<p>As long as you do some extracurricular activities, you can "inflate" the importance of your role and experience in whatever club/organization in your essays. You still need to have great GPA, SATs, and essays. </p>
<p>You don't need to be some prodigy or nationally ranked athlete to get into the Ivies.</p>
<p>blueducky, truly, you are overestimating the difficulty of this process in a way that is not constructive. Even with a good essay, strong academic credentials and winning national awards one may still not get in. No one is disputing that the process is tough. My best piece of advice would be to write an essay that plays to your strengths/accomplishments while portraying your true personality. This is way easier said than done, but can yield great results. You can't do much more at this point.</p>
<p>Yea, Cervantes you are right. There are simply too many qualified applicants and too little space.</p>
<p>Yep, and also, in crafting your essays, do not underestimate the power of peer review. Have your teachers, parents, and friends read them for appropriateness, tone, clarity and sincerity. These attributes are very important. Make sure your essays sound like YOU though. Do not let them write your essay for you lol. Good Luck, and hopefully next year you'll be an HYPSM 13'er!</p>
<p>After reading this thread, I think I fit your description.</p>
<p>No legacy - First one to attend college in my family
No minority status - I am Chinese and that works against me
No athletics - Does 2 years of p.e. count? xD</p>
<p>Leadership....well I was vice-president of my Key Club during 12th grade....but other than that, no leadership</p>
<p>I did have ECs, but not impressive ones:
Key Club
Student Council
Tutoring students in math
Teaching myself French and Chinese</p>
<p>I had two awards:
National Merit Semifinalist
AP Scholar</p>
<p>Even though I was weak in my ECs, I made up for that by writing about my strong passion for learning foreign languages and helping others (being a passionate nice guy). I grew up in a multilingual family so I was exposed to Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Mandarin all the time. However, I did not know how to speak any of these languages until I started high school; at first, I thought knowing English was good enough for me. It was not until I started taking French in high school did I see how valuable a foreign language can be to my life - I have a larger and more impressive English vocabulary because of French; I can now read and understand some Spanish (living in California, I should have taken Spanish xD); but anyways, that passion inspired me to learn Cantonese and Mandarin on my own; I have been teaching myself for 3 years and I can now speak it decently - enough to get around and buy dimsum. I wrote my essays about this passion and how hard I tried to teach myself (countless nights of notecards, writing, etc...).</p>
<p>Then came college admissions:
Harvard - Waitlist
Yale - Rejected
Princeton - Rejected
Stanford - Waitlist
Columbia - Accepted</p>
<p>I was so ecstatic that Columbia accepted me. Thus, it is possible to get into an Ivy League without legacy, minority, athletics, and leadership.</p>
<p>However, do not get your hopes up. While I want to let you know that it is possible, it does not mean that it is likely. I am VERY LUCKY to get into a school like that with my stats. Also, I scored a 2290 and was ranked 1/705 but who isn't nowadays. =] Like what many people have said before, there are so many qualified applicants and so little space so there is no guarantee of an acceptance.</p>
<p>You were the first one to attend college in your family, i don't even have THAT.</p>
<p>Wow you do sound like me in many other aspects though. I don't even know if i should bother wasting my $ applying to basically all Ivies + Stanford + MIT, just for that 1/20 chance of getting into one of them. For sure i won't apply to Princeton and Yale though (i made up my mind about this before i read your post lol). Those 2 are near impossible.</p>
<p>What other schools did you apply to/get into?</p>
<p>Blueducky honestly you are freaking out way too much. I am not in the "same exact" position as you since I am a legacy at 2 great schools, but seriously you are qualified so can you stop asking. You are cutting yourself short for no reason, but its your life and your college so whatever. MOST KIDS don't have "amazing ecs", most kids don't have national awards, most kids are not legacies, most kids are not URMS, most kids are not athletes---MOST KIDS ARE LIKE YOU. Smart, motivated and determined. So you do have a chance of getting in, so its all about casting a wide net as possible to maximize your odds. On a side note...chill a little</p>
<p>ok thanks</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Besides those 4 Ivies and Stanford, I also applied to:</p>
<p>USC - Accepted with a full scholarship
UCLA - Accepted with a Regent Scholarship
UC Berkeley - Accepted with a Regent Scholarship
UC San Diego - Accepted with an Honors Scholarship
UC Santa Barbara - Accepted with a Regent Scholarship</p>
<p>But I chose Columbia over all of them because private schools give more money than public ones. (Usually) Although USC is literally free (Columbia is practically free, still need to pay a few thousands), I personally do not like the school and I am sick of Los Angeles. xD</p>
<p>Dwindlelights, how difficult would you say it is to qualify for the Regent Scholarship for UCs? Don't they just enter you automatically? And isn't it based on scores/grades only or something? I have a 2260 SAT I and a 2400 sat II combo, ranked 2 out of 500, would this be enough for a regent scholarship?</p>
<p>How generous was Columbia's aid? Your story fits in with this other guy at our school two years ago - he was Mexican, first-generation, phenomenal XC runner, pres of Key club = columbia full ride, millenium gates scholarship i think.</p>