ChunRich

Hey Guys I'm a white male from a suburban town and from a 2A high school. My graduating class has approx. 300 people. What are my chances of getting into the following:

Cornell
Brown
Princeton
Dartmouth
Columbia
UPENN
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Duke
Vandy
UVA
Cal Tech
MIT
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon

GPA: 4.0
Class Rank: 1 of approx. 300
SAT I: 1440; Math:770 Verbal:670
SAT II Math Level 1: 760
SAT II Chem.: 720

Higher Level Classes:
AP Calc BC - 4 ; AB - 5
AP Chem - 4
AP US - 4
Frederick Community College Class - Film History 101

Extracurriculars:
Varsity Basketball
Varsity Outdoor Track
Key Club
Student Government Association
Model United Nations

Leadership:
Freshman Basketball Captain (9th Grade)
Junior Varsity Basketball Captain (10th Grade)
Student Government Web Site Committee Chairperson (10th - 12th Grade)
Student Government Treasurer (11th Grade)
Senior Class Council (12th Grade)
President and Founder of Model United Nations (12th Grade)
Maryland Boys State: President of City Council
Maryland Boys State: State Delegate

Community Service:
Approximately 180 Hours including:
Special Olympics Fall of 2004
Special Olympics Spring of 2005
Walk-a-thon for the Homeless Spring 2003
Middletown Basketball Camp Staff Member (Summers of '03 and '04)
Working with Autistic and Mentally Handicapped Children

Work:
National Institute of Health, National Cancer Institute, Laboratory of Genomic Diversity - Frederick Intern


Thanks guys! If you don't think ill get in please tell me what else you think I need,and what would help increase my chances.

Vyse

A more appropriate outlet for your inquiry would be the "What are My Chances?" board.

Vyse

I think your chances are pretty good at almost all those schools. Only flaw i can see is not taking any AP English classes. keep in mind that Harvard is a reach for everyone though.

dufus3709

Not just Harvard is a reach for everyone. It is really impossible to predict acceptances at the extremely selective colleges.

Try to organize your EC's so that they show "passion" and long-term committment to one or two areas. Your EC's look good, but are not organized to show focus. You want to stand out as being unique. You might get a copy of "Acing the College Application" by Michelle Hernandez. It is good because it is concise and give you information very specific to what you need to have on the application.

Being captains of sports is very good because it shows leadership.

It would be better if your verbal score was above 700. Make sure you take the New SAT at least once since some schools will require it.

Think more about what you want in a school such as large/small/midsize, university/LAC, public/private, urban/rural/suburban. Do you care about frats/sororities on campus? Do you want Division 1 sports teams on campus? You list is heavily oriented towards prestige for the sake of prestige. Brown and Columbia have some things in common, but they are totally different schools.

College_Here_I_Come!

If you can publish your results from an experiment with NCI, you have better chances. Otherwise, I'm afraid to tell you that your 670 falls into the bottom 25% of scores for many of the schools that you have listed.

An in-depth EC or a strong passion would help as well.

Since you live in Middletown, why not look at UMCP's Honors program? If it doesn't sound so appealing to you at first, I can tell you right now that UMCP only invites about the top 8-9% of its incoming classes into its Honors program, and the students invited have a middle 50% SAT (old) of 1360-1470.

Heck, if you're lucky enough, you could even be invited to UMCP's gemstone program.

I say your best bet is if you can publish your results in a journal. Your mentor will know when you are ready to start such an experiment.

thethoughtprocess

You are pretty much applying to what many would say are the top 10-15 schools in the country...

The shotgun method does work sometimes

College_Here_I_Come!

Oh, one more thing: you need a writing score one way or another, and since it looks like you haven't taken the SAT II writing, you're stuck with the new SAT

dufus3709

I didn't mention it before because it was obvious, but you need to identify some safety and match schools.

sybbie719

I think that your list is extremely top heavy and as Dufus stated you need to put in some reach and match schools. The majority of the schools on your list are reaches for everyone . Do a search for Andi's son because it could be you next year; vey bright student with no school to attend in the fall.

Are your scores based on the old test? You know that you may have to take either the new test or the ACT because you need a writing score.


The admissions process is a capricious one on even a good day. You have no major hooks in a process where 40% of the seats are probably already going to Athletes, Legacies, URMs, and Developmental admits. The balance will used to build the class of 2010 which will also include the run of the mill genius, the musician, artist, low income student (big thing this year at HY), the good deed doers (Now that Princeton review has come out with a list of colleges with a conscience), so you have nothing that is making you stand out from the rest of the crowd. Are you trying to be a recruited athlete in your sports?

In addition some of the schools you have listed are so vastly different from each other that it seems that you are just looking to get into the "best named' school you can. Dartmouth and Columbia could not be more different from each other with one being a gated campus in NYC where everyone is doing their own thing and the other in rural N.H. with a strong sense of cohesiveness. Columbia prides themselves on their Core Curriculum (very much based in humanities) whereas Brown gives you all the room you need to chose what you want.

ChunRich

I plan to take the new SAT that has the SAT II Writing equivalent. I also was thinking that a general theme to my high school career has been ladership and politics since I've done SGA, soon to be MUN, and Boy State... Next year I am taking AP Lit, AP Bio (this summer actually), AP Pysch, and Calc 3 along with this internship at Ft. Detrick.

iwantfood

Vandy, UVA, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon are reacheable

The others are long shots

namaste

include some "safeties" as well. you seem to be aimiing high.

zagat

I agree there is a need for more matches and safeties. The ivies are big reaches with these scores and lack of unusual ECs.

machiavelli

Other than classifying into safety/match/reach, do you actually prefer some of them over others? Just having all the Ivies and other top schools... eh. But you do have nice ECs

dufus3709

You might look at Emory and WUSTL. Get a study guide and practice on the SAT Verbal so you can retake in the Fall. The SAT Verbal is your weakness. If you apply RD, you can take it as late as January. Don't take it more than three times.