enjoy math, and also happen to be good at it. I’ll also have taken AP chem, AP bio, AP physics C, and AP’s in history and language arts, so I’m not only focused on math. Will I stand out enough to get into an ivy league? My dream schools are Yale and Columbia, though I’m not sure if I’ll even have a chance at getting into them. Thanks!
You gotta have great ECs to stand out at a place like Yale or Harvard because everyone applying will have rigorous courses. It not enough to just have a hard schedule.
Your math progression alone will not make you stand out. There were kids at my high school who took Calc 3 as a freshman and still took 8 semesters of college math in our school (taught on campus- not by a college). Even these kids are not guaranteed to get into an ivy league school.
Taking advanced math courses such as multi-variable calculus doesn’t really add a whole lot to the “stand out” factor - unless you took algebraic topology in HS and actually understood it. Selective schools look for a lot more than just rigorous courses.
So considering I’m taking most of the AP’s offered at my school, I will almost definitely be valedictorian of my class all 4 years, I have gone to prestigious summer programs over several summers (this summer I have been accepted into a program at Columbia), SAT score in around the 2200-2300s, and SAT II’s in math, bio, chem, literature, US history, and maybe more, a lot of community service/volunteering, being an active musician since I was 10, rowing varsity on one of the best clubs in the nation, then mountain biking for 4 years since injury prevented me from rowing longer… Should I not bother applying to schools such as Yale and Columbia? Or do I have a shot at being accepted?
You definitely have a shot at the Ivies, and I encourage you to apply, but make sure you apply to one or two “safety” schools as well.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being realistic and somehow managing to not crush my dreams haha. I’ll make sure to do that