Hey forum, I am currently a Junior in high school and was wondering what I can do to further separate myself from other top students. I intend to major in chemistry or biology and would like to attend colleges such as Princeton or Yale.
Objective:
SAT I N/A
ACT N/A
Unweighted GPA:
Weighted GPA: 4.273 (Never received anything less than an A-)
Rank: 2/~700 (Largest high school in the state of Michigan)
AP Scores: U.S. History (4), Human Geography (4)
Junior Year Course Load: AP Language and Composition, AP Physics, Honors Precalculus, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Chemistry, AP Computer Science A
Subjective:
Extracurriculars
HOSA (Biomedical Laboratory Science 2nd)
Debate (7th Speaker Points)
NHS
GIDAS
FDA (Secretary)
MSA
Power lifting
75+ Volunteer hours at local hospital (Shadowed surgeries and multiple traumas)
Volunteered at Muslim Food Pantry
Ethnicity: South Asian (RIP)
Gender: Male
School Type: Public
Income: Parents are retiring this year so I might be able to apply for FA
I will post updates as often as possible and would love some brutally honest advice 
Your ECs are pretty meh IMHO, they are kind of run of mill for an Asian student. It’s not too late to find some quirky EC to do. Do you plan on taking SAT IIs? Remember, the Ivies could easily fill all of their classes with students with 5.0s and 36 ACTs but they don’t. They look for people who are unique and have a life out of academics…
I agree that your academics are in line with everyone else applying to those schools. Where are your test scores?
Your EC’s are equally similar to a number of honor students around the nation. There are students with hundreds of hours shadowing physicians. Nothing really stands out.
You’re a junior, so it’s kind of late to start something that will be eye-catching.
If you want to separate yourself from the crowd, get a great score on your tests.
Become a celebrity.
Have your parents donate a wing to a school.
I have not taken the SAT or ACT yet and I do plan on taking SAT II’s. Unfortunately I understand that nothing I am currently doing stands out, for this reason I am reaching out to others. I plan on hopefully getting good test scores on the ACT and SAT but aside from that I really do not know what to do. I am also looking into a research opportunity at U of M over the summer. Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated. @“aunt bea” @beepybeetle
Elite admissions (roughly, top-25ish universities and top-15ish LACs according to USNews’ undergrad ranking), especially at private schools, is largely based on sending the right app to the right school: because they know exactly what they want their class to look like, they are looking to fill specific needs and you either check the right boxes or you don’t. Proving the holistic/qualitative – and lucky/fickle – nature of their decisions is the fact that while most of these schools could admit the most statistically impressive students, they don’t: you see some 4.0/1600 applicants rejected at a school, while some 3.7/1400 applicants get in.
Sometimes it probably comes down to one key variable, and none of us – without badgering officials for this info – can possibly know. For instance, the school might be full of great oboe players but they need a cellist. You are 3.9 and 1550 and an oboist; the 3.7/1380 cellist gets in. See, they are filling spots that need to be filled, and we don’t know exactly what those spots are.
And if it isn’t about specific spots, we’re (further) relying on the subjective interpretation of apps by human beings, and who knows what kind of day they’re having, mood they’re in, when they read your app?
How else could we see kids get admitted to a HYP but rejected by a BU or NYU? There is the fact that no school wants to be a safety, and some of them react negatively when they see an app from a kid with higher designs… but that can’t be all of it.
Holistic admissions proves that most selective schools think it’s more important to be what they want to be – operate and comprise their ideals – than it is to impress a ranking.
I ran out of time to edit. Sorry for the double-post.
The best you can do is figure out a list of schools you like according to your interests – academics/major, size/type, environment, sociopolitical vibe, sports and party/Greek scene, etc; do well in school and pursue extracurriculars that actually interest you; do well on tests, get strong rec letters, and write great essays when you apply to the schools you most like and can afford. Ideally you’ll apply to at least one admissions and cost safety. (they all should be affordable; few things would suck more than to get admitted to a school and want to attend, but not be able to afford it…)
I am not completely sure whether you should be focusing on “top” universities such as Princeton or Yale. These are good universities. However, when I was a graduate student (at Stanford) there were plenty of students there who did their undergraduate degree at a less famous university. Seeing that you are from Michigan I might add that at the time my girlfriend had done her undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and she was one of the top students in a Masters program at Stanford. If you get a Masters or Doctorate from Harvard or Stanford I am not sure that anyone will care where you got your Bachelors degree (especially if it is a very good school such as U of Michigan).
With your grades I do think that you should be focused on a “top 100 in the world” university. Apply to “top 10” schools, but have a plan B, and be aware that if you graduate from a “top 100” university with straight A’s and no debt then you will be in good shape for graduate or medical school (assuming that you take the appropriate courses). The “no debt” part is probably more important than the difference between Princeton versus U of Michigan.
By the way, I also know quite a few people who graduated from “top 50 in the world” universities from outside of the USA. In my experience, every student that I knew (including myself and my daughters) who had grades similar to yours got into every university that they applied to outside of the USA (there are probably exceptions, but I wasn’t told of any). This includes places such as Oxford, Cambridge, University of Melbourne, ETH Zurich, McGill and Toronto. Of course, the people that I know who went to ETH Zurich were multi-lingual (they were both fluent in English, French, and German). Of the ones that I kept in touch with, about half eventually returned to the US and about half did not, but it was their choice in each case.
I guess the summary is: You are doing GREAT in high school. Think wider for university.
When are you taking SAT/ACT? You want to get on that now.
I think doing more interesting extracurriculars and non-academic type ones are important to demonstrate that you are “well-rounded”.