What are my chances of getting in a Duke, Vanderbilt, or Notre Dame level school?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am wondering what my chances are of getting into the schools listed above, or others schools on par with them. I am most likely going to be applying to their biology/medicine schools, so that will obviously play a role in admissions decisions and competition. I am also interested in the Service Academies, so what are my chances of getting a nomination and into one of the academies? Here are my stats:

SAT
math: 760
reading: 720
(I took it again recently and am still waiting for new scores)

APs (haven’t received scores yet for Junior year. Also my school only lets you take two APs at a time during Junior and Senior year unless you get special permission to take more which I did for my upcoming senior year.)
junior year: AP Bio, AP Literature
senior year (will be taking): AP Lang and Comp, AP Psychology, AP Calc

This year all my core classes were either AP or Honors and I made all A- or above in every subject. I go to a college prep school.

GPA: 4.33 (as of now)
Top 10% in my class

Clubs:
National Honors society (secretary)
Service Committee (Officer)
Student Advisor for Superintendent of Schools

Sports:
Captain and founder of the mens tennis team. All conference freshman year (couldn’t play sophomore year), not in a conference Junior year.
XC Senior year

Outside of School activities:
Started my own business summer before Junior year on Etsy called Concordian Woodworks. Have sold over 25 pieces of art and made of $1,500 in profit.

Obviously this is just a portion of an application–there are essays, and transcripts, etc., but just by looking at this can anyone tell if I have any kind of chance? Thank you.

2

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are pretty good. Write great essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools

3

Vanderbilt & Duke offer ED (binding early decision) application option. Notre Dame has an EA (early action) option. Admission is highly competitive for all of the schools–applying ED or EA should increase your chances for admission.

Based on the information shared in this thread, you should receive consideration for admission to whichever school you apply to ED or EA; otherwise, you should you apply to several less competitive options. Nothing is guaranteed with respect to your chances of admission to these three schools.

4

With respect to the service academies, you certainly qualify with respect to grades & intellect. Fill out an application & see if you pass the medical exam. I assume that you did not apply to or attend any of the summer leadership seminars which would have advanced your knowledge of the process, your interest & your chances.

Likewise, you have not indicated any prior connection to Duke, Vanderbilt or Notre Dame which could have a positive effect on your chances for admission. While many posters assert that that summer athletic camps or summer session courses have no effect on admission chances, I find that to be incorrect. All schools appreciate & like demonstrated interest & appreciate the opportunity to better know future applicants.

5

I actually did attend the Naval Academy’s summer seminar this summer, so I definitely discovered more about what they are looking for in applicants, but I thought asking online would be insightful too. How would I let schools know I am interested in them and that I am hoping to go there?

6

When my son attended the summer seminar at three different service academies, he was asked if he wanted to attend.
At another service academy he was asked which one he wanted to attend. Then in the fall he was offered an arranged nomination by the third academy. At one of the service academies it was made quite clear that certain attendees would be offered admission. My son’s roommate at one was a recruited football player & he was sure that he would be admitted. So, at least in my son’s case & for his roommate, it was made known to them during the summer seminar that they would be offered admission.

With respect to the service academies, complete the application process.

With respect to National Universities & LACs, apply ED or EA if an option to that school. That is sufficient to show strong interest & commitment to that school.

Otherwise, write about a particular program or major or other specific reason that that school is of interest to you.

Notre Dame has a Leadership Seminar for rising juniors. Duke & Vanderbilt have summer programs. My son attended two summer sessions at an Ivy & was repeatedly encouraged to apply. He told me that two profs offered to write recs for him, but I thought that this school did not permit that so maybe they offered to write them for Yale as it had the strongest program for his major (and they did specifically mention Yale). He thought the offer was for both Ivies. Never applied to either.

7

Wow your son sounds awesome!

From what I understand, none of my roommates or squad members were notified that they were potentially perfect candidates for the academy, or that they would most likely be admitted if they applied (and had a nomination). I did, to be honest, only have a measly 1260 SAT and was average at the fitness assessment, so that may be one reason. Either way, I don’t know if the academies are where I really want to go, but I am applying anyways.

How do I make myself standout from other applicants at these top universities? I mean, I have started my own business, but I don’t feel like it is exactly big enough to make me standout in any way. My grades and scores, I feel, are on par with Notre Dame at least (maybe not Duke or Vandy), but I still feel like I’m not unique or amazing enough. The other thing is my family is not very wealthy and I can’t afford those expensive camps at leading universities. Is there anything else I can do to stand out and/or make colleges interested in me.

