Ivy leagues, top 20 ranked schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

What are my chances to get into the top 20 ranked schools
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Brown, John Hopkins, Notre Dame, rice, nyu, etc
I go to school in Canada
U.S. citizen

5.0 GPA on a 5.0 scale every single year
school doesn’t offer any special AP classes but from my school i am taking the hardest classes with an A in every one!
school doesn’t do treasure / president stuff
100+ service hours award
Excellence honour roll award(5.0 GPA)
Taking a course at a university as part of a program where i have to go to the school for the class and am treated as everyone else
Teacher’s Choice Award
Employee of the Month at McDonalds during my first month working there for 1 year and 6 months
Working Toward Duke of Edinburgh Award
Vice principal and principal’s association scholarship for one student at my school

Want to go into mathematics
currently have 98% in calculus
100% on my pre-calc 11 final
Really excel in math but have not got to do any fancy competitions

SAT math & chemistry test in decemeber, plan on 700+ potenitally 800 in math
SAT 1760 bombed critical reading so plan to retake this novemeber for 2000+

Basketball( grade 9,10,11,12)
Dance(grade 9,11)
Cross Country(grade 9,10,11,12)
Tennis(grade 10,11,12)
Rugby (grade 10,11,12)
Badminton(grade 10,12)
Track & field (grade 10,12)
Field Hockey(grade 11)
Taekwondo(grade 8 & 9)
Zumba (grade 10,11,12)
Cardio Box(grade 10,11,12)
Yoga(grade 10,11,12)

ICA(Immigrant and Refugee Services)(cooking for homeless, homework helper, etc) volunteer
Cedar Hill invasive species clean up
Scorekeeping Basketball

Royal Jubilee Hospital Volunteer(Library Cart)-Every Sunday
The Mustard Seed weekly or sometimes every other week(Saturday)
Canada’s women’s 7’s national rugby volunteer
CANstruction volunteer
Project Respect Top Left Youth Camp Facilitator every year during spring break
Judge for island sexual health society for the new facilitator
Emceed for the evening of dance
Camp bernard camp volunteer–use to be a youth member, got to be a facilitator grade 11 year & plan to for my grade 12 year as well
Dragon boat festival bodyguard volunteer
Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition volunteer
Plan to do Reach out volunteering during summer 2016 to go to either Cambodia to build a school and rehabilitate the elephants or Peru to build a greenhouse brick by brick and learn about their culture
Leadership Volunteering
Recycle Depots
Bake Sales
Christmas decorating
Halloween Dance
Car Wash for cops for cancer
Candy Grams event planner
Candy Cane Elf
Open House
Easter egg hunt event planner
Help Sell Socks for Down Syndrome Awareness
Folded programs for dance show
Mascot bodyguard

2

great CV with no SAT/ACT and subject test?

3

Yeah, we need scores.

4

just added it :slight_smile:

5

SAT math & chemistry test in decemeber, plan on 700+ potenitally 800 in math
SAT 1760 bombed critical reading so plan to retake this novemeber for 2000+

6

Your odds at any of these schools are negligible with a sub-1800 SAT.

That list of ECs has 27 items, and I’m having trouble figuring out any sort of theme. You’ll only be able to list 10 activities on the Common App - what would they be?

Also, application readers are specifically instructed to ignore activities (like expensive volunteering trips to LEDCs) that chiefly reflect your parents’ ability to pay for such things. Save your money for something else, like the $250,000 in tuition most of these schools are liable to cost you.

7

Yes i know, i am finaically burdened with a family of 5 and less than $50,000 income
but an international trip is something i have always wanted to do so i am planning to save up my money to be able to do it after i graduate as a gift to myself. I want to earn it all on my own and fundraise some hopefully without asking my parents for any help.

for my activities on the common app i plan on putting these:
McDonalds (1 year 6months)
cross country (grade 9-12)
Royal jubilee hospital(every sunday)
Mustard seed(saturdays)
Basketball(grade 9-12)
rugby(grade 10-12)
Leadership(11-12 100+ hours award)
Spirit fingers(grade 10-12)
Environmental green group(grade 12)

I plan on using financial aid to pay for most of it because we are low-income family

I am studying really hard for this SAT and know i can do better! i have got 2000 on my practice exam that i did 2 weeks ago and plan to surpass that before the nov exam!

8

Unless you get a MINIMUM of 2000 SAT you can forget the top 20 schools.

9

Before you read my comment I want you to know that this is not to be offensive, but constructive criticism.

Some of your ECs look like things you did for one day and just put on your list. For example, “Emceed for the evening of the dance”, “Dragonboat festival bodyguard volunteer”, “bake sales”, “Christmas decorating”, Halloween Dance", “Easter Egg hunt event planner”, and “Folded programs for dance show”.

Things that you do for one day or even once or twice a year will not enhance your application, in fact it may have a negative impact on admissions decisions because admissions officers might feel that you are trying to hard to pad your resume.

Also, do you know what you plan to study? If so, you should establish a pattern of EC’s that show evidence in your interest. For example, if you plan to go into medicine, continue your hospital volunteering, and see if you can shadow a doctor. Those EC’s are the ones that will matter.

