Is this a good college list for me?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Columbia
Duke
Georgetown
Harvard
NYU
Northwestern
UPenn
Yale</p>

<p>Which do you think I can get in to?</p>

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>Male. White and indian (from India, not Native American)</p>

<p>Testing:
SAT I: 800 reading 800 writing 790 math
Sat ii: 790 math ii
790 us history
800 chemistry
PSAT: 221 (NMS semifinalist)
Grades:
I'm a senior , and I will have 12 total APs by the end of senior year. So far I have all 5s in chem, calc ab, APUSH, gov, spanish and lit.
Straight A's all through and number 1 at school (my school doesn't rank but my GPA is the max on the first quintile)
GPA: 4.36 cumulative weighted. 4.0 unweighted. I have taken every ap and honors class available to me.</p>

<p>ECs:
Started art service club in sophomore year and continue to lead it</p>

<p>Started a service committee that has planned a bunch of successful service activities at school.</p>

<p>VP of SGA last year
President of SGA this year</p>

<p>Extemp speaking
Congressional debate
(District champ in international extemp in NFL circuit; second place in domestic extemp; third in congressional debate in CFL district circuit)</p>

<p>Leading group from school to tutor at an ESL program</p>

<p>Starter of fresh produce campaign through a church to serve inner city baltimore. We have made over 1000 healthy meals possible and donated the equivalent of over $1700 in produce. </p>

<p>On Honor Board since sophomore year</p>

<p>In NHS</p>

<p>Intramural dodgeball (since freshman year)
Intramural basketball (since I was little)</p>

<p>Developing a news app that will probably be on the App Store in November.</p>

<p>Manage my own stock portfolio and have been for about 4 years.</p>

<p>Summers:
Backpacking trip in Idaho through NOLS</p>

<p>3 week service trip to Tanzania</p>

<p>HSHSP research program</p>

<p>Jobs:
Pet sitting
Math and science tutor</p>

<p>Other:
Passion for food and cooking
Play piano for fun
Love skiing</p>

<p>Let me know if you want me to chance you back!</p>

2

<p>These are all reallllly good schools and you have a good shot at getting into a few, however i would add a couple saftey schools that are 1 tier lower maybe schools like Wake Forest, U Rochester, etc</p>

3

<p>I think you’re into Georgetown, and will probably make one or two of the others. Also, its Penn not UPenn :smiley: </p>

<p>I would suggest applying ED to Columbia. If you, however, want to keep your options open try EA Harvard or Yale. </p>

<p>Also, are you nationally ranked for S&D/did you go to TOCs? That can help a lot. </p>

4

<p>I think you’ll get into NYU and Georgetown. However, I recommend adding a safety school. Most of the schools on your list are reach schools, but I think you are an excellent candidate. Your GPA and AP schedule is particularly impressive. Best of luck. </p>

5

<p>Hello - your grades and standardized test scores are great. However keep in mind that the schools you are applying to will have thousands of kids (4.0/2400) who they routinely reject. </p>

<p>Your list of ECs seem a bit skimpy. Do you have any national or international awards? If so what are they</p>

6

<p>@sgopal2‌ </p>

<p>Keep in mind, not even a thousand kids got a 2400 this year. Less than 500 got a 2400 in 2013. And not all the 2400’s had a 4.0.</p>

<p>But your point is valid- stats aren’t everything. </p>

7

<p>@sgopal2‌ I only have nms semi finalist ( I’m applying for finalist stuff) and AP scholar w/ distinction. I will be entering the Siemens competition soon, so hopefully that works out. </p>

<p>As far as ECs, I figured that starting 3 service clubs at school and a non-profit campaign from scratch as well as leading student government and being a forensics champ in my state were pretty good. My school doesn’t offer any math competitions or science Olympics, and when I tried to start them personally, there wasn’t enough participation to keep them going. I guess I could have done more filler activities, but I really tried to focus on what I was passionate about. Anyway, I truly appreciate your opinion, so let me know what you think. </p>

8

<p>Please keep in mind that most of your target schools reject the majority of the highly qualified applicants due to the limited spots available. Your academics looks within their range, but your EC does not look very strong.</p>

<p>NYU looks like a match, but you might want to add a few safety schools.</p>

9

<p>Bump 10char. </p>

10

<p>You really need to have some safeties.
Half of your schools are Ivies! </p>

11

<p>Your list is good, but I agree on adding reasonable safeties. Your state flagship or places that would offer you merit scholarships would be a good place to start</p>

12

<p>You can’t count on winning or finishing high in Siemens as a strategy… I feel like your ECs don’t have that snap that the very top colleges are looking for. You will likely get into some of the colleges on your list, though.</p>

13

<p>NYU may be a match, but why not find some state universities?
Like, OSU, U of Oregon, U of alabama. </p>

<p>U of Oregon has a full ride scholarship for Clark honors college.</p>

14

<p>Winning Siemens would certainly help. However keep in mind that your ECs will be marginal for the top schools. Good luck</p>

15

<p>is that your complete list or just your reaches?</p>

<p>These schools are “reaches for everyone”. Now, you’re well-qualified, but when 90+% students are rejected, that means a LOT of qualified, competitive students are rejected. In other words, while your odds may not be 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 as for most applicants, they’re still about 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 depending on the school. In other words, you’re at HIGH risk of a shut out.</p>

<p>If this was your complete list, you need to find matches (schools that admit 30+% students) and safeties (schools that admit 40+% students or, typically your state flagship’s Honors College). </p>

<p>What’s your parents’ budget? This will also be crucial - if your EFC is 40k and your parents only want to pay or can only pay 25k, you’re out of luck at all these schools.</p>

16

<p>@MYO1634</p>

<p>Isn’t Georgetown a match for OP?</p>

<p>But yeah, he should probably apply to a few safeties. </p>

17

<p>While Georgetown is a match academically, its admission rate (17% and that includes ED!) is too low to make it anything but a reach.</p>

18

<p>Hey everyone. I appreciate all the feedback so far. I do have some safety schools that I didn’t bother putting up, since I know they are safeties. All of these are schools I would really REALLY love to get into. Perhaps another question I have is this: what are the chances of me not getting into any of these schools?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

19

<p>While it’s not the likeliest outcome, not getting into any of those schools is still a very high risk. Increasing the number of super selective schools you’re applying to doesn’t really increase your odds, since most of them are looking at the same things and the applicant pool is equally competitive. You’re hoping for odds where your essay resonates with someone at one school while it doesn’t at the other schools, but that’s a long shot.
I know there’s a math formula that explains at applying to many super selective schools doesn’t multiply your odds of getting into one so someone will likely bring it up. :)</p>