I often get emails from Ivies and competitive schools, but after doing some research people say that this is just because they know I won’t get in and are baiting me to apply just so they can reject me and keep their acceptance rates low. Today I got one from Columbia, yesterday I got one from U Chicago, I’ve gotten several from Brown, Vandy, and Notre Dame, but I don’t know if they are real or fake.

8

To standout with respect to demonstrated interest, apply ED or EA and make reference to specific reasons/programs/majors of why you want to attend that particular school. Otherwise, be yourself, follow your interests & write meaningful essays (not just a regurgitation of past accomplishments that are evident from your other application entries).

9

I have already written my common app essay, but it is just about me being basically someone who doesn’t just follow the crowd. I’m not a group think kind of person. People have told me to write about my love for art and how it has morphed into selling pieces online, claiming it displays more about what I love. I really like my current essay, but I don’t know if it does a good job of showing off what I have done as much as who I am.

10

Are you genuinely interested in serving in the military? If so, are you considering applying for an ROTC scholarship, which you could apply at a non-military college?

You have very good grades and scores, and some interesting EC’s. The thing to understand is that schools like Duke, Vandy, and ND reject many more applicants with your qualifications than they accept. It is fine to choose a few reach schools like this, but you need matches and safeties. If you can point to what you like about these schools (other than their USNWR rankings), that could help folks here to suggest similarly great schools that are a little less reach-y.

Many students who like Duke and Vanderbilt also apply to Wake Forest, University of Richmond, Tulane, Sewanee and Rhodes.
Many students who like Notre Dame also apply to other Catholic colleges like Santa Clara, Fordham, and College of the Holy Cross. (Holy Cross meets full financial need, unlike many of its peers.)

Have you run the Net Price Calculators for the schools you’re interested in, to get an idea as to whether their formula for what your family would be expected to pay is aligned with what your family really can pay? The answer to that question will be crucial in deciding what kind of schools to target - those with the best need-based aid, or those with the best merit aid.

The ultra-competitive schools that you are hearing from aren’t targeting you; they just have vast mailing lists and contact many students irrespective of whether they are competitive for admission. Receiving these communications doesn’t mean you’re qualified, nor does it mean that they know you are not. It’s neutral - just marketing to grow their applicant pool. The emails are “real,” they’re just not meaningful one way or the other.

It sounds like art is important to you. Maybe that’s another parameter to look for in a college - strong art programs and/or an artistic campus culture? What is your home state?

Essay-wise (having not read what you’ve written already), I feel as if the strongest essay might come from blending the two topics you’re talking about. It’s great to characterize yourself as an independent thinker, but it’s better to show this through concrete and interesting examples, than simply to tell it. What about your artistic process itself (not just the business end) - how do you express who you are through your art? Can you show your reader how the way you think has led to the art you have created and the initiative to make a business of it? Surely talking about what you have done, and why, could add more depth and dimensionality to your description of who you are?

11

@aquapt Wow! thank you so much for all your help.

Yes I am going to be applying for army Rotc and have already began filling out the application. Regarding my list of schools, I have a few in mind that aren’t so “reach-y,” and they are as follows:

NC Chapel Hill, NC State, Texas A&M, Alabama, and Virginia Tech

I live in NC, so I applying to the big three NC schools (Duke, Chapel Hill, NC State)

My dad said that with my current scores (and hopefully even better new scores) there is no point in me applying to small, more local schools (i.e. UNC Charlotte) because I don’t want to go there, it’s almost a given that I will get in, and I’ll probably get into a lot better schools anyways, so why waist money applying to them. I’m not sure if that is the right train of thought, but with my list of schools I think that I can get sufficient scholarship to go to a few of them (i.e. AU, VT). For the more difficult, reach schools, I am hoping to use the ROTC scholarship (if I get it) to use at these schools.

I’m not a big fan of small schools (as I’m sure you can tell from the list), but if they are academically rigorous and prestigious enough (duke, vandy) I will have no problem with size.

Only my dad works, and he makes a good living, but I also have 5 other siblings, so we are middle class. His pay check, however, says other wise. My older sister is going to UNCGreensboro this fall, so that should give me a little grant money, but not a lot. I have not run the net price calculations yet, but I have sat down with my dad and looked at tuition and CoA and compiled the list of schools above. Do you know of a good website where I can safely do the calculation stuff?

I think I am basically counting on private scholarships and the rotc scholarship to get me through college without drowning in debt, but both of those things are difficult to get, so nothing is a given.

