Chance a junior for Ivies + Duke, Stanford, NYU, UMich for PoliSci [3.94 UW, 1570 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
, , , ,
1

I’m currently a junior, so if theres anything I can do to improve my applications pls tell me

demographics: female, indian, IL, large public

stats: 1570 SAT (790 RW, 780M), 3.94 UW/ 4.71W (2 B’s, one in precalc honors and one in AP Spanish)

AP: BIO, Physics 1, Chem, APUSH, AP Lang, AP Spanish language, AP Calc AB, DE Philosophy, DE sociology

Senior year courses: AP Gov, AP Comp Gov, AP Macro+micro econ, APES, AP African American, AP Stats, AP Psych, AP Lit

Activities/ECS:

Intern for a US Representative

intern for an international nonprofit with less than 5% acceptance rate

director of outreach for a finance club

won best delegate at model UN multiple times, on executive board

Debate club, went to nats, didnt break. Won a local tourney

NHS

passed a legislation in my community with a group of 5 people in my school club (substance prevention) + Changed laws in communities near me (also substance related)

Teach Carnatic music to young children

Fluent in 4 languages

Created an org with my friend to spread awareness about youth substance use, interviewed presidents of diff orgs and have multiple articles

creating an org for women in politics (no impact currently, in progress)

over 100+ volunteer hours

And that’s basically it. What can I even do this semester to make myself better to colleges? I used to want to go to Yale but not anymore, I know I have literally no chance. I’ve been emailing professors since June and haven’t gotten an internship at all. I don’t have any onnections, and I lack good ecs. I know I’m completely screwed for ivies, but is it possible for me to improve myself in time?

My end goal is law school if that helps. I want to go to schools that have some grade inflation (like Brown). Currently my top choice is UPenn, but I am unsure of the difficulty of maintaining a 3.95+ gpa in polisci, if anyone has any insights pls let me know!
Schools
My list of schools are all of the ivies, minus Cornell and Princeton (grade deflation), along with Duke, Umich, Barnard, NYU, and Stanford. I am instate for UIUC so that is my safety.

2

You are an impressive student but unless you are “hooked” (low SES, FGLI, recruited athlete, legacy etc) chance of admission to an Ivy are pretty low. It has nothing to do with you - you seem like an excellent candidate, but there are so, so many wonderful kids applying to these schools that many will be left disappointed. Does that mean you shouldn’t apply - absolutely not! Definitely include several high reaches on your list. However, it is really important to have a safety you really like (and can afford) as well as several matches on your list as well. Among the schools you list, UIUC is a safety (and an excellent school) and I think NYU is a high match (you would increase the likelihood there by applying ED). If you are serious about political science you should take a look at Georgetown (another reach), GW (match) and American (likely as long as you demonstrate lots of interest). Also, don’t just apply to a bunch of Ivies because of the name - they are all quite different and I have a hard time imagining someone who likes Columbia would be equally attracted to Dartmouth.

4 Likes
3

Congratulations on your accomplishments! Have you discussed finances with your family and can they afford/will they pay for these schools?

I think you are a competitive student and should continue doing activities that you enjoy. There is no “thing” that you can do within the next year that will assure an acceptance to your desired schools. Most who apply are not accepted.

My advice is to find a few more likely and match schools (you reported 1) that you can afford and would be happy to attend. What about some of the DC schools, some of the public universities with strong honors colleges, etc?

4 Likes
4

You can’t. You’ve done a lot. Present yourself well would be my best advice.

“intern for an international nonprofit with less than 5% acceptance rate .” Well most have low acceptance rates and it’s not relevant. What you did ahd accomplished is relevant. Make sure you show what you accomplished, quantitatively if possible.

Ps you can go to law school from anywhere. Literally. UIUC is a great option. If you don’t like it, your stats would get you great deals at many other safeties.

Good luck.

1 Like
5

My advice for people thinking about law school is:

(A) Make sure you don’t accumulate any debt to go to college if you can avoid it, and ideally actually start saving for law school as well; and

(B) See if you can go to a college where you can easily explore and then pick a major where you will do really well in terms of grades. Ideally it would be a major with a lot of difficult reading and expository writing, but really whatever you are best at.

I was fortunate to be able to figure out how to come out of law school without much debt, which makes it so, so much easier to launch your legal career in a way which will be enjoyable and sustainable. Both of the above things matter to that end, the second because of the possibility of getting merit for law school.

And Poli Sci is one popular major for law school, but you may find in college you are better-suited for something else, through interest, ability, or both. That is not a barrier to law school at all, as long as you get the best possible grades.

In terms of colleges, you only have Barnard as an LAC on your list, and I would suggest you think about maybe adding some more, including some that are perhaps not such hard admits, and indeed where you might get merit. LACs are often great choices for law school intenders because they tend to be well structured for finding a major where you will excel, and also tend to make sure their graduates are very good writers, and also tend to have excellent pre-law advising and related opportunities.

