Being female in the sciences helps, but just to reinforce @DadTwoGirls, I’ll give you the example of my GD who had perfect 36 ACT, straight A’s in a rigorous curriculum, and good EC’s. She was rejected or waitlisted at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford, Pomona, Williams, and Amherst. She should have been a good match for these schools and she did get into some other Top 20 schools. The point is that there is no way to chance you for the kinds of schools you’re interested in because they have too many applicants who look very similar for the few seats they have. There’s a lot of luck involved. Applying to these schools is like buying a lottery ticket. Apply anyway, but make sure you have some other schools where they accept more than 10-15%.
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