UPEN, Northwestern, Yale? etc

<p>I'm a current junior looking to apply to the following schools:</p>

<p>o UC Berkley
o Harvard
o Yale
o UPen (Wharton)
o Columbia
o University of Chicago
o Northwestern
o NYU
o MIT
o Chapel Hill
o Rice
o Vanderbilt
o Georgetown
o Virginia
o Cornell
o Georgia Tech
o Duke
o Washington University (St Louis)</p>

<p>Currently attending a highly competitive public Texas high school (ranked very highly). Taking highest possible course load </p>

<p>Predicted Major:Finance/ Economics </p>

<p>o Class Rank: 15/560
o Unweighted GPA: 4.0/4.0
o Weighed GPA: N/A
o SAT: 2300
o SAT II
• Math 2- 790
• World History- 760
• Literature- 720</p>

<p>Taken highest possible AP Course load</p>

<p>Sophomore:
• AP World History</p>

<p>Junior:
• AP US History
• AP English III
• AP Psychology </p>

<p>Senior
• AP Spanish 5
• AP English IV
• AP Statistics
• AP Calculus BC
• AP Art History
• AP Government (Semester)
• AP Microeconomics (Semester)</p>

<p>ECs:
Tennis (4 years)- Multiple Tournament Wins/Placements
National Honor Society (Leadership Position)
National Spanish Honor Society
Community Service (both community and abroad)
Church School Youth Group Leader
Tutor at Local Elementary School</p>

<p>Summers:
Freshman: Duke Online Course in Advanced Mathematics
Sophomore: Selective 7 Week Harvard College Level Course in Macroeconomics;on campus; received Straight A's
Junior: Have been accepted into high level internship at a top corporation in Boston</p>

<p>I'm also currently in a highly selective NASA program and may possibly be invited to Houston to work at their Space Center</p>

<p>Essay: I think is pretty good and has gotten pretty nice reviews- I think it really showcases my personality in a creative way</p>

<p>damn that’s a lot of schools…</p>

<p>ECs are a bit weak for Harvard, Yale, and Wharton</p>

<p>As a heads up, some people say that getting into Northwestern is hardy than getting into an IVY.</p>

<p>You need to work on your EC’s as well.</p>

<p>But your academics are great. No question about that.</p>

<p>^Well that is relative… is it harder to get into than an Ivy like Cornell? perhaps.
But as far as the rest, I would think at best it maybe close with Dartmouth, and if you are feeling very generous perhaps Penn… but Brown (even though ranked lower), Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Harvard and likely to be a somewhat more challenging admission decision than Northwestern. </p>

<p>Its not really a factor of higher test scores (for example NU freshman have higher mid point SAT scores than those at Brown), but more a factor of admission rates with NU at ~19% and upper ivies at sub 10% - your chances are not drastically worse but the “ivy effect” does play a role. </p>

<p>Not to say that its not possible to be rejected by Northwestern and accepted by upper Ivies (I have seen several results), I just think in general the thresholds for admision may be a degree or two easier than these schools.</p>

<p>half those colleges are complete crapshoots (as in the admission process is so random). Ull get kids from all over the spectrum accepted (a kid at TJ (which is the US #1 highschool) i know was lacking in his gpa but went to multiple countries and ran mini programs and completed an internship at the National institute for health and got into harvard, yet there are kids with 4.0 unweighteds and kids with 2400s who have gotten rejected. Ull probably be fine whereever u end up though cause u seem determined to do well in any environment</p>

<p>Also you may want to cut down ur list a little and look at some none big name schools (such as the liberal arts schools which are much more competative than a majority of regular schools). Also do research on schools that offer the best undergraduate program from what u want to do (dont apply to a school for the graduate program because that can be sometimes even harder to get into and more cut throat)</p>