Hello all! I don’t intend to waste anyone’s time with a “what are my chances?” question, so I suppose I’m going to do just that.
I understand the selectivity of the Ivy League schools, but I’m curious as to my odds of getting in… same as every other member of this forum. Given my numbers, which Ivy league schools could I plausibly get accepted to (if any of course)?
GPA UW: 3.95 (very rigorous school + course load)
Testing full IB: (my higher levels are IB English, IB world history, and IB business – my standard levels are IB Arabic, IB physics and IB math)
SAT SCORE: 1410 (yes, I am aware this is incredibly low relative to Ivy League averages)
EXTRACURRICULARS:
Co-founder and Co-owner of a company designing survival kits in the Pacific Northwest projected to do $100,000 in sales in its first year of business.
Founder and President of Building Bridges LLC, a nonprofit dedicated to benefitting disadvantages youth (i.e. delivered recycled baseball gear to children in the Dominican Republic last summer).
national honors society member (nothing extraordinary here)
member of The Arabic Honor Society
member of nationally ranked Constitution Team
three-year varsity baseball player
I suppose the question I am asking is this: are my extracurriculars (namely the business and the nonprofit) enough to outweigh my lower SAT score if I plan on applying to Ivy League schools?
Nobody can answer that without knowing how you write your application. Do your essays show you’re a fit for the school, will be a valued contributor on campus and are an advanced, unique thinker? Or do your essays imply you’re only concerned with the prestige of an Ivy League college and that you’re simply going through the motions of doing activities that you think will be impressive? Those are the types of things that will separate the people who are accepted from those who aren’t.
To increase your chances, here are some things to work on:
Great ECs are necessary to be admitted, but unless they're world class (like a Nobel prize - and the ones you've listed aren't at that level) they won't be enough to get colleges to overlook low test scores. Raising your SAT (or ACT) score until it's at least in the 50% range for the school(s) you're targeting.
Research the colleges. Even a group like the Ivys contain very different colleges who are looking for different things in students and will offer you different things. If you haven't done the research to know this and know where you'd fit and which offer what you want, it will be tough to put together an appealing package because you'll just look like you want "impressive" vs. you understand what the college wants and show you offer that.
Your description of the ECs sounds underdeveloped; without more detail on what was actually accomplished, what you learned and how that ties into your app, the ECs you list will just sound like you were padding your app by forming things that sound impressive but without much substance behind them. Example - your business doesn't have any actual sales yet so unless your story is about your journey and/or business formation, there's not much to tell since there is no operation yet. Your nonprofit description only contains one single deed, which could have been much more easily and cheaply accomplished by simply donating goods to an already established nonprofit; it's not doing anything groundbreaking or in volumes that would be important. Adcoms are going to ask in both those cases if the operation is simply a way to make you look impressive without much substance.
On the plus side, your writing is good and you have time to work on this. Good luck.