Chance me for T20s [CA resident, 4.0 GPA, 1510 SAT, economics or political science]

Demographics

  • US Domestic US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): public high school
  • Other special factors: none

Cost Constraints / Budget
no cost constraints

Intended Major(s)
econ, maybe poli sci

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.9
  • SAT Scores: 1510 (superscore)

List your HS coursework
9 Honors classes, 4 Dual enrollment,
APs: World History (5), European History (5), Precalc (5), Biology (3), Psychology (5), English Lang (5), Spanish Lang (5)

Awards
ap scholar with distinction
scholastic writing awards honorable mention
hershey’s grant recipient

Extracurriculars

  1. founder of nonprofit teaching free music lessons
  2. independent research on economics, mentored by econ faculty member at columbia university
  3. statewide youth and government program delegate
  4. boys and girls state delegate (selective statewide gov program)
  5. MUN board member
  6. Kumon tutor
  7. Varsity tennis
  8. district student council
  9. president of female empowerment club
  10. president of asian student alliance

Schools
*chance me for these schools: all my reaches - haven’t decided on ed yet hence the multiple (ed?)s, (someone pls tell me where to ed)
dartmouth, northwestern (ed?), cornell, columbia, uchicago, duke, usc, upenn (ed?), brown,

I imagine you have a chance.

  1. Can you afford all?

  2. If you can afford all, are your parents willing to spend $400K over four years - or close to it- when you have other options at well under half the cost?

  3. Have you visited all - because you don’t want to ED anywhere you aren’t 100% sure you want to be - hence you want to visit…after all, you don’t want to be somewhere four years, day after day after day - if you end up not liking it there.

Good luck.

These analyses may help you evaluate the economics departments of prospective choices:

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html

As a suggestion, also consider purely undergraduate-focused schools, such as Williams, Colgate, Amherst and Hamilton.

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Your chances are pretty small. Be glad you live in California (where I presume you will be able to find numerous UCs as back-ups.)

IMO, you shouldn’t be asking strangers where to ED. Which school is YOUR favorite? If you don’t have one, don’t apply ED.

What other schools are on your college list? These are all reaches.

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These colleges are all reaches…for just about all applicants. IOW, this is a very top heavy list with no assured acceptances. I hope you have some sure things on your application list also.

Why do you need to ED?

Please read this linked thread. This is an older thread but the message is the same. No one thought that this extremely strong student would get rejected everywhere he applied…but that’s what happened. He was class val, a NMF, strong ECs, strong LOR, really a top student. He did land on his feet after a well crafted gap year, but his senior year of high school was not a happy time.

Your list, like his, has no real sure things for admission.

Please read this whole thread:

Your list of reaches are all over the place - city, rural, open curriculum, core, etc…What are you looking for besides prestige?

I also agree with the others that you should only use your ED to the school that is absolutely your #1. No one here can tell you what that is.

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If you would like to combine these interests, consider emphasizing schools with an available concentration in public policy.

That was my initial question as well.

I think it really helps to take a big step away from rankings, concepts like T20, and so on, and think seriously about exactly what you would want in your ideal four-year college experience.

Like, imagine you have matriculated. The thrill of admissions season is over, every one of your peers at your college necessarily also got into your college, it has become clear that your graduation from college and any next steps are still far away . . . what would you really be looking forward to over the next four years? Academically? Non-academically? On campus? Off campus? What sorts of students do you imagine in your classes? As friends? At social gatherings? And so on.

I think kids who really reflect on those sorts of questions usually start forming some preferences. Some Reachy colleges start seeming not so desirable as you realize they lack multiple things you would really want. And some more Target and Likely colleges start standing out as being much better fits than others.

And then maybe a suitable ED college will emerge. Or maybe not. But that really comes at the end of a process of reflecting on what would really be an ideal four-year experience for you.

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If you don’t have a favorite school, don’t ED. In terms of your chances, you have a very nice profile but these schools are reaches for every unhooked student so chances are not great that you will be accepted. Please make sure that you have some target and safety schools on your list as well as a bunch of reaches.

Agreed not great - but just to clarify for OP - they have a chance. A wonderful profile.

An average chance - which might be 3-8% - but a chance.

Likelihood of admission to these highly selective schools hinges on details that we as online commentators don’t have but about which you likely have good visibility.

As to location, California residency for a list of highly selective schools, many of which are on the East Coast is probably a neutral.

As to major, Econ is a popular choice. Possibly a slight negative in terms of “diversity” as you’ll be compared against a big pool of future Econ students.

