<p>numbers is an 9/10, ec’s are probably a 5/10. being #1 rank at a not very competitive school of 50 kids isn’t as impressive as it sounds, unfortunately. chances for caltech? even for godly kids its extremely slim. i only know one person who’s gone there undergrad. for the rest i guess you have a shot if your essays are amazing. But other than that, i would take Jshain’s advice and apply to a lot of easier schools. You can get into some great places but HYPS is a real reach with the lack of EC’s</p>
<p>Umm that wasn’t an exhaustive list. I have a bunch of other stuff too, but a lot of it revolves around baseball or math/science. I don’t feel like I’m really lacking ECs.</p>
<p>Also, rank #1/50 is the best I can do so how are they going to hold that against me. For all they know I would have been 1/1000. My school is fairly competitive (100% go to college). In past years (approximate SAT/race gender/hook):</p>
<p>2012:</p>
<h1>1 ??? (2230/white male/none) this is me lol</h1>
<h1>2 ??? (2080/white male/none)</h1>
<h1>3 ??? (1800/white female/none)</h1>
<p>2011:</p>
<h1>1 Barnard (2170/female/none): applied ED so didn’t get rejected anywhere else</h1>
<h1>2 Tufts (below 1900/female/african american): rejected Brown and Yale, SAT was really low because she didn’t get SAT award at the end of the year.</h1>
<p>2010:</p>
<h1>1 Dartmouth (2130/asian male/none): had a really good personality, ended up getting into Dartmouth off the waitlist. Rejected by a lot of other ivies though</h1>
<p>I’m a little surprised that you don’t have any other match/safety schools besides ND and RPI. You may get shut out of all your reach and match schools and it may come down to just RPI. I would be slightly surprised if you weren’t accepted to ND, but you’re not a lock there.</p>
<p>yea, even with all that stuff. My school is 250 kids per class and about 10% go to ivies, 20-25ish% go to top 20 schools and colleges know that. They are familiar with each high school pretty well considering they have hundreds of reps in a bunch of regions including international. I’m not bragging im just saying at a different school you might not be even close to #1. And if you have impressive EC’s please list them on the original post. If you have great EC’s then you have a shot, but your college list is basically the top 7 schools in the country, so jshain is right, you could get shut out, or you could get into half of them, or all of them i dont know. good luck though</p>
<p>IF you are applying to Engineering, I would strongly encourage you to expand your list of good Engineering schools outside of Stanford and the Ivys: Cal, Michigan, Duke, Rice, and Northwestern for example. OOS publics are expensive but you said you were not applying for aid…</p>
<p>It will depend on your desired major too. The weighted GPA could be higher. You definitely will have a shot. Like others said, you should have some safety schools to cover the base.</p>
<p>For what its worth being valedictorian from a ‘small’ school does not hinder you in anyway. I know its hard to believe for everyone else who has worked super hard at their large competitive high schools but the truth is that small is actually better. (I asked this questions tons of times when we visited different schools.) Colleges have to take from everyone so when a small non-competitive school has a valedictorian that makes the cut in all the categories (like you do) you actually are in a very good position. I know this for a fact because I have a niece who went to a small private catholic school. I was very concerned that she would never stand a chance at any of the top schools/ ivies. She was Saludatorian and she did very well. Colleges like to take kids from small schools, just like they like to take kids from geographically remote or out of the norm areas. My S went to a very large competitive hs and it was actually harder for him. Remember he has more competition and the colleges know what to expect from these types of high schools, so the student has a lot to prove.</p>
<p>Like it or not, everything about a small school is good. For starters there is less competition, making sport teams is easier, joining clubs and securing positions in them are easier. All this occurs because the student body is so small. In addition, usually these students are able to get great letters of recommendation. Again, the school is small, with small class sizes, hence teachers know their students. As do the guidance counselors, principals etc. </p>
<p>Once I realized this was the case I was quite concerned for my S who came from the complete opposite background. In our HS 84 kids try out for 12 places on the Basketball team. 125 kids tried out for 2 positions on the academic team etc. etc. My S’s guidance counselor had no idea who he was and getting teacher letters were difficult. But like everything else it does work out in the end. </p>
<p>The one big plus to this is that my S was definitely better prepared for the rigors of college, where my niece had a tougher time assimalating, and handling the large work load. </p>
<p>Of course this may not hold true for all small and large high schools. I realize that but as a whole you should be fine.</p>