NYU Stern or Ivy? HELP

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey CCers,

I am almost done with my junior year and deciding which school should I apply for ED.

Dartmouth was my dream school for years and I have some alumni/current student connections (my boss went to Dartmouth and my another boss went to Tuck, both of whom will write me a rec)

But then I realized my stats are really weak so am thinking about NYU Stern (not that Stern is easy. I just find the school very attractive and I can have an unparalleled business experience at Stern)

Could you guys please chance me?

GPA(UW): 3.8 (91% junior, 4.0 sophomore, senior idk hopefully 90+)
School doesn’t rank nor does it have Weighted GPA. My school ranks top #2 - #5 among private schools in my state every year.
SAT: 1490
SAT II: Math 2C 800, Bio 750, Japanese 720 (I am not a Japanese fyi, self studied the language for years), Korean 800 (but I am Korean so this doesn’t count oof)

Course Rigor

Sophomore: Took 3 classes at local state college (English Lit, Calc I, Human Anatomy)
Junior: AP Lit, AP Bio 1, AP Gov, AP Calc AB (I transferred so had to repeat calc and the school divides AP Bio in 2 yrs)
Senior: AP Lang, AP Bio 2, AP CSP, AP Human Geo, AP Calc BC, AP Stats

Extracurriculars

– President/Founder of School Model UN club
– President/Founder of School social justice club
– Have 2 businesses (CEO and Founder) in US/Korea (one made more than $40,000 in net earnings and the other doesn’t make much profit; both aim to educate young minds in international diplomacy and other disciplines)
– Interned at a start up in Korea as a marketing/sales B2C specialist
– Interend at a pretty big company in Korea as a consultant for incoming clients + invited to their Berlin company summit for the first time as an asian
– State House of Representative page member (I was the only one in the grade at my school)
– Private tutor for more than 6 years, teaching more than 15 ESL students
– and there’s more but I just can’t think of it. the above are the most defining I believe.

Hook

– Gay (which I will be writing about on my common app essay) , Moved to the US 2 years ago but still in the most challenging courses in school, always the first of something (first Korean to do this, first asian to do that and all that jazz), business owner, interned at real companies doing some real deal

Weaknesses

– international (I don’t have US citizen nor a green card), Asian (bamboo ceiling), pretty wealthy family, GPA is weak I feel like, maybe cliché essays (idk tho), I am not exactly the brightest kid in school.

could you guys plz help me out? I will chance you guys back!

2

Just wanted to mention that being gay is not a hook in the admissions process.

3

^^^ I didn’t say the OP should not write about being gay – that is completely the OP’s choice. The college essay should be used to tell the story the OP chooses to tell – the idea is to provide the college with reasons to want to have him/her on campus that can’t be found elsewhere on the application. But certainly making up things is not the way to go.

I did say that being gay is not a “hook” (at least as defined on CC) and that is the case. A hook is when an individual has something unique that fulfills a specific institutional need of a college. Typical examples of a hook are being a recruited athlete, being the child of a huge donor, having some extremely positive fame that the school feels it can benefit by (ex. Malala). Very very few people have hooks. The OP will be one of many many gay applicants to any of the schools he/she is considering and there is no institutional need to have the OP in particular on campus so it does not provide a “hook.”

4

[quote]
I disagree completely. Focus your essays on being gay. Throw in tons of examples b** that clearly illustrate how being gay created obstacles that you had to overcome. Write that you were picked on b** and had to overcome tons of adversity and bullying./quote

It’s not often that I will say that something is actually bad advice, but imo this is clearly bad advice. Whatever else, don’t lie. The odds on you being able to write a credible fake story, on a very common essay subject are pretty bad.

Choose your essay topic on something that you can write about with conviction and that shows the AdComms why you - @MLAisreal - would be an asset to their campus. If being gay is your best, most interesting feature, then fine- write about it. Just know that it is not in any way unique in itself- you will have to make it stand out from the crowd.

5

Just took a look at the common data set numbers. Dartmouth admitted 565/1999 ED applicants for a 28% acceptance rate. That is much higher than it’s overall acceptance rate. In contrast, there was little difference between NYU’s ED and regular acceptance rates. Inasmuch as OP’s GPA and SATs are lowish for Dartmouth, ED may be his only shot at getting in.

Also, just curious OP, but how did you end up between NYU and Dartmouth? I can hardly think of two more different schools. Dartmouth has a pretty campus, but it’s in the middle of nowhere while NYU is in the middle of NYC.

6

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are great. Write good essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools

7

@TheBigChef haha I know, NYU and Dartmouth are very different schools. I was instantly gratified by the vibe that Dartmouth gave me when I visited and all the people I admire went to Dartmouth. But then, NYU is also an attractive option especially I wanted to be who I really am as a gay cis-man (One of NYU Students’ quotes is, I heard, Gays Before May lol). Both schools are nice, and I lived in one of the biggest cities in the world and also a very small town in Midwest so location doesn’t really matter for me. I can easily adapt to what is given upon myself.