<p>I am brazilian. I have great ECs that show leadership and good SAT scores and GPA for a brazilian (2220 and 3.83 - top1% of class)</p>
<p>I want Harvard, UPenn, Yale, UChicago or Duke for ECONOMICS.</p>
<p>Could an internship in an investment bank or a publicity agence "boost" my chances? How much?</p>
<p>I assume I am a Reach for Harvard, Yale and UC and a Low Reach for UPenn (ED) and Duke.</p>
<p>You’re assumptions are about right. An internship is a great way to learn skills so obviously find one pertaining to economics. The more extracurricular activities the better.</p>
<p>Only if the ECs show student’s significant achievements.
Bundle of sports, speech/debate won’t work.</p>
<p>They do, but that was not my question</p>
<p>Of course it would boost your chances, any additional SOLID EC like that would boost them. That would help you stand out from the pack, and you may even get a good letter of recommendation out of it. However, we don’t know the rest of your application. Assuming you’re a typical applicant, this would definitely put you ahead of the pack. But saying it would guarantee admission or anything would be outrageous.</p>
<p>It would put you ahead of everyone else, but don’t expect it to put you over the top.</p>
<p>And you are dead on with your predictions for the universities you listed. Depending on your other activities, duke may be a low match or a low reach.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks! My ECs are:</p>
<p>member of the student council for 3 years (VP in the junior, President in the senior);</p>
<p>organized a political debate among the candidates for Mayor of my city (a big city), in which I also proposed the final question;</p>
<p>organized for 3 years (26th, 27th and 28th editions) a famous rock festival in my city, by which I helped amateur bands to stand out in our city’s music scenario;</p>
<p>organized a protest against corruption in brazil, which attracted thousands of people in black and reverberated in a national newspaper;</p>
<p>organized SEVERAL championships (truco, soccer, videogames, skate and more) in my school;</p>
<p>created a valentines day event in my school to raise money for a charity;</p>
<p>president of the cinema club for 3 years. I ran a project that showed teenagers the classic and european movies.</p>
<p>Hobbithopeful covered pretty much everything I’d say (except for calling Duke a low match… that’s far too generous for such a selective school).</p>
<p>I’ll add that you might want to put your interest in business to the test by conducting a rough cost-benefit analysis; if the possibility of lower grades (I’m sure you’re a great student, but studying and doing homework is harder when you add on big time commitments) is worth the resume boost, you should go through with it – but if not, you might want to focus on maintaining the academics.</p>