Should I apply to Ivies? Suggestions? Help Please :(

Applying to College
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<p>Hey guys! I recently heard back from my ED college (Columbia) and I was deferred, so I'm trying to revise my college list (super late in the game, I know) and I'm wondering if there's any advice one which ones I should add or remove. </p>

<p>Currently Interested in:
Stanford, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Northwestern, UPenn. (if you have any suggestions and some I should add, feel free!) </p>

<p>Potential Major: Economics or International Business
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White, Native American, Chinese</p>

<p>Academics:
GPA: 3.9 (unweighted), ~4.3 (weighted)
SAT 1: 760 - W, 750 - M, 680 - CR (2190)
SAT 2: 750 - US History, 710 - Math 2, 710 - Bio (E)
APs: US History (5), Biology (5), Music Theory (3)
Currently taking: AP Literature, AP Chinese, AP Calc AB, AP Gov/Econ, Physics H</p>

<p>Extracurriculars and Awards:
-Currently President of FBLA (my chapter has 270 members), in past years I was the VP of Competitions and Partnership with Business Chair (I've been active all 4 years of high school)
-National Champion in Entrepreneurship (FBLA)
-State Champion Partnership with Business Project
-President of National Chinese Honor Society
-Captain and Co-founder of History Bowl Club
-2 time captain and 2 time MVP of Varsity Tennis Team (I've been on varsity since freshman year)
-Piano Teacher since 6th grade
-Tennis Coach since 8th grade
-Marketing Intern at a small startup sophomore year
-Corporate Development Intern at an international high-tech company junior year
-Member of NHS and CSF
-AP Scholar Award
-Participant in Stanford University's Reischauer Scholar's Program
-Section Leader and member of an Honor Band (clarinet) freshman year</p>

<hr>

<p>I think my ECs are okay, but academics is where I'm struggling. Any input is appreciated Thanks so much, and best of luck to all of you!</p>

2

<p>Do you have tribal affiliation? There are very few NA candidates with your stats, so frankly I’m surprised Columbia didn’t grab you. </p>

<p>Your CR score is quite weak for ivies and you don’t have ivy level ECs.
If schools are not buying your NA status this list will be tough. So figure that out and apply accordingly.</p>

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<p>A lot of people who like Columbia like the University of Chicago, too.
What do you mean, struggling with academics?
Getting deferred (as opposed to rejected) from Columbia proves that you are competitive at this level.
I disagree with the above poster; your ECs are strong.</p>

4

<p>Everything looks perfect. Why not pay your attention to essays and show yourself more in different light?</p>

5

<p>AY! You are a competitive applicant for all of the above, but why do you not have any match/safety schools?! (Maybe Georgetown represents one match?) You should also apply to your in-state college, if it’s any good at all, or its honors program, and some other schools where you are sure of being admitted! If money’s an issue, the number of safeties/publics you apply to should be higher. I’d suggest maybe BC, BU, GWU (although very bad financial aid), Villanova or American for complete safeties…CC’s SuperMatch probably can give you a more comprehensive list than that, though.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the advice guys!</p>

<p>To answer the question about tribal affiliation, I’m only a small percentage of Native American, so I know what tribe I’m from (and I marked that on Commonapp) but they asked me if I was registered, which I am not. That’s probably why it my ethnicity can be a factor, but I don’t think it can hold most of the weight to my application</p>

<p>@exultationsy, I do have other state schools and public schools I’ve already applied to; these are just my reaches that I’m looking at :)</p>

<p>Do you think there are any other ivies I should try, but haven’t yet considered?</p>

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<p>Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell?</p>

<p>That’s pretty much the list.</p>

<p>However, let me ask you a different question – Let’s get away from labels, like “Ivy”. From your visits, what schools have appealed to you. Did you like urban, suburban, rural? How important is this to you. What about size of school (i.e., number of students). How important is a campus to you? Do you want to be close to home? How close? How important is this? What do you want to study? What schools are strong there? Will you need financial aid? Given the choice of a better school (with less money) or a school (still very good) where you can get a merit scholarship, which would you choose?</p>

<p>As you can see, there are a lot of questions in pulling together a list.</p>

8

<p>You would be a shoo in at every school if they bought the native American heritage. Without that, the ivies are major reaches. Your CR score, the most important, is weak. Your ECs are good, but not necessarily ivy caliber. If you don’t have a safety you really like, I would consider adding a couple.</p>

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<p>tennislvr, why are you looking at only Ivies and state/public? There is a HUGE gap between those. Why no highly selective non-Ivy LACs such as Wesleyan, Swarthmore, etc. on your list? Those are the schools you should be looking at – they’re schools you’ve got a good chance at, and the education you’ll receive is absolutely just as good as the one you’d receive at one of the Ivies – better, in many ways, as your professors are more likely to be interested in teaching undergrads, you’ll have better access to them, and you won’t have graduate students teaching you.</p>

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<p>@ OP Phew! That’s great, but I agree with valeree that you should have more matches. I very much disagree with her that an LAC is “better” than most Ivies; of course they can be better fits for some people, but the sort of person who applies ED to Columbia is not likely to be that sort of person.</p>

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<p>exult, I said “better in many ways.” Do you think professors who are committed to undergraduate education and no classes taught by grad assistants is ever a bad thing? :)</p>

<p>Not sure what you mean by ‘they can be better fits for some people, but the sort of person who applies ED to Columbia is not likely to be that sort of person.’ I would think Columbia or any of the other Ivies might be a reach school on the list of a lot of students who are also applying to Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, etc. People go ED for a lot of bad reasons, including thinking it’s the only way they have a chance at X Ivy and that “if I get into an Ivy, of course I’ll go there.”</p>

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<p>I think I’m more of a college relativist than you. I can’t think of a trait I was looking for in a school that top universities had and top LACs didn’t that I’d unequivocally say was “better” to have than not to have. High academic standards; good classes; an intellectual environment; those were my indisputable "good"s, but top LACs and top universities both have them. I think the differences between LACs and top universities are relative. Small class size? Better? For some people, sometimes. Not having grad students around? Better? For some people, sometimes. Or, on the flip side, greater diversity of courses that comes from being at a major university? Better? Still for some people, sometimes. Personally, I have a great relationship with a bunch of my professors, and I appreciate my opportunities to take whackily specialized courses that would be less likely to be around with a smaller student body/an entirely undergraduate student body, so I shan’t concede that LACs have a monopoly on committed professors or that having no classes taught by grad assistants is always, 100% of the time, a good thing…To repeat myself, better? For some people, sometimes. :)</p>

<p>Swat, say, seems more of a piece with Princeton than with Columbia. (And I’m not entirely convinced that Dartmouth and Amherst aren’t the same school.) Quiet; not urban; small and close-knit and not in a big crazy city. Wesleyan perhaps, but Columbia seems to me to give off a quintessentially “we are a university! we like being a university! we have a fantastic liberal arts college at our core but we are not just that!” vibe that LACs, obviously, don’t.</p>

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<p>Well, of course there’s always a small percentage of people for whom something that’s generally a positive could be a negative. If you want to be able to skip class without being noticed, a larger class size is definitely a help! :slight_smile: But I’d have said that greater choice of courses that comes from being at a major university was a positive for 99% of people. It’s certainly one of the few drawbacks I see to attending an LAC for undergrad. Possibly not being able to decide you want to be an engineer (or whatever else isn’t offered as a major) is another.</p>