<p>I am currently a junior at a catholic high school in Los Angeles, and my dream is to go to Princeton. I will also be applying to Cornell, Brown, and UPenn, in addition to several safety schools. Could someone please give me a realistic estimate of my chances at these schools?</p>
<p>Unweighted GPA (A+ in AP class is 4.3): 4.01
Unweighted GPA (No A+ calculated): 3.98
Weighted GPA: 4.447
SAT: 2270
SAT (w/o writing): 1540
ACT: Taking in December. I expect a 32 or higher.
Rigor: I have taken every honors/AP class that was possible for me.
EC's: Volunteer at UCLA medical center since sophomore year; 100 hour/year commitment. I play soccer at a national level, competed in national finals in Chicago over the summer; have been scouted by several less academic schools. I am in the pre-med club and top chef club at my school. Pre-med club ties in well to volunteering at the hospital, as I want to be a surgeon when I am older.</p>
<p>NOTE:My GPA does not yet include junior year. Assuming I stay on track:
GPA after Junior: 4.575
GPA after Senior: 4.682</p>
<p>Please respond, I recorded every detail as honestly as possible. Tell me if there is more information that I need to give. I just want to know if my dreams of attending Princeton are farfetched and naive, or if I actually have a shot at it as my reach school. Also, if there is any area that I need to beef up, please do not hesitate to critique my resume.</p>
<p>The chance of you getting into at least one of the Ivies is pretty high. You have all the bases of a complete “portfolio” covered: solid GPA and SAT, course rigor, significant community service involvement and ECs. Participating in soccer at a national level will help set you apart from some very tough competition.</p>
<p>Note that these schools all especially look for signs of leadership, not just involvement. You would improve your chances if you were to become captain or co-captain of the soccer team. Likewise, if you could create and implement some sort of special program at the hospital and then write about its challenges and successes, it would show that you have the makings of a future leader of society.</p>
<p>Brown has a special program called PLME that guarantees you admission to medical school once your undergrad work is completed. You should look into this if medicine is your primary interest.</p>
<p>@LoremIpsum
I am not the captain of the team, but I do play a very active leadership role and am almost a co-captain-like asset. I volunteer in patient escort currently, which involves me dispatching patients after they have been cared for. Although I have gotten many great stories from this experience, it is not a leadership role. I am very young for my grade (going to be 17 as a freshmen in college,) so my chances for leadership roles were diminished by age requirements. I do plan on switching into the cancer ward, where I will hang out with/make happy cancerous children. Will this look better? Or should I try to organize some organization that helps these children?</p>
<p>Believe it or not, being younger is actually a slight handicap – adcoms worry about what might happen if a “less mature” student settles in away from home for the first time. Leadership roles can minimize this fear, as can comments in your letters of recommendation about your “exceptional maturity.”</p>
<p>My son currently attends Brown, and finished high school in 3 years; he thus also faced the early-to-college possibility, although he requested a gap year after being accepted. Here’s what we know from his experience:
he had perfect stats: 1/400 class rank, 36 ACT, 2 800 SAT II’s, National AP Scholar
he was captain of math team and Scholastic Bowl and designed his own community service project from scratch; he also taught himself 4 math/science APs and took 8 of them all together sophomore year
He was turned down by Yale and MIT, but accepted at 4 other top-20 colleges
In 3 of those acceptances (including early-writes from Williams and Amherst), he received customized letters from his adcom advocate, each of which mentioned specifics that especially impressed the committee: all 3 mentioned his self-designed community service initiative and 2 mentioned his extra self-studied APs</p>
<p>What can we conclude from this? The competition is very tough and stats alone aren’t enough – but showing leadership and self-driven initiative makes you stand out. Thus, I think it would really help if you </p>
<ol>
<li><p>label yourself vice-captain or de facto vice-captain of your soccer team (as long as you can point to specific leadership details and, ideally, get confirmation from your coach should it ever be necessary); and</p></li>
<li><p>Create a leadership role in your hospital work either within an organization or by yourself in association with a medical organization.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Remember that the competition is absolutely brutal at this level and you need something to stand out from thousands of other especially-qualified candidates. To get in, your regional advocate will need something to point to that can be expressed in just a few seconds that makes you stand out.</p>
<p>I am actually very mature for my age, which is why I hope to be involved in interview processes. Do you know anything about the interview process for ivy level schools?</p>
<p>I know that the interview is unlikely to make all that much difference, unless you do something silly like talk about drinking binges or tell racist jokes. Part of the reason is that interviewers differ wildly, so there’s no way to drawing consistency from their reports. Part of it is that the interviewer can’t really get to know you that well in 30-45 minutes. And part of it is that interviewers will tend to root for you if you’re bright and capable – but at this level of competition, nearly everyone is bright and capable. My son’s Brown interviewer emailed him after he was accepted and said he was the first one in several years that she had recommended who was actually accepted.</p>
<p>Comments about your maturity from your letter of recommendation writers will hold more weight because these people know you very well and their statements can be enhanced with real-life examples and not just general impressions.</p>
<p>I can confirm what LoremIpsum said, my current AP Statistics teacher is a Brown alumni and interviews local area students on the behalf of Brown. She wrote me a recommendation letter and when talking about colleges she said something along the lines of LoremIpsum’s post.</p>
<p>Thanks to all.
Short of becoming a captain on my team, is there anything else I can do to really stand out? I know that some schools are going to be reaches no matter what, but if there are any other categories I can beef up, or opportunities I can take to give me an edge, I will look into them.</p>
<p>Your numbers are fine for Ivy League schools. Write a thoughtful & carefully crafted application & get strong recommendations. That’s all you can do. Apply to some match & safety schools aswell.</p>