Whats the most realistic & best school I'm looking at now?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi there, I’m looking for Ivy, maybe you could tell me if that’s realistic. I’m a sophomore in the US. Try to disregard majors but if you must use a major to determine a school I’m interested in Politics, Computer Science, or Law.
Here’s some credentials:
PROS:

  • Took practice SAT cold, got around a 2000 on both (cold, no studying) attempts. I’ve begun studying and a tutoring service already, so by late junior year, I’m reaching for a 2300-2400. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s unrealistic that I get a 2400.
  • I get straight As and this year I’m in one AP, next year I have a 7 AP schedule mapped out.
  • President of yearbook club.
  • President of mock trial club.
  • Robotics club
  • President of my grade (elected)
  • Peer tutor
  • Skipping a year of math (taking precalc over the summer, plan on Calc BC next year)
  • I founded and own a 501©(3) registered charity, functioning and soon to begin raising funds.
  • I go to schools and give lectures about a specific disorder on behalf of a charity which I don’t own.
  • I won the academic award for geometry last year and am on the path to winning 2+ awards this year.
  • I believe my essay will be good
  • I know I’ll be in the news for my charity a lot in the near future

CONS:

  • I have no legacy at any Ivy besides two cousins of my father (UPenn) and my aunt (Cornell)
  • I come from a pretty privileged area
  • I, as of the end of freshman year, have a 3.6333 GPA. My school has no valedictorian and does not release class ranks, and I have a 3.94 weighted. I’ve done the math, and if I get straight As this year and next, get an A from summer precalc moved over, and take two off-schedule easy A classes that my school offers that factor into GPA (Math research, science research), I’ll end Junior year with around a 3.88. The reason for this is because I reallllly messed up in 8th and 9th grade. 8th grade, math, science, and spanish counted as I’m in honors and I believe I count as a year ahead in science. Look below
  • However I am planning on taking up to 4 5.0 weighted classes in a college over this summer and the next to be transferred to my transcript so look at it as if I were applying with 3.9+ UW

8th Grade:
Honors Earth Science: B+
Spanish II: B+
Algebra: A-

9th Grade:
World History 9H; B
Spanish III: B+

The rest, all As. This is due to my literal lack of ANY studying or doing any homework. I was going through some stuff, I got REALLY lazy (I put in the amount of effort that I should now), and I swear I didn’t open a single book. I’ve always been bad at Social Studies, but this year in AP World I believe I’ll end with an A- at worst.

Favorite school: UPenn
IF MY CHARITY GETS BIG IN THE NEWS AND I HAVE A BIG NUMBER TO REPORT ($$$$$$ RAISED): Yale. I LOVE Yale. That’s my god damn dream. I’d do anything.

2

Any student who wants to go to “an Ivy”, and “any Ivy” isn’t going about this right. There are very few students who could be happy at every Ivy. The vibe and academic strengths vary quite a lot. You would be much better off building a list of schools that don’t just include Ivies that are strong in your proposed major AND seem to have the campus location, size, and feel that appeals to you. Run net price calculators and visit some, and build a list of reaches/matches/safeties that makes sense for you. The Ivy league is an athletic conference, for crying out loud… stop looking at superficial marketing and do the real work of looking for colleges that would be best for you.

3

Just try to raise your overall UW GPA to about a 3.8 if possible, and try to get a 2300+ by the spring of your junior year. Don’t take too many SATs, just try to study as much as you can between each one so that you can reach your goal with no more than three tests.

Use CC sparingly, it can waste a lot of your time, and actually doing things that will help you be accepted to a selective school will be more productive than reading about such activities a lot of the time. Trust me, I and many other kids who got sucked into CC as a sophomore probably could have done better things with our time. Seriously, there cannot be more emphasis put on this, DO NOT use CC every day. Try to go really in depth with your extracurriculars and enjoy them, set out specific and attainable goals, and make sure you reflect on everything you do. Once in a while, it is good to think about what you’re doing, because it helps you understand yourself, and that could help in a college essay. High school and college will be a fraction of what your life will amount to, albeit an important one, but try to enjoy life past being a college admissions machine (says the 17 year old trying to attempt wisdom).

