<p>I’m a rising senior in high school and I’m starting to get an idea that Ivy League schools are realistic for me (or are they?) but I was wondering what the general stereotypes are of the types of people that go to the different Ivy Leagues. Outdoorsy? Partiers? Stoners? Cutthroat competitive?
I got a 35 on my ACT, I’m in full IB, I have a 4.75 weighted GPA, NHS member, captain of the track and soccer teams.
Do I need more extracurriculars?</p>
<p>Can’t tell. Provide more information.</p>
<p>Awards?
What’s your UW GPA?
Community service?
AP’s?
Senior Load?
Rank/Percentile?</p>
<p>UW GPA: 3.98
I’m volunteering a lot this summer.
I’m taking the hardest courses my school offers and I’m ranked second in the class.
I don’t really have any notable awards.</p>
<p>I like how you post this in Brown…</p>
<p>Anyway (from what I’ve heard)
Harvard: snobby
Yale: liberal
Princeton: cutthroat academics (grade deflation, compared with inflation at other Ivies)
Brown: more laid back academics (any class can be taken pass/fail)
Dartmouth: Elitist</p>
<p>Annnd that’s all I’ve heard of</p>
<p>You’d probably need more ECs to be competitive at Ivy level, yes.</p>
<p>No harm in applying (unless you can’t afford the application fee) so I’d apply to all of them if I were you. From your title it sounds like you’re looking for a singular one to apply to. Most kids I know who go to Ivies apply to a lot of them and get rejected by a few.</p>
<p>^ Rosy: don’t put your future on layer upon layer of hackneyed rumors like Teddy just wrote. The thing they share is excellence. Each brings together a broad swath of students from the entire spectrum. Instead you should focus on the physical environs of each (outdoorsy like Dartmouth, Princeton & Cornell, urban: Harvard, Penn, Columbia, middle of the road: Brown, Yale) and the academic strengths & focus of each (i.e. Brown vs. Columbia). </p>
<p>BTW: Teddy’s casual remarks dismissing your captaincy of Soccer and Track as being insufficient ECs should colors the rest of his remarks, no? I attended one of the schools on his list and can tell you that his one-word summation about it is baloney.</p>
<p>Congrats on your performance to date. Good luck to you in the fall.</p>
<p>Here are some questions to ask yourself:</p>
<p>Do you want to live in a city, or in the country?
Do you want a required core of classes, an open curriculum, or broad distribution requirements?
Do you want a school with many graduate/professional programs, or one that has a greater emphasis on the undergraduate experience?</p>
<p>All the Ivies are incredibly diverse, so chances are you will meet at each one people who are competitive, partiers, outdoorsy and stoners. Heck, that could describe one person!</p>
<p>As for ECs, it’s kind of late to suddenly start doing things your senior year. You have to grades and scores that make you a viable candidate. After that, it depends on your recommendations, essays, geography and luck.</p>
<p>Here is a breakdown from what I know:</p>
<p>Harvard: elitist, urban, broad strength in many departments, many graduate students, great location (lots of little coffee shops, college stuff, etc), courses are challenging but not shockingly cut throat like MIT or princeton. </p>
<p>Yale: elitist, urban, once again strong in almost all departments, many graduate students, poor location (high crime, decrepit), challenging. </p>
<p>Princeton: nerdy, suburban, strong in many departments, hardcore focused on undergrads, decent location, courses tend to be the most cut throat in the ivy league because of grade deflation and such. Not as pre-professional as Yale, Harvard, and Penn. </p>
<p>Penn: social, urban, strong in many departments especially business and science, many grad students, decent location (urban with lots to do, but has some crime), courses seem to be more collaborative and not as cut throat as princeton. Very pre-professional many students are “pre-goldman sachs” or pre-med. </p>
<p>Columbia: cosmopolitan, urban, strong in many departments especialy journalism, many grad students, good location, courses are challenging on par with Penn and Dartmouth. Not as pre-professional as Penn, harvard or yale, but more so than the others. </p>
<p>Dartmouth: Outdoorsy, rural, strong in most departments, not many students overall the smallest in the ivy league, decent location (can get boring at times), courses are challenging.</p>
<p>Brown: liberal, urban, strong in most departments, decent amount of grad focus, courses seem more open for exploration, least pre-professional in the ivy league.</p>
<p>Cornell: Midwestern feel, rural, strong in many departments although perhaps considered the weakest in the ivy league, decent amount of grad focus, courses can be very challenging (dubbed the easiest ivy to get into but hardest to graduate out of), somewhat pre-professional, stress level on par with princeton as probably the second most stressful.</p>
<p>I strongly suggest you carefully read this thread from the parents forums- lots of input from parents about what was different about the students who WERE accepted at HYPS; </p>
<p>to quote from one mom in post 13-
“Not every student at HYPSMC is an Intel finalist, published novelist etc. It’s often hard from the outside to figure out what the difference is. But I’d say from our school at least all the HYPMC kids at least had at least one real accomplishment - state level medals at Science Olympiad, concertmaster of the school orchestra, significant science research, real work experience in computer programming, president of student council… But the minute you come down from those schools with single digit acceptance rates (Cornell, Dartmouth, Tufts, U of Chicago (at least 2 years ago)) the expectations are much more reasonable.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1355652-applying-top-schools-worth-reasonable-chance-admission.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1355652-applying-top-schools-worth-reasonable-chance-admission.html</a></p>