Citizenship: US, Israel
State of residence: New York
Race: Caucasian/Middle Eastern
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish–extremely reform
GPA: 3.7 W (91)
Progression: Upward trend (Had around an 89 average up until junior year, where I averaged a 95 and senior year where I am currently averaging a 93)
–I go to HSAS, the best public school in New York
–All my classes are at least at the honors level
AP’s: I have taken 3 AP’s and am currently taking AP Spanish Lang and AP English Lit (I scored a 5 on US and AP Lang and a 3 on Global)
SAT: 1460, 19 on the essay (6, 6, 7)
SAT II: Did pretty poorly on those–700 on US and 660 on Global
Extra curriculars:
–Varsity tennis captain for two years (I play 3rd singles–not looking to play varsity sports in college). I won the sportsmanship award in junior year SPRING SPORT
–Bowling A team varsity player for one year FALL SPORT
–Soccer club starter for three years MEETS EVERY TUESDAY
–I babysit regularly for a child missing a chromosome (around three-four times a month during the weekend)
–I volunteered at a church a couple times to help feed the homeless
–I interned at an organization that helped minorities gain educational opportunities this past summer (worked 8 hours a day for 6 weeks)
–I was a Junior Camp Counselor for my freshman and sophomore summers (8 hours a day, 8 weeks)
–Member of school indoor soccer (futsal) team WINTER SPORT
–Helped organize a winter co-ed tennis team WINTER SPORT
Honors:
Sportsmanship award for tennis
Physical Education award (IK this is total b.s. lmao)
Early Schools:
SUNY Binghamton (EA)
Northeastern (EA)
U Vermont (EA)
U Wisconsin-Madison (EA)
Davidson (ED)
Regular schools:
Hamilton
Bates
Macalester
Haverford
Boston University
Emory
I would not be too horribly worried about any of your EA schools. Northeastern has a history of being weird when it comes to EA - sometimes really weak students are accepted and really strong students are not. I don’t know enough about Davidson ED, but considering it is a strong liberal arts school but not TOP tear, I would say you have a strong chance. On your regular list, Haverford and Emory will be kind of reachy just because the applicant pool is supposed to be super competitive this year, but a lot of it will come down to your essays and things like that. Your EC’s and test scores are pretty strong, GPA is pretty good as well. You are a strong applicant to many of these schools, a lot of it will come down to essays.
Have you looked at your school’s Naviance results as I think W GPA will make Davidson ED’ a super reach and Northeastern EA super reach Early Schools? Whatever you find out, I think the same holds true for Regular Admission to Bates, Emory, Hamilton and Haverford.
All of these schools are loaded with 4+ W GPA applicants, and in the case Davidson, Emory, Hamilton, Haverford, and Northeastern, a 1450 is the avg. SAT for all applicants, including those applicants with hooks.
Naviance puts me at at a reach for Haverford, Davidson, and emory but on track for the rest. The reason behind this is that my school doesn’t weight honors classes and only gives a .1 bump for AP’s.
Emory, Haverford and Hamilton all profile the same, and Davidson is slightly lower for the bottom 25%, so there may be either athletic recruits or other hooks that are skewing results from some of these - best to assume they are all reaches.
With under 2000 students, Davidson College is one of the smallest schools in the country with Division 1 athletics, and about a quarter of Davidson students are athletes. This likely somewhat pulls down the lower bound of the ACT / SAT middle 50% a bit, but those are still quite respectable: ACT (30-33); new SAT (1290-1460).
Note that many of the athletes are included in the early decision acceptances, which makes the ED admission rate (41.5% for class of 2021) appear deceptively high. Overall acceptance rate is just 20.1% though, so it is good that the OP is applying there ED. A top student (arguably the top student: perfect unblemished 4.0 and swept all the awards) in our local high school was rejected this past year applying RD.
I see several very good match schools where I expect you to get in. I am hard pressed to say which of your schools is truly a safety, although a few are close and I am not familiar with all of them. Have you run the NPC on all of these schools?
Safeties: U Vermont, U Wisconsin, Bing (a little bit of a safety, a little target)
Target: BU, Macalester, Northeastern
Reach: Hamilton, Emory, Davidson, Haverford, Bates
@freekong12, I think Bates would be a match based on your academic profile, but demonstrated interest is key as the acceptance rate is low; demonstrated interest is key at most LAC’s - Hamilton also takes fit very seriously.