You will do so much better in college if you go to the one where you will be happiest. You can do well at almost any college, so find out the ones that will have the resources you need to succeed, and then sort through those colleges to find out where you will fit in (Not conform, but thrive) most as an intellectual (however you express it) and human being.

Use USNWR as a guide, but don’t just look at the rankings, look at the extra information they have for each school. An even better ranking system is Princeton Review, where your interests can be more specifically used in the search for the right college.

Technically, you have to play the game, but a lot of the time people look too much toward what is next, and for their whole life they just try to go higher and higher on the hierarchy of goals and success. Try to enjoy life, and while you should work harder on your GPA, don’t feel worried about spending time in a non-weighted class, or spending extracurricular time on a new topic that you enjoy (Still, try to go deep with your extracurriculars). If you are doing ECs you enjoy very much, it should be easy to do well in them and write about them in a college essay (If it asks for that). It is somewhat good that you are thinking about this now, but don’t let that dominate your life, do your extracurriculars for what they are instead of for college admissions, and you will do much better in school and college admissions. I hope that helped. I rarely type this much for a post, but you seem like the naive ambitious sophomore that I was, and I thought I should give you guidance.

4

Frankly, miles from USNWR top 20. Improve your SAT to 2300+, take SAT IIs 2 750+, preferably pertaining to your major of study, GPA to ~3.9, continue a rigorous course load, garner excellent LORs, while staying involved and you’re on the right track. Your privilege will raise expectations as mentioned above.

5

Not miles away, but you should not be aiming to apply to all 8 ivies. They are ALL different. Go on some college visits

6

It’s so early that it’s really impossible to tell where you’d fit in at this stage. Your SAT is low for those hyper-elite schools, but that’s because you’re doing it a year to a year and a half early! (I wouldn’t be so cocky about the 2400 though. :P)

7

That statement implies a lack of maturity and due diligence, as not all ivies are the same. For example, Columbia has a core curriculum whereby all students, regardless of major, must take the same basic set of core courses during their freshman and sophomore years of college – it’s kind of like high school! (http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/core) Whereas, Brown has an open curriculum. (http://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/what-open-curriculum) Students that love Brown tend not to like Columbia and vice-versa. So, which ivy is a better fit for you? That is going to require a thorough search on your part of each school’s majors, curriculum, courses and administrative policy’s. When you have completed an exhaustive search of each ivy, you will begin to see the differences between each school.

That said, more than 85% of accepted students at the ivies have an unweighted GPA of 3.75 or higher. So, based upon your two B’s for 9th grade, you are not currently a competitive applicant for the ivies!

8

@gibby‌ I agree with most of your sentiments, but 2 Bs freshman year isn’t enough to warrant a rejection. It certainly wouldn’t give someone a GPA of 3.75 UW if the rest of their grades are As! I had several (4, I believe) Bs my freshman year, and my UW GPA is a 3.9 (I’ve gotten As since then). That being said, a few Bs and an SAT score of 2000 is more than enough to make Ivies an impossibility for someone thats unhooked.

9

@Qwerty568‌ I believe I have a hook. I founded a charity, a club in my school to fund that charity, and I’m writing a children’s book about that disorder. I have leadership in lots of clubs. I got a B+ and a B freshman year, no A minuses, and 8th grade grades are irrelevant…If I get straight As (which I am and will) I’ll end with around the mid 3.9s. My SATs can only improve as I got a 2000 cold, and my ACT is at around a 33 cold. Some colleges, like Princeton, don’t even look at freshman year. Without 8th grade, my GPA is a 3.76. After sophomore year, it’ll be a 3.89. After junior year, the sky’s the limit! Eighth grade gets me down but those grades don’t count…however, with eighth grade, it’s a 3.81 after sophomore year and a 3.87 after junior year.

10

That is not what a hook is. A hook would be being a urm, legacy, athlete, you have a building named after your family or you won a very prestigious competition

11

[QUOTE=""]

“My ACT is around 33 cold”
thinking that starting a charity is a major hook
thinking that he will get a 2400
just started a charity and thinks it is going to raise a bazillion dollars and get him hours of TV time

[/QUOTE]

Way to sound like an arrogant SOAB.

You either have or havent taken the ACT. Your practice tests aren’t a great measure because they’re not in a real environment nor can you send them in as a report. Get a real report, like you did with the SAT.

