<p>Say there was a student with minimal E.C.'s, good GPA (around 4.05), decent class rank (7%, competitive and large HS), several honors classes with a FEW AP's mixed in, great/excellent recommendations, and wonderful essay(s). If this student got insane, or maybe awesome, SAT and ACT scores (let's say 35 ACT w/ Writing, and 2280 combined SAT), would they stand any chance at all at a low-Ivy (although none of them are really LOW per se) such as:</p>
<p>UPENN (Wharton)?</p>
<p>or a high-level, non-Ivy school, such as:</p>
<p>Duke (Fuqua)?
MIT (Sloan)?
NYU (Stern)?</p>
<p>To be honest, I would imagine not, but I figure it can't hurt to ask.</p>
<p>Well, yea basketballbabe13, that is true about Wharton, and that was just kind of thrown out there. But even with minimal E.C.'s you think they would stand a chance at some other top colleges? And by "stand a chance" I mean no one would be OVERLY surprised that they got accepted.</p>
<p>quant, really? I feel like I never see anyone in my situation who wishes to go to a top school. Everyone I look at has so many E.C.'s that they are debating which 10 would best represent them, lol. I kind of just have to laugh at it, because I feel like I am just as qualified as anyone else, but just not as "prepared", application-wise.</p>
<p>Where did you apply, if you don't mind me asking?</p>
<p>yea, jd I know what you mean. And that is what is most frustrating to me. I feel like I am stuck right in the middle of "going to a decent/average college and getting scholarships" and "possibly applying to UPENN". I have not just slacked off in high school, but I have not gone all-out either. I lack an academic identity. And for some reason, I don't have the desire to go to a GOOD school, as in a Match/High Match for me. I feel like I am obligated to get rejected from top schools or be overly welcomed by decent schools.</p>
<p>A few things--Wharton is as hard to get into as Harvard. So while Penn may be in the cards for the student you describe Wharton would not be. And Fuqua is a grad school, Duke does not have an undergrad business program.</p>
<p>As others have said, your biggest problem is not taking your schools hardest courses. Otherwise, you'd be a reasonable candidate for Duke and Penn but probably not Wharton and MIT. So I guess it depends on just how many APs your school offers vs. how many you took and which box the counselor checks as to how rigorous your program was.</p>
<p>Ok, thank you for clearing up those thing about Wharton/Duke. And the problem is that my school offers a very wide variety of AP's, but I am not the type of person to take those types of courses just to look good. I generally stay to my favorite subjects, such as taking AP Calculus next year and AP Physics this year.</p>
<p>Note that MIT has no separate admission process for Sloan. The school will look first and foremost at your strength and interest in science and technology. Every admitted student still has to go through the same intensive math & science core even if they major in management or economics.</p>
<p>I applied to safeties: UT Austin, Georgia Tech, U of Michigan.
Others: Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Cornell, Rice, MIT, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech, Stanford</p>