Chance me Ivy League + Stanford + UChicago [double legacy, 4.0uw, 1580 SAT, art history]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hope you all are doing well! I’m a current junior thinking about colleges for next year. Both of my parents went to Harvard and it’s by far my top choice, but I don’t know if I’m competitive enough to have it be a wise decision to REA there (or to any Ivy) or if I should go for another school. I’d really appreciate any tips or some constructive criticism towards any weak points of my application.

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: DMV area
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Very competitive public high school
  • Other special factors: I’m a double Harvard legacy. My parents don’t donate but one of them does alumni interviews and has done so for decades.

Cost Constraints / Budget
No cost constraints

Intended Major(s)
Art History, Classics studies, Romance Languages and Literatures. Hoping to work as a museum curator after college.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.92 at the end of this year assuming all As in classes
  • Class Rank: no official ranking, but estimated near the top of my class
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1580 on the SAT

List your HS coursework

Pretty much taking the highest class levels offered, including 7 AP classes this year. Many classes related to the arts + history.

Awards

Scored top 10 in the nation on a foreign-language test for non-native speakers. Regional debate champion + placed in the top 50 people in the nation in my debate event. Scholastic Art and Writing honorable mention. More local awards related to debate.

Extracurriculars
Debate co-president at my school for three years, will have done debate for four years when applying. Member of NHS, officer in both the English and French honors societies at my school. Volunteer weekly doing art with sick/hospitalized children. Went to an immersive foreign-language summer program as well as to an academic summer program with something like a six percent acceptance rate. Private study of foreign language, including standing bi-weekly conversation session with a native speaker. I’ve also taught myself Latin. Published work in local literary magazines + national competitions. I’m hoping to snag an internship at a local museum this school year.

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

I’m assuming that both my essays and LORs are going to be strong.

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Apply and see. REA isn’t a binding acceptance, but you do get an earlier admissions decision. You are a strong student, so…why not?

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Just adding…even IF you get accepted REA to Harvard, you can still apply regular decision to other colleges and decide before May 1 where you will attend.

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You have straight A’s and a superb SAT score, along with good ECs. I think that you are competitive for admissions anywhere.

Of course most applicants to Harvard, Stanford, and Chicago are very strong and competitive applicants. Even with legacy status Harvard is still a reach. It just might be a little bit less of a reach for you than it might have been for my kids.

For either ED or REA, I think that the main two questions that any student needs to answer are: (1) Is this school clearly my first choice? and (2) Is this school likely to be affordable for me? Perhaps there is a third question: (3) Is this school even remotely plausible for me? The answer to the third question in your case is yes. It seems that you have told us that the answer is also yes to the first two questions. In this case, go for it!

But, make sure that you also apply to safeties.

At least in our experience strong students (who perhaps were only slightly less strong compared to your stats) might not necessarily get into their first choice, but they usually do get into schools that are a good fit for them. Sometimes the schools get this even more right than the student does (in terms of accepting students that are a good fit for the school).

I would say: Apply to your top choices. REA to Harvard is a reasonable option. Also apply to safeties.

Another wild thought: Given your interests, plus some ability to speak French, I wonder about whether you might also want to also consider applying to McGill.

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You should apply to another school ED - if and only if it’s your top choice.

Since you said Harvard is by far your #1 choice, why not REA? Or you can apply RD. And heck no should you ED elsewhere !! WHY ? Bcuz you have a clear top choice that doesn’t offer ED.

What else can you do ??

Ok your ECs to me seem a bit - I don’t want to say lacking - but if you don’t get the internship, how about a part time job - grocery store, fast food, professional - whatever. Something a bit more people oriented etc. Band or sport would be great too but likely too late for that.

Good luck.

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If you are asking whether you should strategically apply ED somewhere else because you think your chances would be better, I would suggest you not do that if Harvard is your top choice. I would instead make THEM say no. Or hopefully yes, but for sure they might say no. But I would not bind myself to withdraw my application just because I got accepted somewhere I would not actually prefer, without ever giving them the opportunity to tell me yes.

To the extent you are worried that you will not get admitted either to Harvard or to whatever you would have chosen as your ED school–that is an easy problem to solve because there are many, many other fish in the sea. Spend the next few months really investigating suitable colleges. Use the people here as a resource if you feel like it. There will be many great options.

Then plan to apply to a robust list of well-chosen Likelies, Targets, and Reaches. Then if Harvard remains your favorite, and you get in REA–great, done, enjoy the rest of senior year. If not, my guess is you will still end up with many good options to choose between from the remainder of your applications. Assuming you did in fact choose them well.

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You should consider Williams College & Princeton University in light of your interests.

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I think that you have a competitive application package. I would REA Harvard if it is your first choice. As the parent of 2 HYP kids my advice is to spend time making your application stand out. You want it to be easy for the AO to see you as a part of the class and succeeding. I think you could pump up your EC’s outside of your school. like your idea of a museum internship.

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REA to Harvard unless you have another private college to which you’d prefer to RD. Harvard has several museums of its own, plus there are the Boston museums, so it definitely sounds like the place to be.

Do you mean that you meet every other week with the native speaker, or twice a week? Bi-weekly means every other week, while semi-weekly means twice a week.

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I think that given Harvard’s current reputation as an ibanking factory :factory:, they’d be crazy not to grab someone who goes against the grain somewhat. So, sure. Give it a shot. Then go to Wesleyan, if like 50,000 other applicants, you don’t make it.

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Yes, with the OP’s interests, Wesleyan should be a top consideration.

I didn’t see a gender, but if the OP identifies as a woman, Barnard would be another great choice. Actually, really any of Wellesely, Smith, Bryn Mawr, or Mount Holyoke.

Among universities, I would strongly recommend checking out NYU. I think NYU gets some rough treatment sometimes from online kids who seem to think it is Stern and nothing else. But actually, NYU has some absolutely fantastic Humanities departments, including ones that fit the OP’s interests in Art History and Classics. And of course it is in New York, which is hard to beat if you love museums.

Another top research university for relevant Humanities would be UNC. Again, I feel like sometimes UNC does not get the consideration it deserves from the online kids who seem to think only Business and STEM count, but my understanding is UNC is top tier in Art History, quite good for Classics too.

I would also mention GW, which would obviously be a lot less selective. DC is another great museum city, and the Corcoran School is reputedly also great for Art History.

Finally, I am not sure if the OP would actually be interested in a Museum Studies major–it is pretty rare at the undergrad level, usually more of a grad thing.

But one of the universities that actually offers it is Pitt:

Pittsburgh actually has a pretty cool museum scene for a city its size (lots of robber baron money back in the day), and the University of Pittsburgh is right in the heart of a lot of it. People say the faculty in Museum Studies is very helpful in trying to place their students in museum jobs. I note Pitt also has a really good Classics Department:

Anyway, point being you could pretty easily fill out a diverse list of options for the OP given the stated interests.

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