GPA UW: 3.97 (screwed around in dam studio art class sophomore and got B lol)
SAT: 800 Math, 780 Reading, 750 Writing (10 essay)
SAT II: 800 Math Lvl2, 790 USH, 770 World History, 740 Spanish
AP Classes with Scores (no score means I’m taking it for senior year)
AP Calc BC: 5
AP World History: 5
AP Lang: 5
AP USH: 5
AP Spanish Lang: 4
AP US Gov: 5
AP Chem: 5
AP Music Theory (self-studied): 5
AP Physics C E/M
AP Physics C Mech
AP Lit
AP Microecon
AP Macroecon
AP Stat
AP Comparative Gov
Also doing dual-enrollment in multivar calc at a comm college near my house
EC’s:
-Clarinet: All-State 2x, All-district 3x, regular participation in volunteer ensembles
-Boy Scouts: Eagle Scout with 1 palm, Several intense high adventure treks, strong & consistent leadership, regular community service
-Varsity XC 4 years: random regional awards
-Varsity Track 4 years: random regional awards
Work Experience:
-Worked at Music Store near house as cashier after soph year
-Interned/Shadowed at private equity company for 8 weeks after junior year (learned basic accounting and corp fin as well)
Planning on majoring in chemical engineering with a business-related minor/certificate. Ultimately, I wanna go into either management consulting, private equity/venture capital, or some type of job that combines science/engineering and business.
Recs: Gonna go to Calc BC teacher for 1, AP Lang Teacher for 2nd, then additional supplemental rec from either clarinet teacher or scoutmaster
List:
Princeton
Stanford (First-Choice A)
Harvard
MIT (First-Choice B)
Penn-Wharton (might try for Jerome Fisher with Wharton as backup)
UChicago
Dartmouth
Duke
UVA
Vanderbilt
UMich (prolly Ross)
GA Tech
UT Austin (auto in since I’m in-state and
Some questions:
- Is it worth my time taking the Chem SAT since (I think?) my SAT II scores are good as they are?
- Compared to other schools, what do Stanford and MIT look for in particular? I’ve heard that UChic in particular puts really heavy weight on essays, but do Stanford or MIT have a peculiarity with admissions like UChicago does?
- Yale–how good are their science programs? The vibe I’m getting after researching them is that they’re more for politics/social sci/humanities.
Your application is really weak with your ec’s in my opinion. You should get rid of 75-90% of your reach schools (you have like 10-11 reaches) and add some safeties and fits.
I think it’s fine to target some high end schools with your academic credentials, but what you presented looks heavy on the academics and weak on outside interests and passions. Stanford particularly looks for “intellectual vitality” as demonstrated through outside activities:
http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/
If I were you I wouldn’t worry about taking any more SAT tests, and would try to increase the depth of your participation in ECs. Other than shadowing at a private equity company for 8 weeks, I don’t see a lot of business experience, which is probably needed for Jerome Fisher M&T.
what is your rank as far as a specific percentile goes? i have a cousin who got into wharton this past year, and she had no work experience at all. she had around the same number of ECs as you but was more involved in them, and had similar stats. good luck!
Your academics look very impressive! However, I do agree that your ECs are somewhat weak. I would not worry about any more test scores but just focus on your essays and recs so that some of these reach schools could see past the ECs.
I don’t agree with the comments that your ECs are weak, and I think your list looks solid. Your ECs are typical, but you seem to have achieved quite a bit in each of them. Varsity letters, being an Eagle Scout, and your excellence in music shows that you are a very well rounded candidate and are a leader in your high school. Depending on what your class rank is, your chances are as good as any (ignoring special cases like ISEF winners).
I had similar interests to you applying to school (combining Physics with Business/Finance) and would urge you to consider Penn M&T very highly. Having exposure to PE is an extreme rarity as a high schooler and will set you apart from many candidates. If you could get a recommendation from a partner at the firm you worked at, especially if the firm is well known, your application will certainly stand out positively. FWIW, I’ve seen that M&T kids place exceptionally well right out of school (at shops like Apollo, KKR, and Silverlake) and the program is fantastic at combining your interests.
UT Austin auto admission really limits the need for a safety if you like the school. All in all I’d say your chances are pretty solid and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got into a bunch of these schools.
FYI, the private equity shop isn’t one that’s really famous; it was more of just a scoutmaster from Boy Scouts who likes me letting me have exposure/allowing me to put on my resume. It was also unpaid.
Also, I’ve read that going to the top schools like HYPSM, Penn-Wharton, UChicago, etc really gives you a huge advantage in terms of recruiting for the top consulting firms (like McKinsey). To what extent is that true? Even though there are more companies recruiting at the top-notch universities, I would think that exponentially more students want to get those jobs also. Is the supply to demand ratio of good firms to students interested better at the top schools?
I still think it is a bonus, although not as substantial as I may have thought earlier. If you learned anything substantive and can speak about your experience intelligently it still is very impressive.
RE recruiting what I can say is going to a top school helps immensely, especially for consulting. Their product is their people and they sell clients on having prestigious grads on their teams. On paper, to a potential client, having a kid who has graduated from Stanford seems a lot more impressive than a graduate from Purdue. Whether the two are equivalent in intelligence, the consulting firm will always hire the Stanford grad.
The supply-demand ratio is definitely much better at top schools. In my experience, simply having a good GPA at a target school will land you interviews at most top consulting firms. My friends at “non-target” schools have to network intensely (reach out to over 20+ contacts at firms), be the leaders of on-campus business societies, and really excel at their classes to even get through the initial filter and land an interview. I think the difference between top schools and most other universities isn’t really at the top end of students (4.0 students who are well-spoken will always get interviews) but more pronounced at the middle end (3.6 students at Penn-Wharton will get interviews, 3.6 at UConn probably won’t).
Actually, I just realized that I need to take Chem SAT for MIT.
For Ross pre-admission at UMich, it is a reach for anyone due to the low admission rate. For LSA, it would be a high match to low reach.