Suggest schools, chance me for Yale, Georgetown?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Senior from FL
White Male
Parent's Income about 90K</p>

<p>Rank: 2/660
GPA: 3.9756 uw 4.7805 w
ACT: 35!
SAT: 2160 (weak, i know)
PSAT: working on my NMS application
SATII's: Chemistry 720, Literature 690, U.S. History 770</p>

<p>AP Scores:
US History: 5
Chemistry: 4
Human Geo: 5
Eng Language: 4
Psych: 5
World History: 5</p>

<p>Notable EC's:
Treasurer of Student Council (9, 10)
President of Student Council (11,12)
National Honor Society
Intern for Obama's Campaign in FL (no political comments, please)
Selected for Youth Leadership Jacksonville. Highly selective program that trains future leaders.</p>

<p>Notable Awards:
National Merit Semifinalist
Not big on awards...</p>

<p>Senior Schedule
AP Calc.
AP Biology
AP English Lit.
AP Gov
AP Macroeconomics
AP European
Speech II/Debate</p>

<p>Dual Enrollment @ St. Johns' River Community College:
Intro to Sociology: A+
Intro to Statistics: A+</p>

<p>Major: Political Science/Economics/Public Policy/International Affairs (you get it...)</p>

<p>The Schools:
Yale, UPenn, Georgetown, Harvard, Columbia...</p>

<p>In addition to chancing me, could you also provide match schools for me?</p>

<p>Thanks in Advance!</p>

2

<p>You will find that most people who start chance threads about the very tip-top schools get the following comments:</p>

<p>You have as good a chance as any other, but no better. Ivy League and comparable schools are reaches for absolutely everyone. Good luck!</p>

3

<p>How about suggestions for smaller, less "well-known" match colleges? Would places like Amherst, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, or others be even better fits than those I've listed?</p>

4

<p>A smaller school that has a similar feel to Yale is Rice. You might want to look at Rice for a match school.</p>

5

<p>Another school that you might want to look at is the U of Chicago. It has a core curriculum much like Columbia and is also in a large and vibrant city with lots to do. I think that your stats definitely put you in the running there. Furtheremore, the campus is mostly gothic and looks a lot like Yale. Over the years there have been many connections between Yale and Chicago, including a former president of Yale who became president of Chicago. My child, who is now in her third year at Chicago thought about Rice and Columbia and decided on Chicago. She loves it there.</p>

6

<p>I think Wesleyan would be a good gamble for you. It's admission rate is 27%, no walk in the park -- but, better odds than Yale. It receives an awful lot of NSF money for scientific research, for a school its size. And, it's not that far from Yale, Brown, Vassar, Amherst (basically, anything between New York and Boston) so, you get a sense being part of a larger academic establishment. In fact, I'd look into all of the NESCAC colleges for that reason alone (Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Williams.)</p>

7

<p>I'm not enthused about your chances at any of the colleges on your list. By that I mean I think you have less than a 50% chance at all of them. UPenn is probably your best bet in the bunch. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, and would LOVE to be proven wrong. And, of course, I haven't read your recs or essays.</p>

<p>In the interim, get some matches and safeties.
I'd suggest Johns Hopkins (only slightly less competitive for admissions for international relations/poli sci types); Macalester, Claremont McKenna, U Wisconsin-Madison. If you are willing to consider California, I think Claremont McKenna would be well worth investigating for you.</p>

8

<p>Randomzm --</p>

<p>I agree with physicsmom --- you have as good a chance as most applicants to Top 10 schools. this means of course less than 25% chance at any individual school.</p>

<p>Academically you have no weaknesses. But neither do 60-70% of the other applicants to each of these schools. So the adcom next needs to sense something compelling about you. Where will the adcom get this? From your essays and the recommendations.</p>

<p>To put this into some probability ordering:</p>

<p>You are a reach from HYPSM, and (I'll say 60% chance of getting into one of them)</p>

<p>reach/match for Duke, Williams, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn, Amherst, Swarthmore, Vassar, Northwestern, Chicago, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Pomona, Haverford, (if you applied to all, you'd likely get into 6-10 of them)</p>

<p>A match for Georgetown, WashU, Cornell, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Berkeley, UVA, Mich, UCLA, etc. (I think you'd get into 75% of these).</p>

<p>well, that's off the top of my head so I probably missed a few.</p>

<p>You are surely in the top 1% of all college applicants.</p>

9

<p>DunninLA, no one's really a "match" for the schools you listed as matches...granted, he probably has a great shot, but I would say those schools' admissions are unpredictable.</p>

<p>To OP, I realize I tell everyone this, but look into George Washington for a safety with great IR program.</p>

10

<p>thanks everyone, this is more than I could have asked for. </p>

<p>Yes, Yale would be my dream school, but I'm going to cast a wide net and see what I can get. Some of these colleges that you've suggested I've never even heard of or looked into, so I've got a lot of research to do! Thanks a lot!</p>

11

<p>Northwestern has an awesome econ program and a decent poli sci department.</p>

