OK, my S24:
US white male, parents both with professional degrees
Full pay
Feederish private HS (no particular feeder colleges but it gets students admitted to highly selective colleges at unusually high rates), usually viewed as the top private in our non-coastal metro
Listed Biology, Classics, and Philosophy as interests (didn’t apply anywhere that admits by major)
35 ACT
4.16/4.33 UW GPA (no rank, no weighting, about half and half mix of As and A+s, which is quite good but was not the best in his class)
His HS offers very few APs but he had a 5 in Calc BC junior year, AP CS senior year, other course highlights included second-level Bio and Inorganic Chem electives, Latin through Level 5, advanced English electives, Philosophy, and Macro
Varsity in Soccer, Squash (3 years), and Ultimate (3 years). Worked up to key reserve and sometime starter on soccer team that made state quarters senior year (most of the other such soccer players are year-round club types). Fourth on ladder and assistant captain on squash team that made national finals for division junior year (lowest division though). Season MVP for ultimate team junior year, team won regional division title, Co-Captain senior year
Peer Leader, Writing Center staff, designated tutor for Bio, Chem, and Latin, Admissions Ambassador
Some debate–won a couple tournaments and went to states, then was a research consultant for new debaters as a senior–but really Squash took over what would have been prime debate season
2nd Degree Adult Black Belt (Shaolin Kung Fu)
Only academic awards were for National Latin Exam
Recommendations probably very good, from multi-year Chem/Bio/JV soccer coach and four-year Latin teacher
Submitted Brown video, no interviews
Results in approximate order received:
Pitt: Accepted (+$5K/year merit after long delay)
St Andrews: Offer for Biology
Yale (legacy SCEA): Deferred=>Rejected
William & Mary: Accepted (cypher postcard and Monroe offer)
Rochester: Accepted (+$12K/year merit)
Haverford: Accepted
Middlebury: Waitlisted
WUSTL: Accepted
Carleton: Accepted
Amherst: Waitlisted
Williams: Rejected
Wake Forest: Accepted
Vassar: Accepted
Brown: Rejected
Penn: Rejected
He is down to choosing between Carleton and WUSTL.
Commentary: he was somewhat concerned about focusing on school activities where he did not get a lot of individual accolades, although he did get some leadership positions. As a result, he applied pretty broadly in terms of type of school (universities and LACs), region (including one UK school), and selectivity.
And it is possible that his ECs/awards were an issue with his six NESCAC/Ivy colleges, where he was waitlisted (Amherst and Middlebury), or rejected (Williams, Brown, Penn, and ultimately Yale after being deferred–the three people we know of from his HS who were accepted at Yale did have very impressive individual activities). On the other hand, those were his most selective colleges anyway, so who knows?
And he otherwise did great outside of NESCAC/Ivies with both his universities and LACs, and I feel like his combination of well-rounded max rigor and very strong grades/recommendations, plus really getting the most out of his school community and then contributing back, was a great pitch for all those colleges.
So I feel like this was sort of an Average Excellent/traditional HS student success story, but the keys were going to a very good HS, then really squeezing all the juice out of that HS experience, and then applying ambitiously but to plenty of colleges outside of the NESCAC/Ivy Hunger Games.
if you are curious, i am now choosing between Dartmouth, Duke, and Georgetown! An exciting decision ahead !!