So I’m in my junior year, and pretty desperate right now. My dream school is Wharton. The only ECs I have, are 40-50 hours of volunteering at a disabled children’s school, and 12 hours of teaching under privileged children. I’m also tri-lingual. Thing is, I wasn’t interested in getting into a good college the first two years of high school, and as a result, I wasn’t into studying and extra curriculars. Near the end of the 2nd year, I snapped out this phase, started studying like crazy, and managed to get good/decent gcse grades. I have been studying like crazy these past few months, am expecting a perfect SAT score (hopefully), and have diverse alevel subjects (physics, math, chem, econ, world history) which I’m doing very well in, and have a solid gpa. Just recently I have found out that I need extraordinary ECs, and have absolutely no idea what to do. My counsellor recommended founding my own welfare trust, registered and everything (because they like initiative, and hate it if you just join some club and rack up hours). But according to discussions here I’ve discovered that its not a good idea, won’t impress them. My dad has offered to get me an internship in the treasury department of a good bank, he’s a banker and has connections, but then again, everyone’s saying they’ll figure out I used a connection. I’ll probably write a good essay, because I’m good at English and writing, so that isn’t a problem. So could someone please just point me in the right direction? I’ll do right about anything at this point. I’m smart, and legit have a photographic memory (no kidding, I can memorise whole books). But these things are useful for studies and all, and are little use to me for my current predicament.
There isn’t nearly enough information here for us to give any useful advice.
What is your unweighted GPA? What state do you live in? What are your financial limitations? What do you intent to major in? Do you have APs and how did you do in them? What sort of university are you looking for?
It is usually a bad idea to have just one dream school.
@DadTwoGirls gpa is 3.9-4. International student. Can pay up to $40K annual. I intend to major in finance. We don’t have APs here. Looking for mostly Ivies but also other good schools like Amherst/Stern. (will major in economics if college doesn’t have finance major for undergrad).
According to a quick Google search, the Wharton school has a 9% acceptance rate. With your GPA, limited ECs, and unknown but “expected to be good” SAT, then your chances would appear to be good enough to bother applying, but not even remotely good enough to count on it. To me it looks like a reach from perhaps three perspectives: (i) We still don’t have anything close to complete information; (ii) Given optimistic information about what we don’t know, getting in is probably a reach or a high reach; (iii) Whether you can afford it is probably unknowable until such time as you get an acceptance (if this happens).
Other US schools might be under $40k per year, but again the economics for most or all US schools is likely to be a reach and unknowable until you get acceptances.
In what country (or countries) do you have citizenship? What languages do you speak?
My counsellor recommended founding my own welfare trust, registered and everything (because they like initiative, and hate it if you just join some club and rack up hours) Wrong, so wrong.
The issue seems to be that you don’t know what a school like Wharton expects. Academics is part of it but top schools are trying to build a community of engaged, interesting kids and your activities are one way you show drives, good will, willingness to try new experiences, collaboration, and more. This idea you don’t join clubs because it looks fake only closes doors, slams them shut. And, it’s not solid thinking. Kids learn what interests them by trying- and they engage with and support each other in this way, too.
So it’s still the beginning of junior year. Get active. In and out of school. You don’t need “extraordinary” ECs (and, if anything, founding some welfare trust isn’t what impresses.) You need to come across as a kid who sees opportunities and pursues them, tries new things, is growing. Start with a few. Now. Add something this summer.
ps. I’m guessing you’re from a country over-represented with a very large number of top performing applicants. You need to ‘get on your game.’