In terms of grades, if they were high school classes, they will stay on your transcript through high school. The majority of the schools you will, most likely, apply to will use those freshman year grades. Also, its great that you want to keep your grades up, but you’re being pretty dang arrogant about it and keeping straight A’s in 7 AP’s is tons different than doing it in the basic classes you’re in now.

Your ECs look very padded, very easy to tell you did them just for college. Starting a charity isn’t a hook by any means. Tons of teenagers start charities and clubs. Those are just normal, actually very generic, ECs.

To be honest, your SAT score/GPA is low, you’re lacking ECs, and you have nothing to make up for those, and your arrogance won’t help. You’re privileged and are expected to use your resources, and so far you haven’t.

12

That’s an EC that shows a long commitment – which is what colleges look for, but as others have said, that is not a hook.

You do realize that when you take the SAT next year, it will be a completely revised test, so who knows how you will score: https://www.collegeboard.org/delivering-opportunity/sat/redesign

13

@gibby‌ might take it before the change.

14

Several things:

  1. You cannot rely on getting a 2400. Period. You can't even assume you'll have a good chance. First of all, a reasonable increase to aim for is 200-300 points. Second, once you reach the upper echelons regression to the mean and randomness matter far more than your abilities. Third, SAT prep is a long and mind-numbing process that will require patience and commitment. If you've had problems maintaining your work ethic in the past, you're going to have to overcome those.
  2. As several people have pointed out, if you're assuming that you'll get straight As for the rest of your HS career, you're displaying exactly the sort of poor judgment that could prevent you from doing so.
  3. In recent years, colleges have been instructing application readers to disregard extracurriculars that are only available to those with wealthy parents. If there's anything that fits more squarely into this category than a 501(c)(3) charity with large fundraising totals considered in combination with a privileged background, I don't know what it is. And I guarantee you that if you plan on using a large fundraising number as a reason you should be admitted, unis will look into the matter in depth. They know that grassroots initiatives start as informal, unofficial, and almost always unregistered organizations. They also know that application filler starts as a 501(c).
  4. As stated by others, all Ivies are not created equal. As someone who's planning on applying to at least one, I can tell you that almost half the group was immediately discarded. Cornell? It's in the middle of nowhere, or upstate New York if you prefer, which is great only if you're interested in their excellent school of agriculture (I'm not). If you're a city person, I can almost guarantee that you won't like Cornell. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of Princeton. On the other hand, if you don't like cities and you don't like questionable neighborhoods, Columbia is a huge question mark.
  5. In recent years, colleges have started to care less and less about that 14th AP course. Ease up. Take 4 a year and get As in all of them. Beyond 5 or 6 APs, the difference an extra AP course makes is about the same as the difference between a 2250 SAT versus a 2260-close to zero.
15

@NotVerySmart‌ thank you for being helpful and polit. I agree with everything you said. for the record I’m long over my work ethic issues

16

IMHO, as a sophomore you shouldn’t be worrying about stuff like this. I’m sure colleges can see the transparency in kids that do things only to get into an Ivy league school. Finding things that you enjoy and challenging yourself in high school are probably the best way to get into a great school. As a relatively thick skinned kid, I found that being on this website too much forces you to compare yourself with others in a negative way and even almost try to copy them. Doing your personal best is all that you can ask for. FWIW I had a 202 PSAT sophomore year which went up to a 2380 junior year with prep so its definitely possible to increase that much.

17

@dreamchaser50 I like you. People on this site seem bitter, like they came here after being rejected from their dream school. I know I’ll do my personal best and I know that that will be extraordinary. Keep chasing your dreams.

18

Go visit several colleges in your area: a small LAC, a mid-size university public and/or private), your flagship. What do you like about them? Dislike?

19

It’s not unrealistic to get a perfect SAT score?? With all due respect, you have entered, at best, into the world of hubris, and at worst, tomfoolery. By way of numbers, per the College Board, which administers the test, there were 1,664,479 seniors in the class of 2012 who took the SAT. Of those, 360 got perfect scores. So, unless you the most rarefied of people, in a fraction of 1%–I would be a more pragmatic on what scores are obtainable–that said-I like the confidence.