<p>what are my chances of getting into a school like stanford,ucla,yale. If i have an sat score of 2100+ and a gpa of 4.0 and take tons of APs have tons of volunteer hours and played the violin for 7 years. The catch is theres nothing too special about me. i read somewhere that to get into CalTech for example you have to have been doing Physics research derived Calculus or something along those lines, do i have any chance?</p>
<p>you might need some more ECs and some leadership positions on some activities. Aim for like 2250/2300+ on SAT or a 34+ on ACT.</p>
<p>Im president of a club and vp of another club would i need anymore for the EC?</p>
<p>Honestly you can do everything right and still be rejected. IVY leagues just do things like that. Needless to say if you come across as unique in your essay you definitely can be accepted</p>
<p>You said there’s nothing special about you, first problem. You need confidence.</p>
<p>Second, those SATs need to be higher for those schools.</p>
<p>Also, work on extra curricular stuff. That helps immensely.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why this board says everyone’s SAT needs to be higher. Very few schools have an average composite of over 2200. A 2100 by itself won’t keep you out anywhere, and a 2400 by itself won’t get you in anywhere.</p>
<p>The MIT admissions blog is really straightforward about this, saying that it’s pretty much just a check in the box that you have a decent score, and they’ve never been convinced to accept a student because of any test score. It’s the essays, recommendations, and accolades that will gain a student admission. Everything else is just a prerequisite.</p>
<p>EDIT: Okay, a 2400 might gain you automatic admission at some schools, but that’s obviously not what I’m talking about here.</p>
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<p>All other things being equal, a higher SAT or ACT score makes you a more viable candidate – it shows you have the intellectual rigor to handle tougher material than is present in most high school classrooms which, in turn, makes it less likely you will drop out of college or transfer due to stress. If your high school seldom sends its graduates to elite schools, it also provides a universal benchmark against which to compare your GPA – in some schools, a 4.0 is nearly impossible; in some inner-city schools, students with 4.0s cannot read their own diplomas. </p>
<p>The average SAT is largely irrelevant if you don’t have special hooks that the school desires. These schools could accept only 2300+/35+ students if they desired; enough of their 30,000+ applicants fall into that range. But these schools also want to fill their orchestra and their sports teams and get national competitors in math, science and literary competitions. Plus get at least their historical balance of URMs, low-income students, students from rural areas and from every state in the union.</p>
<p>So the concept is false that there is a minimum test score threshold and, beyond that, it’s irrelevant. Adcoms will certainly dip down below the median SAT score to get a kid from Wyoming or a qualified cello player for their orchestra, but only if they have to. What if you’re one of 10 possibilities and they only need one? You would need to be the best candidate overall from that group – yet, from the outside looking in, you have no idea of what your direct-competition peers will look like. </p>
<p>So it’s better to have a higher score than a lower one – and the more common your talent or experience, the more your test score could be the deciding factor: these schools want to accept the specialty-niche students who will also be successful in their classes and remain there for all 4 years.</p>
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<p>This makes me laugh. As if Mathman is going to go into his exam thinking:“OK, now I need to make 3 mistakes in this section and 2 in the next.”</p>
<p>I’m with Lorem Ipsum. But would add that the point of the application (incl LoRs) is to show your stuff. The scores, transcript, activities and writing are your way to show your vision and vigor, how you take on challenges, make something of yourself- and have some impact. And will continue to. Or not. Even among top performers, with all the goods, there will still be brutal competition.</p>
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<p>Right. If nailing a super-high SAT or ACT score is not your thing, try to really emphasize the parts of your portfolio where you do stand out from the crowd. It’s possible, for example, to offset a so-so SAT score by being attractive in two niches: say, the cello player who’s also very active in community service, organizing musical presentations in senior centers or for underprivileged children. That’s more appealing to adcoms than just taking the cello player with the highest SAT.</p>
<p>This is what I was referring to:</p>
<p>[What?s</a> the big deal about 40^2? | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/whats_the_big_deal_about_402]What?s”>What’s the big deal about 40^2? | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>If there’s no difference between a 1400 and a 1600 at MIT (or a 2100 and a 2400, since the introduction of the writing section in 2005), I doubt there’s a difference anywhere else.</p>
<p>I agree that everything you’ve said seems well reasoned, yet it contradicts what at least MIT says it looks at. Maybe they’re just saying this. Or, maybe 2004 is going too far back, and the ever increasing competition, not only between schools for prestige, but between students for admission, has meant a change of practice for these schools.</p>
<p>However, consider the possibility that what MIT says was true, and still is true. Consider the possibility that this extends to most, or all, top schools. It seems entirely plausible that the type of student that MIT happens to admit also happens to be the type of student that scores a 2300+ on the SAT. Perhaps the causal relationship really is backwards.</p>
<p>Food for thought.</p>