Not that I put too much stock in this, but LACs also tend to have very good per capita placement rates among highly selective law schools. For example, take a look at the second (per capita) list on this page:

Amherst is actually #2, between Yale and Harvard. Many more LACs are woven into that list next to Ivies, Ivy+. and top publics. That list only goes to 30 (13 of which are LACs!), but some others I would suggest considering would include Bowdoin, Smith, Macalester, Kenyon, and Oberlin (this is based on the fact these are also strong for Poli Sci).

Finally, among universities, I agree you very much should consider Georgetown, and you might want to look at William & Mary. They are also very strong in Poli Sci, well-networked in DC, and another college with a structure and focus that makes it a very good choice for law school intenders.

6 Likes
6

My 2023 had a little lower stats ect than you and was waitlisted at NYU, so I feel like you’d have a great shot!

1 Like
7

You have definitely made yourself a strong candidate and you definitely have a chance at Yale or just about any other college in the U.S. Although the odds are against you (as they are against all applicants to Yale and the colleges on your list), you definitely have what it takes to be among the small number of students that ARE accepted.

You’re in Model UN and have won best delegate a number of times, you’ve helped get legislation passed in your community, you teach music, and many other things. If you honestly believe that you lack good ECs, I’d strongly recommend speaking to a counselor about your expectations and how you see yourself.

Although I wouldn’t be surprised if you were accepted to each and every school on your list, I wouldn’t be stunned if your only acceptance was UIUC, simply because of how competitive those schools are. What is it about the schools on that list that attracts you? If you can share what it is you like about those schools, then members can help offer suggestion of additional schools where your odds of acceptance are much higher.

Apart from UMich, I don’t see many similarities between UIUC and the rest of your list. Would you be happy to enroll in and attend UIUC for four years, or would you be disappointed and be looking for how quickly you could either transfer out or graduate and move on to something else? If you’d be happy to attend, then that’s great. If not, however, you need to find more schools where you are extremely likely to be admitted, that are extremely likely to be affordable for your family, and that you would be happy to attend for four years.

2 Likes
8

I would hate going to uiuc but it is the best choice I have if I don’t get into any other competitive school. uiuc is ranked 27th or so for political science so I see it as a waste to go somewhere that isn’t higher ranked. My high school is a feeder school to uiuc so everyone goes there. But I think uiuc is a great school, even if I don’t like it and I will go there if I don’t get in anywhere else

9

My parents are fine with paying anything if it is highly ranked/prestigious enough. My backup is always going to be uiuc though because of proximity and cost, so I’m not looking to add any schools. I understand I will probably be rejected form everything but I want to know how I can improve my application somehow before applications, just to have a chance at getting in somewhere

10

Can you explain why you think this?

Then it shouldn’t be on your list, and you need to keep looking for other targets/safeties. Every school on your list should be somewhere you can see yourself being reasonably happy to attend. Don’t apply to a school that you absolutely don’t want to attend.

6 Likes
11

Uiuc is already so highly ranked. It has a good program for political science, and it’s generally a good school. I don’t want my parents to pay money for a school that doesn’t offer more than uiuc.
I say i hate uiuc but it will be good for me. What I think of the school does not matter, the benefits outweigh the cons. And I probably won’t hate it, I’ll just hate going to such a school when all of the work I have done throughout high school was wasted on a school in which I could have gotten into without working this hard

1 Like
12

More what?

13

As a strong applicant, many colleges will offer you merit aid so that your costs would be the same or less than they would be at UIUC. And if you would be happier at one of these institutions because it’s a better fit for you, then it would certainly make lots of sense to apply to some of them.

Ranked by whom? Is this for graduate students or for undergrads? Frankly, poli sci tends to be a pretty good department at the vast majority of colleges in the U.S. It’s a bread-and-butter field. Plus, depending on your interests within poli sci, there are definite advantages of other schools. For instance, if you’re interested in public policy or in politics, attending school in a state or national capital can be a big benefit.

Your work will not have been wasted. It will have prepared you to handle the work coming your way. It will have improved your mind and given you good work habits. It will help form a foundation that will attract your professor’s eye and inclination to recommend you for special opportunities. Additionally, it might offer bring big merit aid offers from colleges that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And don’t forget…other students who didn’t work as hard may have been able to get in…but will they be able to make it through and graduate, and with what is likely to be a great GPA?

If you do your best on your applications, you will definitely get into college somewhere. And there’s nothing more that you can do to improve your odds of getting into the colleges on your current list. You’ve made yourself a strong candidate, and so long as you continue on that path, you have a definite chance of acceptance at any/all of them. But, once again, the odds are not in your favor.

That brings us back to…what is it about the schools on your list that you like? These are some additional questions that you might want to think about:

  • What size classes do you prefer to have?
  • What size student body would you prefer to have?
  • How do you feel about urban/suburban/small town/rural locations?
  • Are there particular states that you would prefer (or prefer to avoid)?
  • Are there any climate issues (including amount of sun) that are important for you?
  • How do you feel about big enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports?
  • How do you feel about Greek life?
  • Are there particular interests that you would like to pursue while in college?

