GPA: 4.0 (unweighted); 5.0 (weighted)
Class Rank: 1 out of over 600 (school does not officially rank though)
School Type: public, but highly ranked and very competitive
SAT: 2350 (770 R, 780 M, 800 W)
ACT: 36 (36 all sections, 10 essay)
SAT II’s: 800 Chemistry, 800 Math II (anticipated), 770 US History, 740 Spanish (will retake)
AP’s: Spanish Language (5), Euro History (4), Chemistry, Spanish Lit, US History (waiting)
Classes: All honors and APs, straight As
Extracurriculars/Volunteering/Work Experience:
-Football (JV-captain, MVP, Varsity-2 years, Captain)
-Internship for local newspaper (10 hours a week, assistant editor)
-Los Hermanos (presidential award, around 400 hours)
-founder and president of a club that volunteers to help underpriveleged children weekly
-founder and commissioner of a basketball league for underpriveleged children
-founder and director of a tutoring program at school for athletes
-coach and referee for youth soccer
-coach youth basketball
-coach youth football
-National Science Honor Society (president)
-National Spanish Honor Society (secretary)
Awards:
-National Honor Society
-National History Honor Society
-Mu Alpha Theta
-anticipated AP Scholar with distinction
-Michigan State Book Award
Planned Senior Year Course Load
-AP Physics C
-AP Calculus BC
-AP English Lit
-AP Art History
-AP Economics
-AP Government
Race/Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Desired Major/Minor: undecided, maybe business or economics
Income: High
Location: California
Opinions, constructive criticism, and advice will be greatly appreciated!
You are about as good as it gets in terms of ECs and GPA. The only thing that could use improvement is the honors and awards. If you can secure a notable achievement/award, I would say you would be very competitive at all of those schools. Best of luck!
@d1boundacademics - You’ll likely get into most of these schools. I’d recommend you apply SCEA to one of HYPS. I wouldn’t worry about awards - you’ve demonstrated your academic prowess and leadership qualities. At this point, three things could make or break your application - essays, recommendations, and interviews. Make sure your essays are strong, select the teachers you ask to write your recommendations carefully, and prepare for your interviews.
You’re quite advantaged, like what BldrDad says, be careful with your essays and speak to teachers who know you well. Be true and yourself to get in. Chance is 80% for Columbia, Harvard and Yale.
Your resume is impressive. But bear in mind that schools as selective as the Ivies (especially HYP) and Chicago are reaches for everyone - they reject far more highly qualified applicants than they admit. Berkeley OOS is no picnic either.
These are what i think your chances are based on the info in your original post:
Harvard: 10% (reach)
Princeton: 10% (reach)
Chicago: 15% (reach/low reach)
Yale SCEA: 20% (low reach)
Berkeley OOS: 75% (don’t commit a felony or fail any classes…)
Keep in mind that HYP (and Chicago nowadays) let in very low percentages overall (5-8ish%). And in terms of RD apps, it might be more like a 3.5-7% acceptance rate, because they do seem to give some preference to early apps.
I do think you are an above-average applicant, so i’ve bumped you up to about 10% at Harvard and Princeton and 15% at Chicago. I’d have put you at about 10% at Yale too (RD) but SCEA would help.
I don’t see how you wouldn’t get into Berkeley, or any other state school (Berkeley being the best…).
Have you considered adding an in-between level of schools?
Johns Hopkins, Washington U, Rice, Georgetown and Vanderbilt, for instance?
The Ivies seem aloof at times, and - while not likely in your case - some stellar candidates are rejected by all eight. You listed only HYP, the hardest Ivies to get into; hence my suggestion to consider applying to a JHU or a Rice. You would still get a top-notch education at these schools and their ilk, just in case HYP and Chicago didn’t pan out.
@d1boundacademics Ignore my post, clearly I’m misinformed. Your application is incredibly impressive and I can’t imagine a 10% acceptance rate for you given Harvard has a 6% acceptance rate, Columbia has a 7% and Yale has 6.3%. It should be a bit higher than 10% the most I’d say would be 20%. I wouldn’t think of ALL of them rejecting you though. Don’t know what goes through the mind of Admissions Officers, you fully satiate the requirements of being accepted into an ivy, make sure to do very well on the essays and interviews.
When I said chance is 80% I meant getting accepted into one of them. But after seeing prezbucky’s explanation it lowers more to a 65% chance of being accepted to one of the Ivy’s.