<p>"played piano with Yanni"</p>
<p>ROFLMAO hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha</p>
<p>Why do people list their PSAT scores? It's meaningless.</p>
<p>TheDesiBoi - Do you actually think he has a shot a Princeton and Yale?! I'd recommend looking at the RD acceptance/rejection threads for both schools... there's a substantial amount of people with perfect scores and more ec's than this who were flat out rejected.</p>
<p>I think he has a good chance at Villanova. Otherwise, I don't think he has great odds at the schools that you listed because they want strong ECs, not just high stats. I don't know how Berkeley considers applications. </p>
<p>Excellent schools that don't care that much about ECs, but care a lot about gpa and scores, include CalTech and Cooper Union.</p>
<p>Simply put, getting accepted to any top colleges without ECs will be hard.</p>
<p>The valedictorian at my D's prep school had a perfect 36 ACT AND a perfect 1600 SAT with rather standard EC's, applied to all 8 Ivies, and only got in to Penn. He, too, assumed he would be accepted to most or all. So did his parents. They were in for a very rude awakening.</p>
<p>EuropeGirl, is it true that you don't need EC's to get into Caltech? I always thought they were big on them.</p>
<p>mathwiz -
I haven't been able to access the threads with the Caltech / MIT acceptances on them recently - but I read most of profiles because MIT's kind of an interested place. Anyway, I think that the admissions dean at MIT is looking for slightly different things than her counterpart at CalTech, as there were remarkably few cross-admits. CalTech seems to want kids with pretty much flawless academics and board scores: they often had national awards and significant ec's - but it looked like it was at least possible to be admitted if you hadn't been able to collect medals, work on research projects, and so on. For MIT, it seemed like they actually would cut you a tiny bit of slack academically if you had done other cool stuff. </p>
<p>The other thing you must look at is the admissions statistics by sex. Pretty depressing if you're a guy, but better to know the facts up front.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I know quite a few friends and relatives that can be said to have little to no EC's and got in easily in to MIT. If you don't believe me, just take a walk on MIT's campus. Most nerdy by far. Heck, I'd call myself a "nerd".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, sure, but nerd definitely doesn't imply "no ECs". I don't know any current MIT students who didn't have a strong slate of ECs. It's true that the MIT application has only five spaces for ECs -- but that's because they prefer that their applicants show passion for <5 activities rather than joining a laundry list of clubs just to look good on an application.</p>
<p>An article about the MIT admissions process:
"It's important information, but when Johnson describes how MIT rates applicants, Sarah pays even closer attention. Johnson tells the group that MIT uses a ranking system that assigns students scores for academic style, personal style, and personal accomplishments. Academic style is more than just grade point average, test scores, rank in class, and other numbers, she says. MIT also looks for academic initiative. Personal style has to do with making good judgments, having a sense of humor, and motivating others to effect change. And personal accomplishments include those that demonstrate a student's leadership skills: participating in extracurricular activities, receiving recognition at the regional, national, or international level, holding down a job, or perhaps even establishing a new group to address a problem in the community. "</p>
<p>Near perfect stats will get you into 99.9% of the colleges in the country, but at the most selective dozen or two you'll need more. Clearly, high AI students seem to be admitted at substantially higher rates, but the absence of ECs could be a major problem at many top schools. They have applicants with great stats AND incredible ECs. When push comes to shove, do you think they'll trade a few higher SAT points for a great community project or a national debating award? Perhaps, but I wouldn't count on it. Having said that, a student with the listed stats will no doubt get some great acceptances.</p>
<p>I can speak for VU and say he would be waitlisted. VU waitlists students like him who do not participate in community service, school clubs... Even though he may be able to get into something like an Ivy, VU would waitlist him. They look for well rounded students not just smart ones. I say waitlist because they would want to see if he was really interested in VU.</p>
<p>He seriously will be rejected at most colleges. However it definitely will be a humbling experience which TOO confident students need. ECs r the life of the college campus so he brings no life to the college unless his essays show. However i doubt that. Hubris always brings fatal results but people do learn from them.</p>