Good luck, and I hope you get into your dream schools :smiley:

10

I just read your comment on what you plan to put on your common app, and I think you need to specify on your common app exactly what some of those things are. I don’t know what “Mustard Seed”, “Spirit Fingers”, or “Environmental green group” are. You have space on the common app to describe them, so utilize that space. Again, good luck :slight_smile:

11

Thanks Anon9362

Oh yah ahah you’re right but i meant of them as like all together as part of the leadership program for most of them. For the program you just take part in little things every now and then. But the emceeing is something huge, it took preparation and i had gotten a concussion so i couldn’t actually take part in the show so i was able to emcee instead which was an honor but also scary because i use to by so shy in grade 9 and 10 and since then i have grown so much and that is probably what i will talk about in my essay. For my common app essay i was planning to talk about how i’ve always been that shy kid in the corner too afraid to join things, i remember not even joining teams because of being afraid and then since i joined leadership i have done so much, grew so much, looked for my own opportunities instead of letting them come to me, talking in front of a huge group of people to emcee and just how much i changed and the failure to myself is just not using my ability but keeping it hidden all these years. Does that sound any good?

I don’t know specifically yet but defiantly in mathematics. I wanted to do medicine before and that’s when i began my hospital volunteering. Even though i might not even go into medicine anymore I want to continue throughout my senior year. It’s just something i enjoy. In grade 9 i took grade 9 math first semester and grade 10 math second because i found it soo fun. And then after that took physics 11 in grade 10 because i liked doing math every semester and my semester felt boring without it. If i did another mathematics in one year then i wouldn’t have any left for my senior year which would really suck because i LOVE math haha so that’s just something weird about me but what i’ve been doing haha!

12

Yeah your essay is a good idea. But for EC’s, maybe just write the leadership program instead of all those scattered activities. See if your school has a math team or something, and if not, you starting one would be an outstanding example of leadership!

13

OHMYGOSH, you gave me the best idea anon9632! I am going to ask my leadership teacher about it! that would be so awesome! I’ve always wanted to be apart of it but never thought simply starting it up myself! thank you so much! :slight_smile:

14

BAM you’re welcome :))

That’s what I did at my school, except with something else, and I wrote my essay about it :slight_smile:

15

“Also, application readers are specifically instructed to ignore activities (like expensive volunteering trips to LEDCs) that chiefly reflect your parents’ ability to pay for such things.”

Not true. There are programs where kids get funding, the class raises the costs over a year or two or the kid works to contribute. Even if a kid is wealthy and the parents pay, the point is that trip alone is not a tip. And especially if a kid didn’t take on projects in his/her own community, as well.

OP, you need to research these colleges, what they value and look for. It’s not throwing it all out there and hoping they can make sense of it for you.

Your judgment matters and they look for the challenges you took on- at school and in your community. Etc. Start with the three most important responsibilities you held in school and in your community, identify those, find the right words to describe them, then work through. All the top schools talk about more than just participation. You do not have to fill all the lines. You are asked to prioritize in that CA section. Bake sale and folding programs, etc, can go. And others.

A 1760 does make this a challenge for the first 6, maybe incl ND. But not just the stats. Try to revamp your thinking, so you can produce a focused app. They look for tat judgment, awareness and thinking.

If you are a senior, it’s too late to start some new club. Better to work on making sense of what you did do. Not just how it looked in your hs, but what those adcoms say they like to see.

16

Op you need to look for realistic schools to apply to. The schools you listed accept at worst the top 5% of all students. You aren’t in the top 20%.

17

yeah defiantly realize more research needs to be done now! If my score was 2000+ would it make it more likely with what i’ve done so far?

My career goals have always been medicine but after taking biology last year 2nd semester i realized i don’t actually like it as much as i thought i did. Kind of been tricking myself. I have always excelled in math but this year has been the year where i realized that it actually the one i like the most and would wanna pursue for my career later in life! So i can i will still try to see if that’s possible even though i would only be in it for this year, but it’ll be a nice addition for later generations to come!

18

Couple of things stand out to me. Your scores, as others have said, need to improve significantly for ALL of the schools on your list. Check out the Common Data Sets for the schools listed. You will see that ND, for instance, enrolled a class this year that had SAT scores in the mid 50 of 1400-1530 for CR+M. You said you are a U.S. citizen, but will you be applying as such or as an international? If it is the latter, you chances of getting aid are somewhat slim. Are you in any way hooked? (Legacy, URM, first gen, etc.) If so, that will help. Your EC’s also left me confused and need to be packaged in a more focused manner. As another poster said, you might need to be a bit more focused in your search. Whenever I see someone who wants advice on getting into an “Ivy” or “top 20” school, it screams of looking only for prestige and not someone who has thoughtfully come up with a college list.

19

I’m actually the top at my school though? Out of everyone in the entire school, i got the award last year for being the most academically and overall rounded person! It’s about my environment as well isn’t it? My high school isn’t at all like usa high schools! We don’t have everything. But i took advantage of the opportunities that are offered, isn’t that what they also account into admissions?

20

@lookingforward The process at UC Berkeley (each school is different, of course, but I’d imagine there’s some overlap between top-tier institutions) was detailed in the NY times a few years back. I recall this being the first article I read that resembled a primer on the absurdity of top 20 admissions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/lifting-the-veil-on-the-holistic-process-at-the-university-of-california-berkeley.html

This issue is mentioned in passing, but there’s a clear message.

“[An applicant] had taken one of the expensive volunteer trips to Africa that we were told should not impress us.”

If a class raises the funds for such a trip, they should definitely mention it in their description of the activity, to differentiate their trip from those matching the above summary.

In any case, OP is planning to take this trip after graduation (and long after university applications are over), so it won’t feature in her application. I’m always pleasantly surprised when a student who dares to leave such activities until after his/her application, and do them for reasons other than to get into college, shows up amidst the legions of applicants whose extracurriculars have been painstakingly curated since kindergarten.