@stepay -What I mean is that a lot of those schools are out of OP’s range-on one end or another. As I said above, there are probably some schools, like Carroll, that are below the level of a school I’d consider a safety for him. He’d be bored out of his mind. There are also schools that would be at the high end of the spectrum for OP. In this time of grade inflation, a 4.0 doesn’t mean what it used to-most applicants to top schools have at least a 3.9. And unfortunately, there’s been AP inflation and EC inflation that have raised the bar in these areas to the extent that OP would be a below-average candidate at schools like Princeton.
This isn’t to say OP is a bad student. It seems like he’s done very well in school, and I’m sure he could handle any school in this country. But a 4.0 and his skin color will not serve as panaceas; when coupled with few AP classes (by these schools’ standards), an SAT score that’s significantly below average for the Ivy League and equivalent schools, and extracurriculars that mostly cover grades 11 and 12.
The sad fact is that there are thousands of applicants whose parents mapped out their path to the Ivy League in kindergarten, who’ve been doing 8 extracurriculars a week since grade 9, will have over 10 AP classes before they graduate, and generally will have better SAT/ACT scores coupled with a 3.9+ GPA. They may be no more capable than OP, or even less so, but this will give them a leg up in admissions. Obviously an applicant’s chances are 0% at the schools he doesn’t apply to, and OP should by all means apply to whatever school he’d like to attend. But it’s a stretch to call him a very strong candidate at any college.
I think OP’s current list looks good, and if he wants to add a few schools on the high end that can’t hurt. I also think Duke and Georgetown represent the upper limit of the schools where he has a decent chance of acceptance given his current profile, and places like Yale are lottery tickets where OP’s odds would be below-average.