I go to a fairly reputable, small private high school, where we have many opportunities and a good college placement. However, my class is exceptionally larger and smarter than the average class that graduates from my school.
How will colleges see that the kids in my grades are very smart, which is why I am only in the top 33% of my class, even with a 2310 SAT score? Is there something I can do?
I am aiming to go to either UPenn, NYU Stern, MIT, or Stanford.
Thanks!
No, it won’t completely ruin your chances, the competitiveness of your high school is taken into account to a certain extent. Penn, MIT, and Stanford will be high-reaches with your rank, but they are essentially reaches for everyone. NYU is more likely since their 25th-75th range is 1890-2190, and a little less than 70% of the incoming class is in the top 10 percent of their high school. You should definitely add more matches and safeties. There are tons of great schools not in the top 20ish you could get into with aid. What do your EC’s look like?
Also why did you post that your SAT was 2150 less than 2 months ago? Retake? You can check naviance if your school has it and see where people with your relative rank and scores have gotten accepted in recent years as well.
My EC’s are pretty good. I won a national essay competition, and I am captain of three clubs at my highschool. I did some research at MIT on AI, which I have submitted for Intel and Siemens.
It is simply frustrating that I could have been valedictorian at my public high school, especially since I was the valedictorian in public middle school.
@danfer91 I retook the SAT after more studying and 2310 is superscored. Also, the issue is that although my GPA is relatively high for my school, my rank is low because my grade is much smarter than the previous grades due to the school’s recruitment revamp.
You may have been valedictorian, maybe not; no one can really say. Plus, schools like MIT and Stanford reject valedictorians anyways so you may not have been any better off. Just do the best you can and continue to do what you’re doing. That’s all you can do. Clearly your grades aren’t that bad if you have 3.7, and if you really have a 2310 you’ll have plenty of offers from schools. You’ll end up somewhere really good, don’t worry about that. You just need to apply to a good mix of schools so you don’t get shut out. Applying to schools that are reaches even for people with 2200+ SAT scores is a big mistake.
Any more inputs would be greatly appreciated!
I have the EXACT same situation! My school is actually a little reputable for cheating (one of our valedictorians were caught for cheating, and another one of our students were expelled). I’m a pretty average student like you, with a 3.7 GPA, and a 2300+ SAT Score, (it’s crazy how we have almost the exact same stats!) with quite a few regional and state, 2 national, and 1 international award(s), and plenty of extracurriculars, leadership, and volunteering. But my class is EXTREMELY competitive, there are more kids taking advanced class than ever (me being one of them), and our schools has more clubs than ever (thanks to the kids who are desperately starting them to put down stuff on their college app, but not actually going anywhere with their clubs), and the clubs in which you have to try out for in my school (Science Olympiad, Math Team, NHS) have become harder to get on. So not only does the hyper-competitiveness of my class affect my the chances of me getting into college, but also affects my extracurriculars, like getting into certain clubs, as well as leadership, (ha, don’t even bother running for an office position at my school, because it’s definitely based on how many of your friends you bring to the election and vote for you. More friends = more votes = you winning the election). But anyways, like you, I’m in the top 25% of my class, but I might be top 10% (hopefully? If not definetely top 15%) by the end of senior year. But also like you, I’m absolutely TERRIFIED that I won’t even get into my safety schools (UNC-CH and NC-State), because everyone is so competitive. I know the reason everyone in my class is so competitive is because they’re all trying to get into Duke so they can all become doctors or engineers (I’m a NC resident, so Duke is apparently everyone’s dream school, (but the fact they won the NCAA probably doesn’t hurt either). Don’t get me wrong though, I’d love to go to Duke, but I’m not crazy or desperate or driven mentally unstable trying to keep up and stay on top of my class (there’s on girl in my math class who is SERIOUSLY unstable because she’s constantly trying to join as many clubs and trying to get the top class rank and tries to take as many AP classes as she can, and one day, We all feel like she’s just going to crack under pressure; she has cried over getting B’s numerous times, and there’s really nothing we can do but watch her cry and curse). I’ve seen people who have been friends since elementary school stop being friends just because one friend is taking more AP classes than the other, or just because they have a higher GPA than them, or have won more national awards, or received an internship they wanted. It’s hard for anyone at my school to stay friends really, with all the jealous atmosphere going around. It’s difficult to say that I used to be one of those kids, (ok, not as bad as the girl in my math class, but I still was in the eye of the hurricane, taking advanced classes and trying to get as many leadership positions as possible). But I’ve definitely learned so much from trying to stay ahead of everyone and let me just say, it’s EXHAUSTING. So I decided to do what I was actually interested and passionate about (those were the years I won my national and international award(s)). When colleges say they don’t want you to dabble in a lot of extracurriculars, and that they want you to be focus more effort in a few, I realized I didn’t have to quit as many clubs as I thought. I realized that I could join numerous clubs, and that I could win numerous national/international awards from that, and still show my passion without having to worry if I’m doing enough, because let’s be honest, no one wants to cut down their extracurriculars THAT much, especially if you’re passionate about them. To this day, I’m so grateful that I stopped being one of “those” kids. But honestly, there are STILL days when I’m TERRIFIED I won’t even get into my safety schools because the competition is so bad, but I just put forth my best and hope for the best. When Katniss Everdeen said “there are far worse games to play”, she was NOT kidding. The college admission game is much worse than the Hunger Games. Good Luck getting into those schools though! I really hope you get in -you seem a lot better than the extremely desperate kids at my school! And you definitely seem passionate with those awards backing you up! Good Luck!