Junior wondering about Ivy League chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a Junior now and just started becoming extremely focused on grades this year. My GPA is a weighted 4.2, which puts me in the top 15 in my class (out of 350). I took the AP US Gov. and Politics and US history exams this year, and I think I got a 5 on both of them. Next year I am taking five AP classes (Calc BC, Physics C, Spanish, English Lit, and Psych) and I'm also taking Western Civ, which is a college level course. My SAT scores were:
CR 680
Math 790
Writing 760
I haven't gotten a chance to take any subject tests yet, but I'm taking two in June. I'm a member of the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, and Math Honor Society. I'm also on the consumer bowl team, science league team, and JV Tennis team (Varsity next year). I'm sure there's some other stuff I'm forgetting to mention, but I'm just asking for a rough estimate of my chances of being admitted to any of the Ivy League schools, or MIT/Stanford.</p>

<p>If you want any additional information please ask.</p>

2

<p>It’s hard to give a good estimate of those top, prestigious colleges with knowledge of only your GPA/SAT’s. Those, however, are very strong and you should get into a fair share of colleges. Your E.C.'s are pretty bland, however, so Im not sure of the Ivy’s/stanford+mit.</p>

3

<p>Your ECs are pretty lackluster for HYPSM/Ivies. Do you have any major awards/primary extracurriculars? How are you going to frame your application?</p>

4

<p>I’m also a member of Model UN, forgot to put that in there. And I’m the treasurer of Spanish Honor Society and will be running for President of the Math Honor Society next year.
I’m a member of the National Society of High School Scholars and one of the top 50000 in this years National Merit Scholarship thing (they’ve yet to narrow it down).<br>
I plan on doing community service this summer to further strengthen my application.</p>

<p>As far as framing my application, I’m not really sure what that means.</p>

5

<p>I agree that you need to beef up the EC’s but otherwise you’re a competitive applicant for top schools</p>

6

<p>I’d say Cornell or Penn would be reasonable reaches. Your rank is low for the others unless you go to a highly competitive school (even at mid tier ivies, most unhooked are val or sal) and you need to bring up your CR score by a good 50 plus points regardless.</p>

7

<p>Would the fact that my GPA has improved each consecutive year despite the fact that the classes are getting harder help at all?</p>

<p>Also, any suggestions on how to “beef up” my extracurriculars?</p>

8

<p>With your GPA rising each year – is this because you’re in higher weighted classes, or because your grades are better? If your grades are improving, that’s good. If it’s just your weighted GPA, I’m not sure whether it matters. Your ECs aren’t bad, but ivy league schools are really looking for stand-out applicants, which is why you probably want something to reflect (or give the impression of) passion. I would also suggest re-taking the SAT to bring the CR score up, it may make a slight difference if you can get it in the mid 700s. Lastly, make sure your essays are amazing, they may give you the push you need to get in. Good luck!</p>

9

<p>My GPA has gone up because of my grades, it would still be higher even if it was unweighted. I retook the SATs in May, hoping to get a perfect score on the Math. Hopefully I can pick up some points on the CR too.</p>

10

<p>There are a ton of ways that you can, to quote myself, “beef up” your resume.
Find something you’re passionate about, do a summer program, start a volunteer group, or enter some contest, I don’t know you so I can’t tell exactly what it will be, but you should be able to figure that out.</p>

11

<p>Upward trend does not help at ivies. They have too many candidates with perfect grades throughout that they have no room for.</p>

12

<p>Yeah I wasn’t sure if the upward trend thing would matter. It’s really unfortunate that I didn’t start preparing for college until this year. There’s a lot of stuff I could have done in the past that would put me in a better position now. I guess I’m gonna have to do a lot this summer.</p>

13

<p>I think that your GPA is good and an upward trend could slightly help and hopefully not detract from your chances (obviously there are the people with 4.0 UW and 2400 SATs).
I couldn’t get a real sense of what your passion was, and this is where your ECs become important. You definitely need to get CR to 700+, as well as your subject tests. </p>

<p>BTW, loading up over the summer before you apply could backfire because most adcoms (from what I hear) call that padding your application, meaning you actually don’t care for it. Also, it depends where you’re from and what you plan to major in. </p>

<p>MIT seems uber-competitive now, and you seriously have to be amazing to get into that school. I know that there are exceptions, but a girl heading to Yale from my school was rejected at MIT and Harvard, but got into Caltech, Duke, Wake (were kinda desperate for her), UNC (scholarship), aformentioned Yale, and some others; she had absolutely stellar stats. </p>

<p>You can still reach for the stars with HYP because of amazing essays, recs, or some passion that you haven’t mentioned; UPenn, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell are easier to get into if you purely want IVY. Also look at Duke, NYU, Georgetown, Emory, Amherst, Caltech (still hard to get into), maybe Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech if you like engineering, Notre Dame, Tufts, etc. there are plenty others! </p>

<p>I wish you the best of luck because I too am looking at some Ivies! Hope that you can get into some!! :slight_smile: Sorry for a long post!</p>

14

<p>I would say my passion lies in the math/physics area. Unfortunately I just don’t know how to show that. I’m a member of Mu Alpha Theta and Science League, but I know that’s not enough. The problem is that I never tried to do anything out of school to show what I’m interested in. All these national math competitions that I’m hearing about now I’m hearing about for the first time, and now it’s too late for me to compete in any of them. I’m kind of depending on my grades and scores to show passion right now, but hopefully I can find something else in the next few months.</p>

15

<p>Best of luck to you! :)</p>

<p>Yeah, it may be too late to really get into a competition, but it will be tough to display your grades and scores as a passion. I’m surprised that your school doesn’t have a math team or whatnot that competes in AMC, leading into AIME (if I got that right, don’t know for sure). Did you try Science Olympiad or intern with someone that is in the math/physics area (like at a college)? Good luck! :slight_smile:
Next few months may be tough!</p>

16

<p>The AMC and AIME are the contests I was referring to, and I was never made aware of them by anyone at my school. Same thing with the science olympiad. I know I can’t put the blame completely on my school for not telling me about them, but you would think that the school would tell its most gifted students about opportunities to show off what they know.</p>

17

<p>Enter a science competition like Intel or Siemens. Take college math/science classes this summer.</p>

18

<p>If he did Intel or Siemens, would the results come back in time? I don’t know that much about the competitions to be honest, but he is applying in just a few months!!!</p>

<p>I can’t believe that your school didn’t even bother to mention those competitions! How would you even compete with out a school? I"m sure there’s a way, but I don’t know it! I first learned about AMC during student orientation at my new school and Science Olympiad the third day of school. In fact, the math teacher and pricipal found ME to inform me (but I stressed my math/science love affair on my application). Best of luck to you, but keep pushing on! You never what can happen! ;)</p>

19

<p>I looked up the Intel one, and that doesn’t end until March, so it wouldn’t be done in time. As far as the Siemens one goes, I’ve never done any type of research project for Math or Science before, and the website doesn’t seem to offer any tips on deciding on something to research and how to research it.</p>

20

<p>If you have any hope of getting into and surviving at a top college you will need to develop independent research skills. These schools are looking for kids who make things happen in their lives. You’ve talked a lot about what your school didn’t tell you, kids at ivies went beyond what their schools told them. All of the info on past projects for all of these competitions is readily available. So is how to get involved with all of the math competitions. Google is your friend.</p>