Hello. This year I am applying to colleges and receiving extremely unfavorably results. I got rejected to Duke, Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT. I got wait listed to Carnegie Mellon and UCLA. I know these are very difficult schools to get into, but someone at my school with a GPA and test scores significantly below me and who also has no ECs at all besides track got into CMU (although he was part black and Native American and I’m Indian). On top of that, a girl from my school got into MIT after receiving disciplinary action from plagiarizing and she was even kicked out of classes and NHS.
This year I suffered from my IBS and missed a lot of school, delaying the release of my mid year report due to incomplete grades. Most schools received my mid year report around March 9th. Do you think this is the cause of my results so far? I am hoping for a school on Ivy Day but with these results, it looks like many of my high school endeavors are going to waste.
Here is a brief overview of my credentials.
GPA: UW- 3.87 W- 4.2
SAT: 2340 - 800M, 780 W, 760R
SAT II: 800 M2, 800 Physics
Taking 11 APs by the end of high school
Many ECs, including student council, published research and board positions in many other organizations, along with track and cross country all four years
It’s very possible the late info may be a cause. Do you have a safety you would be happy to attend? If not you may want to consider a gap year as an option to reapply to schools (if so I recommend a different list).
@“Erin’s Dad” I was admitted to the University of Maryland, UC San Diego, and Rutgers, but I hope to at least get into at least one top school with everything that I have done in high school.
No matter what your academic stats are, nobody can count on getting into schools like Duke etc. where you were rejected. The super-competitive colleges do not have close to enough room for all the top stat applicants they get. To me it looks like you have reach (those schools are reaches for anyone regardless of academic stats) and some more or less safety schools but you have no group of real match schools. You can send a short letter/email of continued interest to the schools you are on the waitlist for, include your mid-year results a brief explanation of the delay, and (only if true) you can tell one school “if accepted I will attend”.
IMO you should not count on a waitlist acceptance and after you write the email you should focus on the choices available to you. If you are unhappy with your acceptances consider a (meaningful) gap year and a more wide ranging college list next time. Regardless of where you end up, your HS work will not be “a waste” as you hopefully learned a great deal and should be well prepared for college level work.