Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1500
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.8
Weighted GPA (out of 6.0): 5.03
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 3%
APs: Sophmore - World, Art History. Junior - English, Chinese, Biology, Chemistry, Physics I, Environmental, Stats. Senior - English, Calc BC, Government, Economics, Human Geography, Psychology, Physics 2. Got all 4s and 5s
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (leadership in parenthesis): Student Council (officer), French Club (co-president), School Production (team leader), archery (placed 1st in Texas), founded my own club for speakers from different fields to come in and talk
Job/Work Experience: None
Volunteer/Community service: Interact
Summer Activities: took DC class
Applied for Financial Aid?: No
Intended Major: Econ and/or Engineering
State: in Texas currently, but did Freshman year in Canada
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: Middle upper
Just for reference, in-state wise I would have no problem getting into Austin or A&M, but I would really like to go to higher ranking school in the East or West Coast. Do I have a shot at the Ivies or top LACs such as Amherst, William, etc, and what schools in Cali or on the East Coast can I realistically get into? Thank you!
my impression is that the “regular decision” applicants to the elite schools that are accepted are basically either perfect test scores or national award winners (national merit etc.). nces.ed.gov is a great site (through their college navigator tab) to see common data set and admissions statistics. What you see is that the top ivies, Duke, Vanderbilt, Williams fill 25% of their classes with perfect ACT scores. (you can see SAT too, ). Amherst has 25% of its class with 35 or 36 on ACT. I would not advise anyone without a national recognition or being a URM to apply to an elite school without hitting the 75%tile mark in common data set for regular decision. Early Decision or recruited athlete, or URM or donor kid is a different matter.
I say this as one who strongly dislikes the rankings systems and drive to reject as many people as possible. Not that one won’t find exceptions but I find it wrong that many of these schools entice kids to apply that would never get in to goose their USNWR rankings. Also, you don’t have any subject tests so you will be competing with kids with double 800s on subject tests too.
Be aware that there are weird quirks for applicants at schools that favor or disfavor genders; e.g. MIT has 3 times as many males apply and Brown has more than twice as many females apply etc… The advice is free so that’s what it’s worth; a couple “reach” schools is not a bad idea but I wouldn’t waste 700$ applying to every Ivy.
I disagree with anon that you need to have perfect scores or national awards to be admitted regular decision if unhooked. That is not my experience from the kids I know. It is not easy to be admitted, but it truly is a holistic process.
@RCJ571, You are a strong applicant, with statistics typical for accepted students at the colleges that interest you. Put together your best application and give it a try! Just be sure to have matches and safeties that you love, too.
student test scores still count “Standardized tests: U.S. News factors admissions test scores for all enrollees who took the mathematics and evidence-based reading and writing portions of the SAT and the composite ACT.
We weighted standardized tests at 7.75 percent, down from 8.125 percent in 2018.”
Also, “reputation” of high school counselors as part of USNWR rankings almost certainly subconciously is effected by selectivity. UCLA has passed UC Berkeley in most of these rankings despite historically UC Berkeley being the #1 in the UC system - UCLA gets >100,000 applicants a year. My kid has gotten lots of emails from UCLA to apply but none from UC Berkeley. So at least indirectly these “reputation” weights are likely effected by how hard it is to get in.
nces.ed.gov is a great site to look at common data set scores. pretty much every top 15 school has the 75%tile ACT score at “35” meaning 25% are above a ‘35’- =36. these schools fill 25% of their classes of kids with perfect scores (36). Each school has ~200 recruited athletes each year, at schools like vanderbilt or Duke that compete in the ACC and SEC these folks are clearly the bottom 25% of the test scores. Been told by multiple sources (current Ivy players current Ivy coach a ‘30’ is good enough). Try applying to an Ivy as an unhooked kid with a 30ACT - no one even reads the essay. I’m saying, for unhooked kids I would not recommend applying to schools with less than 15% acceptance rates that are not at the 75% tile test mark,
UCLA literally gets >100,000 applications. I bet the chances of an out of state unhooked applicant having their full application read with a 30ACT is <0.01%
Med schools have hard cutoffs for non-URM applicants based on MCAT scores. (the committees never see the packets). I can’t imagine colleges with 40,000 + applicants are reading every essay.
I had a post about this but it was more about the SAT. ACT is less granular and a 35 ACT concords to a 1530-1560 SAT. This SAT range is really mid 50% for top 15 schools. I would say to stand out at 75% you need a 36 ACT. That said, most schools other than NW and Duke report 25-75% SAT ranges by section, and you should be careful not to combine them because most kids score higher in one section than another. If you make the error of combining the section scores, you will find then that most top schools’ 75%+ range is 1590/1600, but this is a statistical impossibility since only about 2,000 kids score in this range not all kids scoring 1590/1600 are applying to top ten or have the GPA/ECs to get in. So I would say realistically, there are probably 600-900 kids with these SAT scores who may have a shot of getting in, which is why I think the 75% range for top ten begins around 1560/1570. If you have this score, good grades, rigor, and ECs, your chances should be pretty solid in RD.
The OP lists Econ or engineering as a possible major, so she should realize that engineering is pretty rare at LACs, though it does exist at a few (Lafayette, Swarthmore, Davidson (I believe)). There are 3-2 programs, but those tend to be under-utilized. They’re a great option, but only for those who are dead-set on three years at an LAC and then two years at a larger uni.
The OP needs to get a good college guide, such as Fiske, and consider options with more thoughtfulness. Right now, if she is truly a shoo-in at UT-Austin and A&M, why the desire to look elsewhere? It’s fine to want to spread one’s wings and consider OOS schools, but right now the OP’s main concern seems to be ranking: “I would really like to go to higher ranking school in the East or West Coast.” Especially with LACs, rankings are of little value. For instance, would the OP ignore Occidental because it’s not in US News’s T25? Or Scripps? Or Whitman?