12

<p>DunninLA,
Your categories are a bit out of whack. Georgetown, Middlebury, and Cornell as matches and Vassar, Haverford, and JHU as reaches? Should be the other way around.</p>

13

<p>I know a kid with a record very similar to yours (rank, stats, student council offices) who got into H & P last year. A lot will probably depend on whether your school is willing to push for you and present you as one of the two or so most outstanding students in your class.</p>

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<p>My guess:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford: 35% shot (might get into one of them)</p>

<p>Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Duke, Williams, Amherst: 50% shot (will get into half of them)</p>

<p>Cornell, Northwestern, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Pomona, WashU, Georgetown :65% shot (will get into 2/3 of them)</p>

<p>Tufts, Boston College, UVA (should get in)</p>

15

<p>Sorry, but I have a much more reserved view than some other posters. Of course, you should apply to your dream schools, but be realistic: a sub-20% acceptance rate means that there are 4,5 or 6 highly qualified kids vying for each spot. When you delete the spots held taken by legacies, athletes and bona fide geniuses, you have nothing but a lottery for students with your qualifications.</p>

<p>Georgetown is a particular case: are you applying to their School of Foreign Service? That school has the lowest acceptance rate of the entire university, and probably the most qualified kids applying. So, don't fool yourself about what a published acceptance rate means; dig deeper.</p>

<p>As you may have guessed, I had a son (and several of his classmates who I know well) go through the admissions process in 2008, with a mix of victories and disappointments. My son, a political science major, ended up at Vanderbilt with a scholarship, where he is very happy and thrilled with the department so far. Nashville is the state capitol, as you know, and there are many advantages connected with that. Another good option to look at is U of Wisconsin-Madison, where interning jobs in the capitol are a short distance from campus.</p>

<p>Added: From what I saw last year, Washington U (St. Louis), Cornell and the University of Chicago would be realistic reaches. These schools do tend to consistently accept high ranking students. You should also look at Northwestern; I can't comment on their consistency since our high school gets an abnormal number of kids in there every year due to, I think, legacy and parental employment.</p>

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<p>Arcadia, I think you're right... I threw that list together too quickly.</p>

<p>Here are the %admit and ave 25/75 SAT for those schools (from 2006 matriculants I think) --</p>

<p>as my incorrect matches
Georgetown: 22%, 1390
Middlebury: 22%, 1375
Cornell: 25%, 1385</p>

<p>as my incorrect Match/Reaches:
Vassar, 30%, 1375
Haverford, 26%, 1395
JHU, 27%, 1390</p>

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<p>midwesterner, tlesc01:</p>

<p>Did you look carefully at OP's stats? Are you comparing admissions results that you are aware of with applicants that show similar strength? Val/Sal out of 650+ graduates, 35 ACT, lots of APs with A and 4/5 test score, President of Student Council 11 & 12? The only weakness I see is no athletic involvement. Throw in 3 year Varsity in some sport and you've got the whole package.</p>

<p>That type of applicant from our suburban high school usually gets into one of the HYPSMs, and if not that, at least one of the Top 10, depending on how well the application is packaged (essay, recs).</p>

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<p>Please remember that Middlbury has both ED I and II and, I believe, >50% of its students are accepted under binding ED policy so less students need to be admitted under the more volatile RD pool. By contrast, Haverford has 1 ED where 33% of students enroll. Taking this into account, schools with EDI/II and more than 33% ED admit should have admission rates increased by about an absolute 3-4%.</p>

<p>One can't compare scores when the game is played differently.</p>

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<p>No athletic involvement??? haha i'm playing Ultimate Frisbee this year</p>

<p>my essay will probably be good, but not excellent, as I'm a good, but not excellent writer. And I don't like talking myself up (minus this thread, of course...haha). I've already had my guidance counselor write me recommendations, and his are fantastic. So that's the down low on those two fronts.</p>

<p>I will probably double polisci and IR, and minor economics, I'm guessing. So yes, I'm valuing PoliSci over Economics.</p>

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<p>Yes, Middlebury (and Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona, and quite a few other top schools) offer ED I and II. </p>

<p>According to the 2007-2008 CDS:</p>

<p>Middlebury enrolled 253 students using ED I and II (out of a class size of 644), representing 39% of the incoming first-year class.</p>

<p>Haverford enrolled 103 students using ED I (out of a class size of 315), representing 33% of the incoming first-year class.</p>

<p>Hardly an earth-shattering difference. More interesting to note is that Middlebury received 1,011 ED applications (out of a total 7,180 applications), and accepted 253 of them (25%). Haverford received 254 ED I applications and accepted 103 of them (41%). It's surprising that more students aren't applying to Haverford under the ED I program, considering the fact that the acceptance rate is so much higher for ED applicants. In fact, only 7% of all Haverford applicants choose the ED option (signifying that Haverford is their top choice), while double that number (14%) of all Middlebury applications come under the binding ED program. Perhaps more Haverford applicants want to keep their options open?</p>