Please chance me: UChicago, Northwestern, Duke, Columbia

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

2150 SAT (700/780/670, all second try)
31 ACT (awaiting retake score, 23/34~/34~/34~ first try)
3.6 uw (4 scale)
4.8 w (6 scale)
rank ~100/600 (top 50 is 5.2 w)
12 AP courses
Good-strong recs from Comp Sci/Econ teacher
3+ minor Comp Sci EC’s
Standard volunteer EC’s + summer volunteer

Schools (my reaches):
Duke
UChicago
Northwestern
Columbia

Chances at my reaches? Concerns, attention needed?

Considering dropping Columbia application.

Thanks and good luck to all
-chancethisanon

2

The bad news is this: your SAT and ACT are at or near the 25th percentile, rather than the 75th, at the schools on your list, and your UW GPA is below the 25th percentile by quite a bit. A class rank in the top 20%, while not by any means bad, is very low for the schools on your list.

Your ECs don’t seem like they’ll move the needle in a good or bad way (decent, so you won’t be hurt by a lack thereof, but you seemingly understand that they’re not spectacular either). If your recommendations are good, but not incredible, they won’t make that much of a difference either.

In short, your academics are a drag on your overall application, while your ECs are average. There are two ways I can see you getting in (and both these factors may be necessary).

  1. Essays that really make the reader want to fight for you. These are the main tool colleges use in differentiating between 20,000 qualified applicants, or choosing which almost-qualified applicants they'll admit.
  2. An EA/ED application. I'd say your chances are best at Northwestern - they love ED because it allows them to increase their yield, and their GPA and test score midranges are slightly lower than those of your other schools (Chicago and Columbia especially). You may also want to look at other schools that are strong for your major.

If you’re a URM, low-income applicant, first-generation college student, recruited athlete, etc. that could also make a difference. In the absence of any such information, I would say that you have a chance at all of these school, but are handicapped by your grades and test scores - these are good, but still below-average for the universities in question.

Apply if you want to, but don’t set yourself up for disappointment by expecting too much.

3

Good advice from NotVerySmart. For the unhooked student applying to schools of this caliber you would want an UW GPA of 3.85 or higher, test scores safely within the middle 50th percentile, and a fair amount of rigor meaning 6 or more AP courses with at least a couple completed when applying. 12 AP courses is an awful lot. Too late now but one has to wonder if you wouldn’t have been better off taking 6 or 8 but getting better grades. And then you need exceptional essays on top of that. It is conceivable if you went to the Bronx High School of Science or IMSA that being 100 out of 600 in your class would not be a problem. U.Chicago seems to pay particular attention to essays so perhaps these can set you apart.

4

For anyone reading this in the future, I’d like to happily report that I received a composite 34 on my second attempt on the ACT.