I will be applying to vanderbilt early decision for fall 2018. I am a white female from Arkansas.
ACT composite - 35
ACT math - 34
ACT english - 35
ACT reading - 36
ACT science - 35
AP classes taken - AP human geography, AP biology, AP world history, AP physics C mechanics, AP calculus AB, AP English Literature, AP Statistics, AP United States History
AP classes will take - AP psychology, AP English Language, AP calculus BC, AP physics C e&m, AP Chemistry, AP art history
—I have gotten all As in these classes so far and 4s or 5s on the tests
class rank - I expect to be 1 out of ~ 800
extracurriculars- Varsity Volleyball 2 years, Varsity Bowling 3 years, Community Lesion for HOSA, National Honors Society, President of Math Club
Vanderbilt is not an Ivy League School, but it’s still very selective. Your ACT score, classes, and ranking are very competitive; however, your ECs are lacking. Do you do anything outside of school like volunteer work or internships? What activities show your passion? Do you have any awards? Other than that, just made sure your essays and teacher recommendations are good and you are on your way to becoming a competitive applicant.
If you apply to Vandy ED successfully, then you will have ZERO chance of getting into an Ivy. Because, a). Vandy is not an Ivy, b) ED is binding, which means that once they admit you cannot go anywhere else.
But your stats are good. Given that you are from Arkansas you should have a very good shot at the most selective schools, including Ivies and Vandy. Good luck!
I would say very high chances to Vandy but you may want to look into other schools as a NMF which may offer great packages. Due to EC’s Ivy isn’t likely…not to mention I don’t see AP Foreign Language.
I believe that with those stats you would be in contention for most of the Ivy League schools. Of course Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia are almost impossible to predict for anyone. For schools like Cornell and Dartmouth I think that your chances are about as high as they can get. If your essays are extremely good then it is possible for those top Ivies. These people are saying you have no chance when you have a perfect gpa and a 35 on the ACT. I don’t think they know what they are talking about. Ivies are a throw up for everyone. My friend had a 32 act, and he got into Columbia and Brown. Your stats are better than his and he got in, so you can too!
Ivies reject a ton of people with perfect stats, so it’s a reasonable question. But if you’re applying to Vandy early, and don’t get in, you have to apply RD at the ivies, and that’s significantly harder than early. So if you think that an ivy is really what you want, you could apply early to one of HYP as those are not binding, and still apply to Vanderbilt RD so you have more choices and flexibility.
Your profile is excellent and you have a good chance of getting into a first tier Ivy (Harvard, Princeton, Yale) and an excellent chance of getting into a second tier Ivy (Penn or Columbia) or a third tier Ivy (Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell). If you pick the right major, second and third tier Ivies offer just as good of an education as a first tier Ivy or large public U.
^^^there are no “tiers” They are all ivy’s, nothing more nothing less. Arkansas will definitely help, but I don’t see anything than scores here to find you interesting. The cutting room floor is full of applications with high scores and high GPA.
The value of EC’s are consistently overrated by posters on this site. I suspect some of this comes from a hope of many that a long list of EC’s will make up for less than optimal objective stat’s. Every highly selective school lists the high school transcript (grades plus course rigor) as the most important component of their evaluation process. Of the subjectives, the essays and the LoR’s carry much more weight than the EC’s. As far as EC’s are concerned, quality not quantity matters. Do the EC’s indicate desirable characteristics such as persistence, commitment, leadership, an ability to get things done. Do they tie in to the essay and LoR’s to give a complete and consistent picture of who the applicant is? @gibby has made numerous post right on point as to what highly selective colleges look for, including the topic of EC’s.
I also believe that the value of ED and especially EA is overrated. Yes the acceptance rate of ED and EC are higher than RD rates, but after you back out athletic recruits, the gap is much less significant. On top of that, we can also safely assume applicants in the ED/EA pools are going to be stronger than the RD pool (see Harvard quote below). There is probably merit that ED gives some real boost because of yield protection and higher predictability of class size and makeup. I would take the colleges at their word that EA confers no advantages, direct quote from the Harvard website:
“Harvard does not offer an advantage to students who apply early. Higher Early Action acceptance rates reflect the remarkable strength of Early Action pools. For any individual student, the final decision will be the same whether the student applies Early Action or Regular Decision.”
Harvard has SCEA so I wouldn’t expect a huge difference, Brown on the other hand had an early acceptance rate of 22%, overall of 8%, so RD was 7%. That’s significant even with the legacies, athletes, wealthy donors.
Don’t doubt that ED confers an advantage, but how significant? Using simple math and simple assumptions to get a rough idea out of the limited data set for the Class of 2021:
Harvard: EA% 14.5% (938/6473); adjusted for 200 athletic recruits plus 20 other super hooks, 11.5% (718/6253). RD% 3.4% (1118/30333). The gap between EA% adjusted for special cases and RD% is 8.1%, so let’s take Harvard at their word and attribute the difference to a superior pool.
Brown: EA% 21.9% (695/3170); adjusted for AR and super hooks, 16.1% (475/2950). RD% 6.9% (2027/29554); The gap between the adjusted EA rate and the RD rate is 9.2%. If we now attribute the 8.1% value from Harvard as representing the superior pool factor, the ED% can be seen as 8.0% vs 6.9% for RD on a more apples to apples comparison. There is a difference/advantage, but it is not of the order of magnitude when we simply look at 22% vs 7%, or even 16% vs 7%.
Sure, we can quibble over whether the 220 number is right or whether it should be equally applied to both schools (the 200± for AR’s is a widely reported number). We can debate whether the application of the 8.1% to Brown is strictly correct or accurate as well, but that will not change the overall analysis significantly because there should be little question that the ED pool for Brown is superior to the RD pool.
If Brown, or other ED school is your dream school (or one of your dream schools where you would never look back and wonder “what if”) and FA is not an overriding concern, definitely go for it. U Penn also affirmatively states that legacy status is given greater weight for ED applicants, so that may be a big factor for U Penn legacies and other schools that give legacy greater weight ED or EA. I just caution people against seeing ED as a silver bullet, especially when they apply ED to a high reach school and neglect to get their other applications for better match schools in order prior to December.