Although you may not be looking for more schools, if you hate the idea of going to UIUC, then I strongly recommend adding more. You can even put a caveat, as in you’re looking for schools that would cost about $32k/year of less (i.e. the price of UIUC for in-state students). But the sure things on your list are the most important schools…the ones that your family is willing and able to afford, that you are extremely likely to be admitted to, and that you would be happy to enroll in and attend for four years. Right now, you don’t have a sure thing that meets this definition.

10 Likes
14

I do understand, but uiuc is also close to home— it’s just the perfect safety school. I don’t think I will be miserable in uiuc, I think I’ve been overstating how much I hate it. The sentiment I feel for uiuc would be the exact same for other schools that are not t20 level. I would just be disappointed that it didn’t work out, but I have no doubt I will work hard in uiuc, whether I hate it or not

15

What is this ranking? I think that with very few exceptions in very few specialized fields, rankings for undergrad programs are meaningless (rankings for grad programs are somewhat more meaningful, if flawed, but if you’re looking at a ranking for a grad program, that doesn’t really translate to the undergrad experience). You’ll probably find distinctive strengths in poli sci programs in every school you’re considering. Look for specifics like the size of the department, course offerings, research potential, internship opportunities, and so on, and consider overall fit (for the school, not the major). Students are far more likely to change majors than change schools, so you should focus more on the colleges you’re considering than the departments.

(Yes, there are exceptions: students who are considering fields like engineering, or colleges within a university that are especially competitive, or impacted majors that don’t admit everyone are in a different boat – but if you’re considering poli sci, that’s not you.)

4 Likes
16

I will also cast another vote in favor of not being unduly influenced by department rankings when considering colleges. And I just want to highlight how these concepts can interact. Specifically, a lot of colleges that might provide a very different but equally good experience from a large research university like Illinois, and which may well offer merit to high numbers kids making them competitive on cost as well, are precisely the sorts of colleges that tend to be entirely excluded, or poorly evaluated, in generic departmental rankings.

Again, I don’t want to overemphasize this sort of thing either, but to go along with that per capita law school feeders list, you can consider this per capita PhD feeders list in Poli Sci:

Illinois is #39 on the total (not per capita) list with 14 PhDs, but that was not enough to actually qualify it for the per capita top 50. Grinnell, for example, had 13, and Grinnell is much smaller!

That source is using a crude per capita measure, but you can do a little better if you want to use the NCES College Navigator tool and look up primary majors. Grinnell had 24 primary majors in Poli Sci, Illinois had 230, nearly a 9:1 ratio!

So, suffice it to say, this measure does not suggest Grinnell would not be a good choice for Poli Sci, including relative to Illinois, at least for someone interested in a small college experience. But then there would be a cost issue–but no different from the privates on the OP’s list, and in fact Grinnell also offers merit.

OK, but Grinnell, and other “top” LACs, are very selective too. Fair enough, but not far down that list you hit Kenyon, with 10 in this period. Checking NCES, 34 majors. OK, not quite as favorable as Grinnell, but still, that is nearly a 5:1 ratio versus Illinois! Again, I am not arguing Illinois is a terrible choice by any means, but many rankings are not going to capture how competitive a Kenyon can be.

Anyway, that is enough belaboring of the point. I just really think it pays to understand when it comes to things like law school placement or strong departments in fields like Political Science, you really have to watch out for rankings that exclude, or improperly evaluate, colleges not part of research universities.

5 Likes
17

Why ? The school or perceived pedigree? It’s a great school that can get you anywhere the rest of your school can. I’m not a fan of the campus but that doesn’t make it not great.

18

soooo many people from my school go there. Like, B students that have no ecs get in from our school. I would hate that after all of my work in high school, I go to a school that I gotten into if I literally snoozed for the past 3 years but I acknowledge that even though it is a common school, it is still a very good school. It will and will always be my only safety. It itself has a 45% acceptance rate, I am not planning on applying anywhere that is comparable to uiuc, which is why my list is almost completely reaches.

19

UIUC as safety is great. In case of DD it was UMD. Nothing wrong with it and you absolutely do not need another safety. However, how about another reach that is not as reachy as Ivy. Will you consider some other great schools? Ivys are an absolute crap shoot and applying to every Ivy is pointless. Find other less reachy school that can make you happy. How about schools like Emory, Tufts, GW, and Brandeis? People go to law schools from all places…

20

The hard work you have done has not been just to get you into a good college – it’s to help you get the most out of any college you go to. All of the work you’ve done in high school has positioned you to succeed in college and build on that success for whatever comes next. Someone who’s slacked through high school won’t be in the same position to get as much out of college. I know it’s hard to have this long-term perspective when you’ve been immersed in the college-application process, but college is not the end-game. If you end up at UIUC, you can go anywhere you want to – but only if you work hard and take advantage of the opportunities an excellent university affords.

4 Likes