@maroonhamster19, the kind of camp that would impress those schools include: Ross Mathematics Program, MIT’s Research Science Institute, The Telluride Association Summer Program, MITES (The Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science), among others. They are highly competitive, have very limited slots, and are usually offered free to those who qualify (in other words, none of those attending pay tuition). There are a lot of other camps and programs that provide students with great experiences. Sounds like the ones you mention may be like those. They are great. Of course they will enhance your college application. But other schools besides those you mention will probably be more impressed by the fact that you attended. What I am suggesting is to stop focusing on this small group of schools. There are so many great colleges and universities in this country. Why are you neglecting or rejecting 99% of them?
All three of my kids received the same thing.
Now the questions are:
Have you done anything on an international level to merit attention (Malala?)
Have your parents donated a wing or a medical center to Harvard?
Are you a recruited athlete (Olympic level)?
Are you an underrepresented minority student who has created or implemented something on a national level?
Seats are very limited at these elite colleges, with most of the seats already taken by the above.
How many times have you taken the SAT’s? It does make a difference.
My eldest got into Hopkins and they were very interested in the biomedical HS coursework that paired her with a diabetic study and researcher. She was interviewed by Harvard, twice. Final round, she didn’t make the cut, but was very close (according to her counselor).
Apply to some UC’s and some safeties.
@“aunt bea” I have taken the SAT once, and got a 1490. I will be taking it once more, aiming for a 1530. How did your eldest get into Hopkins? My top two schools that I am aiming to get into are UCLA and Johns Hopkins.
Most importantly, why do you think that an Ivy is the best place for you to get the best education for you? Choose your colleges based on the ones which match your personality and interests, rather than randomly choosing six or seven from the top of USANews’s list of “Best National Universities”.
You should not be asking “will these EC’s ‘get’ me into an Ivy?”. You should be asking “what is the best college for me, if I want to study this major, based on my interests, strengths, and skills, as demonstrated by my GPA, SATs, and ECs?”
Despite what people, who are deeply invested into “Prestige” (based on different ranking systems) will claim, Ivies are not really objectively better colleges for an undergraduate degree than any of hundreds of other colleges out there. There are hundreds of colleges in which you could get a world-class educations, which are not Ivy League, T-20, etc.
So, ask your self: A. What Major/s interest me? B. What environment is best for me, e.g., large research university, smaller research university, liberal arts college, etc? C. In which type of student body would I fit/feel most comfortable? C. What part of the country and surroundings do I like, e.g., SE, Urban, NW Rural, Midwest Agricultural, etc? D. What can my parents afford?
Using those parameters, put together a list of 7-10 colleges, including reaches, matches, and safeties. Reach means that fewer than 25% of kids with your stats are accepted, match means about 50% of kids with your stats are accepted, and safety means that more than 85% of kids with your stats are accepted, preferably more. Do NOT designate “Match” or “Safety” based on the percent of accepted students with similar stats, since that gives an inflated notion of your chances of acceptance.
You should feel happy with the idea of attending each and every one of those schools, including safeties. If any safety is on your list because you would only go there of you were rejected by all others, it should not be there. If the question “are there conditions in which you would choose to attend your safety even if you were accepted to reaches or matches?” is not “yes”, it should not be on your list.
Assume that you will not get into ANY of your reaches, nor to most of your matches. Every year the most popular colleges get more applications, and the chance of any applicant being accepted drops. So the difference between a match and a reach is often a 15% increase in acceptance rates. If you want to see a good example, look at the changes in acceptance rate to Colby College - the acceptance rate for class of 2018 was 28%, and for class of 2023, it was 9.5%. So what you thought was a match may have become a reach. So assume that you will be attending one of your safeties, and choose them appropriately.
Once you have that list, then you should come back here and ask whether your designations of “reach” and “match” are correct, and other such info.
@lostaccount its far better for one of you recommenders to write about the challenges you have overcome then for you to write about them yourself. Still essays are a key component and writing great essays will improve your odds above to slightly above zero.
@maroonhamster19: I will pm you.
Basically:
1.) we are URM -
2.) She worked with a diabetic research team doing lab procedures; they were also very impressed with her ability to translate for some international researchers-she’s very good at learning and speaking multiple languages, translating for a number of the researchers. The researchers wrote her very good LORs.
She ended up at SUNY Buffalo because of their programs for premed. She switched over to engineering and computer science because she liked it better than pre med.
If JHU and UCLA are your top choices (seems like Harvard was before), then your best chance is JHU ED, and UCLA. Upping the score to something higher then 1500 would help a little.
I agree with the posters above. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Also apply to schools like UCSB, UCI, UCSD, etc. In terms of your achievements, honestly, they may or may not look impressive to selective colleges. I personally know a lot of students with similar stats like yours who got in, but I know even more students who didn’t get in to any top 20 schools.