My chances at some Ivies and others...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am currently a junior and while I feel I have a good grip on the college process, I would like to hear some others' opinions on my chances at a few institutes of higher learning. NOTE: ECs/classes for senior year are what I plan to do...and I stick to plans quite well. Here goes nothing...</p>

<p>ME:
Semi-upper-middle-class white male.
I'm not a legacy at any of my schools.
Southwest PA.</p>

<p>GPA:
9th grade: 4.0 uw/4.06 w (cumulative 4.0 uw/4.06 w)
10th grade: 3.86 uw/4.29 w (cumul. 3.93 uw/4.17 w)
11th grade: 3.73 uw/4.33 w (cumul. 3.87 uw/4.22 w)</p>

<p>CLASSES:
9th: 2 honors
10th: 2 honors, 2 AP (World History, Calc AB)
11th: 1 honors, 4 AP (Eng. Lang., Calc BC, Spanish V, US History)
12th: 4 AP (Eng. Lit., Chem, Econ, Statistics)</p>

<p>CLASS RANK:
1st decile weighted/4th decile unweighted
(The difference is due to some "B" grades in my AP classes...GC only reports the best (weighted or unweighted) decile to the college...we don't rank individually)</p>

<p>SCHOOL:
Competitive public, upper middle class suburb, blue ribbon school a few years back, 2 USA Today Academic All-Americans in the last 5 years, 3 current seniors with perfect 2400 SATs, sends a fair number to Ivies</p>

<p>PSAT:
72 CR/67 M/74 W = 213
Commended YES, Semi-Finalist NOT SURE</p>

<p>SAT I:
1st sitting: 730 CR/760 M/780 W (11 essay) = 2270 (1490 M+CR)
<em>should I retake the SAT I?</em></p>

<p>SAT II:
Math IIc, US History, Chemistry SCHEDULED</p>

<p>AP TESTS:
10th: World History (5)
11th: Eng. Lang., Calc BC, US History SCHEDULED
12th: Eng. Lit., MicroEcon, MacroEcon, Stats, Chem SCHEDULED</p>

<p>ECs/AWARDS:
IN-SCHOOL:
-JV Cross Country (9th)
-Freshman Baseball (9th)
-JV Baseball (10th, 11th)
-Varsity Baseball (11th, 12th)
-Varsity Golf (12th, confident I can make it...only 12th b/c I just started to play at beginning of 9th grade!)
-Spanish Club (10th)
-Helped to found school's Cricket Club (10th)
-Cricket club secretary (10th, 11th, 12th)
-NHS (10th, 11th, 12th) (can run for prez 12th) (participate in food drives/community tutoring, 2-4 hrs./week)
-Honor roll (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th)
-School store volunteer (11th (as part of marketing class work experience), 12th)
-Member of 3-person quiz team for a local TV quiz show (11th)
-Architecture Apprenticeship (11th)
-Business Apprenticeship (12th)
-Commencement Speaker (12th, I plan to...school doesn't have vals/sals anymore...too un-PC I guess)
OUT-OF-SCHOOL:
-Junior American Legion Baseball (8th (team made it to state championships), 9th)
-Community Baseball (8th, 10th (team won league championship))
-Volunteer at church (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) (read the liturgy 2 times/month...3-5 hrs./month since start of high school)
-Caddie at golf club (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) (started at start of high school...20-30 hrs./week summer, 4-8 hrs./week fall & spring...reached "A" caddie status in less than 2 years)
-Bag room worker at golf club (11th, 12th) (same hours as above)
-Junior golf tournaments (1-9th, 3-11th)</p>

<p>Now that you've heard my life story, would you please kindly chance me for the following schools? (I plan on majoring in finance or economics, but I might put down "undecided" so they can't discriminate against a common major.)</p>

<p>IVIES:<br>
Dartmouth
University of Pennsylvania
Brown
Cornell</p>

<p>MATCH:
University of Virginia
Carnegie Mellon University</p>

<p>SAFETY:
University of Pittsburgh (employee parent=free tuition, plus I'm honors college eligible by a long shot.)</p>

<p>Thank you very, very much for your input! I welcome undeserved praise as well as criticism and advice (but I prefer the latter 2).</p>

2

<p>Bump please for some advice!!</p>

3

<p>What school within Penn are you applying to?</p>

4

<p>Wharton. I would do finance everywhere but Dartmouth and Brown, where I would major in economics (they don't have undergrad business programs).</p>

5

<p>So many views, so little replies! Help me out, please!!!</p>

6

<p>I'm not expert on whether you'll get in, but I don't think you need to retake the SATs.</p>

7

<p>Take a look at the decisions threads on each of the individual college's forums on this site. You can see the admission results of each person next to their stats for this year and for past years. More helpful than any random chance post responses.</p>

8

<p>I'd say you have a nice list as long as you're happy going to a non-Ivy league school if the Ivies don't work out for you. You're pretty much a walk in for the University of Pittsburgh and I agree with your ratings for UVA and Carnegie Mellon as well. Seven is definitely a good amount of schools to apply to--I personally don't understand why people have a need to apply to over 10 schools in so many cases. Overall, it looks like you're set! Btw... if you have one school that you favor out of the other Ivies, I DEFINITELY recommend doing ED; for Ivies (particularly Penn) it give syou a major boost.</p>

9

<p>Yay. Another pittsburgher. give me 3 guesses and i think i can guess your school.</p>

<p>But your application has made me a lot more pessimistic about mine. Well, at least my highest aspirations are to CMU... CSC of course... and i guess that's pretty high.</p>

10

<p>IVIES:
Dartmouth: LOW REACH
University of Pennsylvania: REACH
Brown: HIGH REACH
Cornell: MATCH </p>

<p>unless you're confident that you'll get a higher SAT score, don't retake it, focus on your SATIIs and think about taking the ACTs, your SAT scores are perfectly fine for those schools, and yeah, apply ED/EA for some schools if you can</p>

11

<p>Thanks so much to everybody! Glad to hear I'm pretty solid on the SAT I (no need to retake, worry about SAT IIs/APs instead), and thanks to asianprincess for giving me a school-by-school Ivy breakdown (some sites charge you for that stuff)! I also neglected to mention, U Michigan and Notre Dame would probably go in the "match" category - I might decide to add or subtract a few from each category. Thanks again to all!</p>

12

<p>I agree, some people that apply to 10+ colleges are way too indecisive. I know someone that blindly applied to 7/8 Ivies as well as some others. I would apply to 9 at most! Thanks again...keep the help coming!</p>

13

<p>most of my friends apply to less than 5...
is it me or are people on this board slightly... mental?
going to the chance me threads with lists of over 20 schools is... rather intimidating.</p>

14

<p>Yes...perhaps they're a wee bit crazy?</p>

<p>Notice our # of posts...does not suggest a CC infatuation...well, at least not yet. :)</p>

15

<p>as everyone has said, you don't have to retake SAT I. Just try to get 750+ for all of your SAT IIs. I'd say your chances are solid. I'd even go as far as to suggest that you should apply to a few more reaches (ex. Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale), because changes are, you'll get into one of them (with good essays & references)</p>

<p>IVIES:
Dartmouth: low reach
University of Pennsylvania: reach
Brown: match/low reach
Cornell: match/low reach</p>

<p>MATCH:
University of Virginia: match
Carnegie Mellon University: match</p>

<p>SAFETY:
University of Pittsburgh (employee parent=free tuition, plus I'm honors college eligible by a long shot.): safety</p>