In terms of the essay, I think you are spot on with what I need to change. My theme is basically: “me as a perpetual philosopher,” and how I constantly think about things for myself and don’t just follow the crowd. But I definitely see your point about incorporating my art into my essay, because many times (most of the time) art is a form of expression and therefore those two things (Thinking, and then portraying it through art) go hand in hand. Thanks again for your awesome direction. It is much appreciated.

12

Do not count on private scholarships to get you through college. They are few and far between and supremely competitive. Many have a need-based component.

Go to each school’s website and search for Net Price Calculator. Then you can put the information in and see if any of these schools would be affordable.

13

There is a lot to consider when applying to Ivy league schools. Ivy League schools are probably the most picky when trying to find the right applicant for their school. They consider grades, SAT scores, ACT score, Extra curriculum, and who you are as a person. They want someone who fits the right pick for their school and who they believe that belongs at their institution. These traits are substantial for applicants.

14

My sense of what you’re saying is that you might especially like those few schools that blend the attributes of a large, public U and an elite private U - which is to say, UMichigan and Cornell. Both have excellent fine arts as well as top-notch sciences, and both have Army ROTC. But, with Chapel Hill as your own flagship, maybe Michigan wouldn’t be enticing enough by comparison to go OOS. Cornell seems worthy of consideration, though - it seems like it hits a lot of your criteria. More remote/rural than others you’re considering, perhaps… but it has such critical mass of its own that people often say that ends up mattering less than they anticipated.

USC also has the big-and-spirited thing going on, great arts as well as sciences, & ROTC… plus generous NMF merit - did your PSAT hit the NMSF threshold?

Anyway it sounds like you’re playing the long game and thinking things through on multiple levels, so I’m sure you will end up with great options - good luck!!

15

@aquapt Yes Cornell is high on my list even before you recommended it. Thank you for your help!

16

I would say UNC-Chapel Hill is a good, reasonable school for you. You seem somewhat competitive otherwise, the 1480 SAT worries me though. The ECs are pretty standard IMHO - the business is good, but you also should understand that many other students do very similar things, such as opening businesses. However, if you can use the business and the ECs to formulate a good essay about yourself and who you are and how those ECs correlate to that, I can see you getting into UNC-CH. Duke, Vandy and Notre Dame all seem like high reaches. If you really want to go to one of those schools, do an ED/EA. Notre Dame seems the most likely to me as a restrictive EA school, so you can also apply EA to UNC-CH as well. GL!

17

@DJCURRYBEATS19

Thank you for your help! I just got back my new SAT scores and I got a 1540, so it put me in a better place I believe. I definitely agree that my ECs are standard. I am writing my essay on starting my business (the gist of my essay is that it isn’t that big of an accomplishment, but I’m just a high schooler with limited resources so it was a big deal for me personally), so maybe it can highlight some important characteristics about me. I am worried; however, about getting into the biology/pre med programs, because I don’t have any EC that are related to that major. Originally I wanted to be an engineering major, but my interests have shifted since.

18

Congrats on the 1540! That’s a particularly great accomplishment given the messed-up curve of the June SAT, which left a lot of students disappointed in their scores. Were both of your subscores higher than before, or is your superscore even higher than 1540?

If you’re still aiming for an ROTC scholarship and no longer ruling out non-engineering schools, you might think about adding William and Mary to your list. (Expensive OOS but does have Army ROTC, and could be a great fit for you.)

You could also get some great packages now from automatic-merit schools like 'Bama.

And you could potentially get some very nice merit money from schools like Case Western, Pitt, and Tulane.

If I were you, I would give particularly strong consideration to programs like the biophysics major at CWRU http://physics.case.edu/undergraduate-programs/undergrad-degree-programs/bsdegree-phys-biophys/

This would be a terrific premed major (more distinctive than a “vanilla” bio degree) but would also prepare you fully for a biomedical engineering grad program, should your interests shift back in the engineering direction. Keeping options open, when you are young and have a wide range of interests and talents, is a good thing! (Between full-need-met financial aid, generous merit aid, and an Army ROTC option, it seems like there’s a good chance you’d get an affordable financial deal one way at CWRU one way or another… and it’s easy to travel to and brimming with research and shadowing opportunities for premeds.)

19

Sorry for the confusion. My superscore is a 1540. I was also affected negatively by the “messed-up” curve because I only got two more questions wrong on the math section than last time, yet my score decreased by 100 points. My reading/writing, however, was a 780 (up 60 points from last time). Does a superscore look worse than a solitary composite score?

Also, I have looked lightly into CWRU. Thank you for your advice. You have been particularly helpful. Especially that portion about biophysics because who knows, I could change back to engineering if I end up not liking the direction I am going.

20

You should apply for the Park scholarship at NCSU if cost is a major factor.