Junior Ivy League Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi everyone,

I’m a junior at a small private school in South/Central Virginia, and decided to post a thread to see whether I have any chance at all at an Ivy League school! P.S – No sugarcoating :slight_smile:

Stats:
GPA: Around 3.85 unweighted (I have had a positive trend all throughout high school, but we’ll see how this semester goes.)
Class Rank: N/A (School too small and doesn’t do class rank)
SAT: 1500, will retake for a hopeful 1550+
APs: World History (5) in 10th grade, U.S History, Environmental Science, English Language & Comp.
Next Year APs: Stats, Bio, Government, English Lit, Spanish (if it all fits in my schedule – send prayers)
School Type: Small private, secular
State: Southern Virginia
Race: Indian female
Upper middle class
Intended major: Either Biomedical Sciences or Neuroscience, a minor in filmmaking or journalism
Dream job → doctor, healthcare policy correspondent/journalist

ECs:
Founder & editor-in-chief of school newspaper
Freshman historian, Sophomore secretary, Junior treasurer
President of Model UN, 3 honorable mentions, one gavel for best delegate
Varsity Tennis – 9th-11th, State runner-ups 2018
NASA Scholar - 10th and 11th, part of top scholar percentage selected for summer academy in 10th
Intern in university lab dealing with cancer research
NSLI-Y scholar – prestigious U.S state department program, fully-funded scholarship, 6 weeks abroad for language immersion
Scholar chosen for local city program - 5 chosen out of city
Intern at Harvard organization dealing with policy analysis
Fluent in Hindi, basic proficiency in Spanish
Robotics team member for 7 years
Debate club, Amnesty International, SCA
National Honor Society

Colleges:
ALL the ivies (cliche but you know how it be)
Columbia - Early
Stanford
Vandy
UVA
Northwestern
Duke – legacy
*If you have any other suggestions based on stats, please let me know. I know I need more safety schools, but I’m still researching colleges

Absolutely NO idea what chances I have. Any and all help would be super super appreciated! Again, no sugarcoating necessary ( I can handle the truth, don’t worry ). Thank you so much!!

  • @flaminghotcheeto
2

It’s really too early to say, but the advice I would give you is this: target schools that offer what you really want. In order to do that, you have to identify what you really want. Urban vs. Suburban? Large, medium or small? Test optional? Old school traditional, very liberal, or somewhere in between? What about the student culture? Some of these are truly cutthroat, at least in pre-med. Others have a more collaborative culture. The list of schools you have here—they are all very different from each other. I’m an NU grad, I live near Stanford, I did grad school at Columbia, I have friends and family who have graduated from all of these schools. The bottom line is this: each school is going to want to know why you want them, specifically. So if I were you, I’d spend some time figuring out what makes each school unique. And make sure you pick some schools that you would be happy to go to, that are not quite as competitive as these to get into. There are many excellent schools.

3

Did one of your parents graduate from Duke? If so, that’s probably your best chance among the top schools. Your stats and ECs look competitive for the Ivies, but that means you have the same 5-8% RD chance as the other un-hooked applicants. Check Naviance with your GC to create a list of match and safety schools.

4

Thanks everyone, anyone else?