Princeton and Stanford

White male from Canada, applied from Fin aid

GPA: Like 95/100 cumulative with significant upward trend (School offers no AP, IB, honors, etc.). Also highest average in my school of about 260.

Tests: 36 ACT w/ 12 essay. 800 chem, 800 physics, 800 math 2

Main EC’s: Organized a blood drive at my school which collected 63 units of blood (sent in news article about this),
built a telescope (common app essay is about this),
1st place in mcmaster physics contest, also several math contests I got a distinction (though this isn’t too significant)
self taught programmer and built one app that I included in additional info,
Ran a tutorial youtube channel that taught 100,000’s of viewers how to edit.
Part of student council,
founded a math contest club at my school.
Lots of other small things in the school that don’t stand out specifically.

Essays: Common app essay I’ve been told is really good. For each supplemental I feel like I made them pretty personal and I spent a tonne of time perfecting them. Obviously this is the part that’s hard to judge objectively yet makes a big difference.

Teachers all wrote really venerating letters.

No interview for Stanford. Princeton interview could not have possibly gone better, we really connected and she told me I’d be a good fit.

I’ve been rejected from Caltech and MIT so far.

you stand a good chance at both of these score-wise. i think it’ll boil down to your essays for both. good luck!

Thank you! I know how tough and mostly up to luck each of these are to get in but I want to attend either so badly.

Update: Rejected from princeton and waitlisted at stanford! Does anyone know how the admissions process changes when they reconsider your application vs. considering it for the first time??