What are my chances of getting into the Ivy League or MIT or How can I improve myself to get there?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1 
 To start, I'm going into my Junior Year and I live in Michigan. I know, many people comment on these discussions because you aren't all exactly qualified to give me the correct answer on if I will ever be accepted. However nobody can give me the Yes or No save the admissions. Therefore I'm just here to get a general idea of my chances at a prestigious University such as Harvard, MIT, Cornell, etc. 

 Here are some stats:
  • Unweighted GPA: 3.85 Weighted GPA: N/A
  • 10th Grade PSAT score (no studying): 1250 --> I know it's bad but I feel I can do much better
  • I see mostly A's and A+'s, sometimes A-'s, and rarely any kind of B's
  • I have taken as many honor courses as is offered at my High School
  • My dad went to both Harvard and MIT

    Next year I will be taking:

AP Language and Composition (English)
AP Government
AP Chemistry
Physics (can’t take AP Physics yet)
Spanish 4 (can’t take AP Spanish until next year)
Pre - Calc (I plan to take two math classes senior year)

Extra Curriculars in previous years:

  • Science Olympiad (1 year)
  • Key Club (2 years)
  • Ping Pong Club
  • High School Soccer (Varsity)

Extra Curriculars this upcoming year and current summer:

  • Too late to sign up for summer classes at Prestigious University (I am going to next summer)
  • Too late to sign up for MIT's company/app development program (going to next summer)
  • University of Michigan MiBytes App Development and Programming/Coding camp
  • NHS (National Honors Society, tutoring kids, volunteering, etc)
  • Science Olympiad
  • Key Club
  • Photography Club? (If there isn't one I'll make it)
  • Stock Market Club? (If there isn't one I'll make it)
  • Robotics Club
  • Varsity High School Soccer
  • Ping Pong Club
  • Planning on taking online courses on either engineering or business
  • I've been trying to create a Clothing Line but I'm 15 so I'm having trouble with legal matters
  • Made $1500+ in the Stock Market

    I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is why I’m here. I realize that my PSAT score is very low, I haven’t studied for it yet but I’m going to have tutoring throughout the entirety of the school year. My extra curriculars don’t put me apart from anyone else either. Therefore what should I do? Should I create more clubs? Should I invest a lot in the stock market? Take out of school classes? I really want to go to these dream schools. I’m interested in many careers at the moment:

  • Anesthesiology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Engineer
  • Software developer (Google?)
  • Lawyer
  • Etc.

    If you guys could give me some guidance on what I should do to improve these stats please let me know. In addition, if at the moment I’m looking at the University of Michigan (my dad went there as well), how am I doing? I know this is a lot, but I welcome any constructive criticism or guidance. Thanks :slight_smile:

2

No APs were offered before Junior year by the way

3

Why do you want to go to the Ivies? Because your Dad did?
You don’t have to go to an Ivy to prove yourself to anyone. Each ivy is vastly different. So are you just guessing and seeing what sticks? The ivies are reaches for everyone and are tougher to get into than when your Dad went.

Michigan is a great school!

You are listing clubs that you don’t even know if they exist at your school! Please, don’t add non-existent EC’s because you think quantity is better than quality. Padding your resume does not look good to the colleges.

Do well in school first. You haven’t hit the hard courses yet.
Then pick two or three EC’s and stick with those. You won’t have time to do much since it is your junior year and is crucial for grades and tests.

4

yeah I would be happy to live in a state with a flagship as good as Michigan. Not only is it extremely good for what you want to do, its easier to get into both in state and compared to ivies, and it is much cheaper than ivies.

5

Your chances are low as of now but you can always improve them.

Here’s what would help your chances:

Raise your GPA by a little bit
Raise your SAT score to at least a 1520 or a 33 on the ACT
Score 700+ on two subject tests
Take the hardest classes available to you because you are competing with other students at your high school
Score 4s and 5s on all your AP exams

Get leadership positions in a couple different clubs or organizations
Get work or internship experience
MOST IMPORTANT Develop your “spike,” which is a college admissions term for being both passionate about a skill and excellent at it. Let’s say you love coding and that you are really good at it. For college admissions, you would want to build your “spike” around coding. This would mean that, for example, you enter in local, state, and national coding competitions for high schoolers. You could also start a coding club, develop an app, write code for local businesses, etc. You want to immerse yourself in one area and become amazing at it relative to other high schoolers.

Don’t waste your time joining a bunch of unrelated clubs. You want to build a theme for yourself and show that you do all your coding ECs because you enjoy doing them. Depth is better than breadth for the most part.

Did your dad go to Harvard undergraduate or MIT undergraduate? Also, MIT does not really take legacy into account. Harvard does though.

6

just saying if you want to take classes over the summer you can go to johns hopkins CTY for an online course. Im trying to do that