Hello, I am a rising senior and below are my stats.
What is your UW GPA?
HS course rigor?
Stanford is a High Reach school even with a perfect 4.0 GPA and ACT/SAT scores. There is no way to chance any applicant for a school like Stanford. Your GPA will be a major stumbling block.
I am planning to apply early decision, not sure if that would up my chances. My school does not do unweighted but it is a 3.69 weighted. I go to a rigorous accelerated high school program with all AP/Honors classes.
As the Harvard lawsuit shows, if you’re first gen and a URM you really do have a decent shot with your stats.
However, my GPA is significantly lower than Stanford’s average so I am unsure if my EMT and other volunteer/EC’s compensate.
……and nor does anyone on this forum know if they will.
Stanford has REA not ED.
Restrictive Early Action Policy;
-Applicants do not apply to any other private college/university under their Early Action, Restrictive Early Action, Early Decision or Early Notification program.
-Applicants may apply to other colleges and universities under their Regular Decision option.
Your GPA is well below the average at both Stanford or Northwestern. You have decent ECs, but nothing spectacular. The first generation college student doesn’t really help much, but if you are an URM (you didn’t specify race) then it may help. Even with an REA or ED to either school, I wouldn’t give you a favorable chance at acceptance, especially at Stanford. Being an officer of a club isn’t the most important thing - especially if it’s a club like “Rap Battle Club” or “Gaming Club”. The volunteering is good, as is the research, but beyond that, not much. Do you mind specifying for us the clubs you are involved in, and what you do in each club? If they are all clubs where you just meet for 2 hours a week afterschool to talk about stuff, it won’t really help you admissions wise, even if you did create and/or hold leadership positions in them. On the other hand, if you have done good work with actual real world results (ex. planting a garden for the school, raising money for charity, etc.) in these clubs, they will help you more admissions wise. I would be worried that your GPA would make colleges discard your application from consideration before they even take a deep dive into it (many colleges weed out people early based on low GPAs and/or stats), but if you can make it to that deep-dive, I would hope your ECs and clubs were productive and had real world implications. GL!
I suspect that your subpar GPA may also indicate that you are not in the top 10%, maybe not top 20%, of your high school class. And both of these factors will harm your chance of admission to Stanford & Northwestern whether you apply REA, ED or RD.
Also, if your grades & class rank are less than outstanding, then your teacher recommendations may reflect this as well.
Of course, I have only addressed your “negatives”, and it is clear that you have positive accomplishments & attributes which make you an attractive candidate.
I cannot assess your chances for either school, but can point out the obvious areas of concern.
P.S. It would be helpful to know your intended major.
Yes, I am an URM. The clubs I hold leadership positions in are various honor societies (Spanish, NHS), as well as Biology and Health Club. In these, I organize meetings which are usually once a week, and plan volunteer outings. In the club I founded, we meet once every two weeks for 3 hours and discuss medical topics and volunteer out in the community (cancer walks, making cards at hospitals). I have also went on a service trip to Mexico.
I am planning on double majoring in psychology and either biology or neuroscience.
Admits to Stanford and Northwestern have quite similar stats (GPA, SAT/ACT), but Stanford gets a lot more apps.
Stanford REA admit %, last time I could find the numbers, was around 9%. Northwestern’s ED is in the 20s%. Stanford’s RD is like 4% and Northwestern’s must be around 6-7%. So statistically you’d be very roughly 2-3 times as likely to get into Northwestern applying ED (vs. Stanford REA), and maybe about 50-75% more likely to get into Northwestern in the RD round.
Check my numbers in the schools’ CDS.