What are my chances? - Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Washington St Louis

Hello All!

A little background about me… I am currently in my Spring semester of Junior year in a small boarding school (70 or so per class) in Lynchburg, Virginia. I have taken the SAT once but haven’t received my scores yet. I will try to include as much about my grades and extracurriculars below. I am a White Christian Male (not sure how relevant all that is) and my dad is a doctor. Most of my family went to Wake Forest (including my dad) and I have the in-state advantage for the University of Virginia. Could you all take a look at my details and see what you think about my chances of getting into any of the four schools? Wake Forest has always been my favorite growing up as we always had season tickets to football games but I want to know if I can reach this next tier of Vanderbilt or Washington St Louis kind of school. Also, I am going to apply early decision to my top choice, I just want to make sure that I have a chance of getting into these schools first.

Classes:
*Note my school has a AP cap (0 freshman, 1 sophomore, 3 Junior, 4 Senior), but I got special permission to take 4 APs Junior year as the school thought I was capable and could manage it well
*I am still undecided about Senior year classes as we decide later this year
*I left out my electives taken but freshman year I took Photography and New Testament and received a 98 in each (they are semester courses)

    -- Freshman: GPA (94.8), Two Honors, No APs
             ~ English 9 (93)
             ~ World History (88)
             ~ Honors Biology (97)
             ~ Spanish II (97)
             ~ Honors Geometry (97)

     -- Sophomore: GPA (92.7), Three Honors, One AP --- Doubled up on science class and took no elective
             ~ English 10 (92)
             ~ AP Government (87) [4 on AP exam]
             ~ Honors Chemistry (95)
             ~ Honors Spanish III (90)
             ~ Honors Analysis/PreCalc (99) <--- received school Analysis award
             ~ Physics (93)

      -- Junior: GPA (91.7), One Honors, Four APs --- Doubled up on math and took no elective, {current grades}
             ~ AP Composition (88)
             ~ US History (91)
             ~ AP Chemistry (91)
             ~ AP Calculus AB (94)
             ~ Honors Spanish IV (93)
             ~ AP Statistics (93) 

      -- Senior: UNKNOWN

As you can see in my classes I am clearly stronger in the math and science than in other areas. For senior year I am thinking about dropping Spanish as I would have met my requirements and taking Science and Math Consortium (a project based class) which is likely the top class in my school and requires numerous interviews and prerequisites to be accepted into. Senior year I will also need to take a whole years worth of Art credits to meet my requirement as I fell behind doubling up on maths/sciences in Sophomore and Junior years.

Extracurriculars: I stay very busy involved in my school and my community as you will see below.

– Mayor’s Youth Council (End of Freshman year --> current)
~ A diverse group of our city’s youth (around 20 or so) were accepted into the council and regularly meet with the mayor and create solutions to problems in our city’s youth and execute our solutions.
– Student Council (Applied Freshman year and not voted in, reapplied both Sophomore and Junior years and accepted)
~ Four members voted in by classmates from each class, weekly meetings, set up and plan all major school events
– Varsity Football (Freshman, Sophomore years)
~ I love football more than anything in this world and played my first two years at school and started every game Sophomore year, but our team couldn’t sustain itself this year as I go to a very small school so my parents forced me to play soccer (JV) instead for safety reasons
– JV Soccer (Junior year)
– Varsity Swimming (Freshman year --> current)
~ Swimming is my best sport. I qualified for states Sophomore year and again this year in multiple events and was awarded Athlete of the Week this year for my fast times and qualifications.
– JV Lacrosse (Freshman, Sophomore years)
– Varsity Golf (Junior Year)
– Robotics (Junior year)
– Business club (Sophomore, Junior years)
~ I have a huge passion for business and have had great success in the stock market. I took an online class over Christmas break of Freshman year on the stock market and have continued to successfully invest since then.
– I have gone to camp for years now and this past summer I was a summer counselor (7 weeks away)
– This summer I will also be going on a mission trip to Africa for two and a half weeks with my Calculus teacher

Standardized Testing:
I have not received my SAT scores but based on my PSAT scores I am expecting a little over a 1400 (almost perfect Math score, not so perfect English score)

Overall, I know based on this information it cannot be determined whether I will get into each of these colleges or not as there are many more factors to this process. Based on the information I’ve given above, can you all tell me how you feel about my chances and what I can do to improve my chances to get into any of these places. Also I tried to format as appropriately as possible but I don’t think the spacing will save through.

THANKS!

I think you have a very good chance at Wake and the other schools. My friend’s daughter got in early decision to Washington U with a 1400 SAT and a 4.1 W GPA. She had strong extracurriculars just like you. However, the key is to apply ED to Washington U.

Don’t apply anywhere ED unless you’re 100% POSITIVE it’s your #1 because ED is binding

Probably in at Wake because of the legacy plus they are test optional. If your SAT is north of 1400 in at UVA as well. WashU is one of the places where demonstrated interest helps. I want to say that the WashU ED rate is about 33% so if that’s where you want to go, by all means apply (my son got in this year ED-4.1 weighted GPA/2290 old SAT).

I think religion does not matter in college apps unless you are LDS and want to apply to BYU or fundamentalist and considering Bob Jones/Liberty/Oral Roberts. Most schools don’t care about religious faith but if that is a concern to you, definitely do some research first.

^ I agree that Wake is a good bet, particularly if you go ED. Same with UVA if you can get north of 1450 on your SAT. Also, Vandy is very focused on SAT scores, so unless you get a 1500+ on your SAT, I would not recommend going ED there.