GPA: Highly variable. 4.0 / 4.9 carries much different meanings at different schools. At some schools, a 4.0 carries a very high likelihood of admission to one of the colleges you listed. At others, a very low likelihood. Highly selective colleges have dossiers for each high school including data on prior applicants and previously admitted students including GPA data. Your high school may be able to provide you with a spreadsheet of GPA’s / SAT scores vs. admission statistics that would be much more accurate in terms of chancing than someone here saying “4.0? Pfft whatever” which is so unfortunate given the effort, consistency and talent it takes to get that 4.0 at almost any school.

HS coursework looks good as to rigor. Congrats on exemplary performance on your AP’s especially the very tough European History, English Lang. Difficult 5’s there. You are an excellent student.

Awards: Nice to see a breadth of achievement, probably not a standout at the schools you applied to, but you are showing a breadth of intellectual curiosity - and achievement.

EC’s - Difficult to evaluate your research with the Columbia professor. Might be a slight bump for Columbia. Otherwise, very strong and broad involvement with good leadership and some instances of “impact” in your community. You might face some assessments that there should have been more focus and less breadth, but not everyone has the gifts, opportunity or desire to become the world’s best snare drum player or javelin thrower. Your breadth of activities should serve you well in becoming a very interesting and engaged adult (arguably more than the javelin thrower).

Overall, your actual chances depend most on your high school and its history with these colleges. If students like you, with your grades, scores and activities end up at T20’s (which one might assume given your college list) then you probably have a very good chance. If your stats were at Harvard-Westlake, TJ or Stuyvesant, that would be a lot different from the same stats at many public high schools.

Without a clear hook and with “all arounder” EC’s, you are in the company of many if not most high achieving students nationwide. Yours is an application where essays and your letters of recommendation as well as support from your school can be the difference. If you are in a position to have your guidance counselor pick up the phone and call University “X” and support you, that would likely be welcome information to the College.

Still, a few schools (not that rankings are accurate) but roughly in the 20-40 USNWR range as safeties would be wise.

Those repec.org rankings are based on research output. Note that the top schools in the LAC list do not rank very highly in the overall list (the #1 LAC is #49 in the overall list).

But research output may be most relevant to students looking to go on the PhD study in economics, rather than those aiming for Wall Street or other “business” goals.

Great profile! You have an average chance at all your reaches, which is to say low (Sorry…true for all!). Since you made it clear in your initial post you realize these are all reaches I will assume you also have some targets and safeties in mind.

I agree you should genrally only ED to a school that is your favorite, top choice. But, in my opinion there is a corollary to that…if you have multiple schools that you love pretty equally would be super happy to attend any and one of them…and if one has a particularly “high” ED acceptance rate (ahem, Northwestern) then it’s worth considering. Yes, some of that is explained by recruited athletes and other hooked applicants, but even taking that into account it’s clear that some schools give more of an ED bump than others and it’s worth being aware of whether ED might help at a particular school.

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This student has a very good profile - they aren’t lacking in any way. It is just that chances are remote for kids without a hook, regardless how strong they are academically.

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But with a good reserve of flag ship publics in her backyard, she shouldn’t have to worry about matches and safeties.

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As long as the in-state application list is not limited to the few most selective campuses.

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Yes, I just wanted to make clear to OP that they are competitive - as I said - there’s a chance.

Everyone is making it out to be as if there is no chance - and I just wanted to make them aware that is not the case.

But as I further noted - all these are limited in chance simply based on their normal acceptance rates.

But OP shouldn’t throw in the towel just because this thread makes it seem that way in some cases.

Just wanting to let them know - yes, they’re on the right path - of course with matches and safeties.

Has anyone anything they’d like to add?

I don’t disagree with your logic, but I think you have to be really strict with yourself and make sure this premise is true, and will stay true.

Like, I saw a bunch of kids last year online who were in one way or another regretting getting into their ED college, to the point they were asking about how to break their commitment. Sometimes it was a monetary issue–suddenly they or their family were maybe not so thrilled to be paying whatever the ED college wanted to charge them. But not infrequently, once the reality of the commitment set in, they were not actually sure they wanted to abandon all their other applications.

Again, I am not saying this is never valid. I just think a lot of kids at this juncture imagine themselves being thrilled at getting into any college that they see as a reach, that will impress peers and family, or so on. And they may in fact be thrilled–for a day or two. Then the reality hits, the sugar high from just being admitted fades, maybe their confidence in having a shot at other colleges goes up, and they are no longer sure they have made the right choice.

Anyway, just something to think about.

I would not say “should worry”, but if you end up wanting a different sort of college experience than a larger public university, or perhaps in a different location, it can make sense to have what I would call Likely and Target options that are different in those ways. Depending on what happens, you may still choose an in-state public, but just having the choice can be nice, and sometimes people end up getting surprisingly good merit offers, falling in love with a Likely or Target on an admitted students visit, or so on.

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