What are my chances on getting accepted into Yale, Brown, or Columbia?

I’m a current high school junior. Yale has been my absolute dream school since the beginning of freshman year. I, however, understand that it is extremely difficult to get in.

Here are my stats:

Gender: female

Ethnicity: Native American and white (50% Cherokee)

Neither of my parents officially graduated college, so I will be the first generation. I’ve been mainly raised by my single father, and we are middle class. He gets no help from my mother… Baised off of most financial aid calculators, we qualify for quite a lot of help.

High school:
I attend a well known high school in NYC known for the arts. I’m a fine arts major, so I juggle art classes and vigorous academics.

AP classes-
AP world (10th grade)
AP US, AP English (11th grade)
AP Pysch, AP stat, AP calc AB, AP Gov (12th grade)

I wish I could take more, but alas it is too late to change that.

My GPA is a 96 as of now. From my understanding, that’s greater than a 4.0? But I’m not exactly sure. This is what I’m most scared about. I know a lot of kids at Yale have nearly perfect grades.

My ACT score is a 34, which I took only once. But I didn’t do so well on a practice SAT so I don’t think I should take it. But I plan to take at least 2 SAT subject tests in August.

EC:
Girls Learn International
Photography club
Pre-med club

Essay: I plan to write about my relationship with my mother. She’s mentally ill (as in she has BPD). This has created turmoil not only in my own relationship with her, but in our family as well. I love her, but she’s abusive and manipulative when she has an episode. I have had to grow up A LOT as a result, and I feel as if I’m the adult between us. I feel as if my grades would’ve been better if I didn’t consistently deal with this unfortunate situation, but I have learned from it and it is what it is.

Summer programs/ interns/ work:

August 2016- present
I intern for a well known actor’s company because he’s my uncle. He does a lot of creative projects like magazines, film scripts, and short films. I help him often with these, although he doesn’t pay me.

September 2017- present
Working for a production company. They produce a multitude of New York Fashion Week shows. So every fashion week I end up working. We coordinated with the NYPD to effectively control the crowds, we made sure the set design of the shows was up to par, and we essentially just ran the show. The woman I work for also has me help her with other high fashion events throughout the year.

Summer 2018
Girls Who Code program
7 week long immersive program in coding.
I’m really excited to do this, as I have taught myself a bit of coding already.

Additionally, I will be doing volunteer hours at the NYC aquarium.

Please be honest, and thank you! I won’t be offended nor hurt, as I fully know that all Ivies are extremely competitive.

Also, I apologize for any typos. I’m on my phone typing this and it’s hard to edit.

Best regards.

If Yale is your favorite, I would look at schools similar to Yale, but that are (obviously) less selective:

Rice - Res colleges. Still reachy, but not quite as much. Different academic strengths, but strong all-around. Vanderbilt is also trying residential colleges. It and Rice are similarly selective – a reach for most.

Vassar, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Kenyon - These are LACs, but like Yale they are known for outstanding humanities programs. More broadly, these are proxies for LACs in general – LACs tend to be very strong in the humanities and social sciences, as Yale is.

Tufts is similar to Yale in that while neither offers an open curriculum, there seems to be some curricular flexibility at both schools. This includes interdisciplinary programs.

There is no school exactly like Yale, but there are many that share some similarities. Maybe figure out what you like best about Yale and find other schools that offer those things.

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are good. Your URM hook will probably help your application. Write great essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools