I’m a senior and I’m sending in my applications soon. My safety school is UW Madison but I would like to get accepted at harder schools too. So far I’m thinking of applying to Notre Dame, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown. I don’t know if I should be applying to a few more schools that have more reasonable acceptance rates. I feel like my grades and test scores are sufficient but I don’t have as many extracurriculars as most students. Also, my school is super competitive and quite a few of my classmates have already been accepted at these schools so I’m worried that they won’t want to accept too many from the same school. Here are my stats:
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White
State: WI
School: Private
*This year I am currently taking AP French, AP Calculus AB, AP Physics, and AP English, but it looks like I will end up with a B in calculus first semester so my unweighted GPA will go down but my weighted GPA will still go up
Extracurriculars: basketball 9, soccer 9-12 but was on JV freshman and sophomore year, JV tennis 10-12, National Honors Society 11-12, volunteering at various places (110 hours)
Considering my stats, do you think that I could get in to any of these schools? I am worried I’m applying to too many “reach schools”. If anyone has any suggestions as to what other schools I can apply (preferable more selective than UW Madison but less selective than the other schools I’m applying to) that would be great!
Thanks!
You are an excellent candidate, however, its all so competitive. How about F & M, Dickinson, Boston University, Trinity in CT, Skidmore, Connecticut College, Univ of Richmond, Fordham? How are your essays? Has someone proofread, edited?
No. While you might very well be admitted to at least one, ND, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown are so selective that you might very well not be admitted to any.
That depends on how you feel about UW-Madison. It is traditionally considered one of the better state flagships, but is it a place that suits you, and that you would be happy to attend? If so, maybe you should stand pat, but keep in mind that the most common error for kids in your shoes is to spend all their time & effort on reaches, while paying insufficient attention to matches/safeties.
Other posters have suggested some strong LACs. Are you familiar with any? Perhaps you should visit a couple to learn how you feel about the idea.
Agree with @BasicOhioParent as there are more and more Reach Denials and WL’s/Denials happening, so make sure you have Matches unless you are 100% confident in Wisconsin being a great fit.
While your academic profile is very good, as an unhooked applicant to these top schools its only average as the median ACT at Northwestern is 33, and at ND and Vandy its 34.
“My safety school is UW Madison but I would like to get accepted at harder schools too”
UW Madison is a superb school. With your stats and your being in-state, I am inclined to agree that it is probably a safety. It also should be relatively affordable for you. However, given how strong a school it is, I don’t see any point applying to other schools unless you have a very good reason to prefer them to UW. As such, I don’t see anything wrong with just applying to four reach schools plus UW. Whether to add another safety might be a reasonable question to think about.
“Strong” isn’t the only factor in selecting a school - if OP would be unhappy with the size (its 3x larger than the others) then it may not be the best Match or Safety option.
OP, its fiction that a school would only accept a certain number from the same HS - I know both public and private HS’s where 4-6 were accepted to the same Ivy and 3-4 to the same highly selective LAC.
