Hi! I’m a rising senior and super nervous about the college process and whether or not I actually have a shot at being accepted to the schools I am looking at. I love the small liberal arts college vibe and I have looked at all the top ones on the east coast; I don’t have a favorite one just yet.
Here are my stats:
ACT: 34 composite; 34 English, 31 Math, 35 Reading, 35 Science
SAT Subject Test: 730 US History
APs: World History (5), US History and Human Geography don’t have scores yet but predicting 5s
Classes: all honors freshman- junior year, senior year; AP Calc BC, AP Micro + Macro Econ, AP Literature, AP Physics, AP Psychology, college Spanish
GPA: 97 unweighted out of 100
Class rank: school does not rank but go to a pretty large and competitive school, in the top 5% of my class
ECs:
competitive swimmer for 10 years and varsity swimmer qualifying for some state level meets; being recruited by these schools but not their absolute top recruit I don’t think
played piano for 11 years and made it to highest level of state evaluation
co-president of political activism club at my school that gets well known speakers and has made some headlines
communications officer of Spanish honors society
math honor society tutor
volunteer for refugee support service center and help immigrants pass citizenship test
summer swim instructor for 4 years
intern for weaving camp in the summer
camp counselor at sleep away from childhood, did two year intensive training/ volunteering for it
member of SADD and knitting club for a year
Awards:
national Spanish exam silver
Harvard book
film award
swim leadership award
Recs/ Essays:
Obviously have not done them yet but I pride myself on being a good writer so my essays should be solid and asking teachers I’m close to for recs
Prospective political science major and Spanish minor
My hooks are political involvement/ activism and volunteering or maybe swimming
I’m a white female
Thanks so much for reading all this! I am happy to chance someone else in return
Have you done pre-reads with any of the schools? Have you looked at Vassar? If you are not very competitive with NESCAC schools for swimming, how competitive are you with Swarthmore (centennial) and Vassar (Liberty)? I would keep in touch with the coaches and ask for pre-reads if you have not done so, and hopefully to get OV invites for the fall. FWIW, my DS20 is looking at a couple LACs on your list and they are doing his pre-reads now. Good luck.
Congratulations on all your achievements!
You obviously are a competitive candidate for the colleges you named, so there is no reason not to apply.
IMO, chance threads are not all that useful, because none of us students/parents/alumni posting on CC has a crystal ball and can predict what each admissions committee will think when they view your entire application in comparison to those of the other applicants.
By all means apply to these colleges, but also find some matches and safeties. You might check out high matches Vassar, Hamilton, Colgate, and Bates; low matches Skidmore, Connecticut College, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Lafayette, Bard, Brandeis, Macalester; and safeties Clark, Muhlenberg, Wheaton (MA), your state’s best public universities and honors programs (but if you live in a state with crazily competitive flagship publics, like Michigan/ California/ Virginia, then these are NOT safeties for you).
Demonstrate interest (visits, interviews, college fairs) at the matches and safeties so they don’t think that is all you are using them for, but see your genuine interest. Pick them carefully and let yourself fall in love with them.
Good luck!
If you might want to study in D.C. or if you might want the option of a major in public policy, then look into Hamilton. Interestingly, it graduates the highest percentage of Hispanic language majors of any college of which I’m aware. As with your listed choices, your academic accomplishments match well with Hamilton’s profile.
I agree with what others have written - you are competitive for all of those colleges, but for any colleges with an acceptance rate of under 20% or so, there is a lot of unpredictability.
Luckily there are excellent LACs with a wide range of acceptance rates, and it would be pretty easy to build up a list of reaches/matches/safeties. The colleges here are all reaches, so choose your favorite ones from there, and then check out the excellent colleges proposed by @TheGreyKing.