Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Private day school (not a feeder but highly ranked)
Other special factors: 3x legacy at dartmouth
Cost Constraints / Budget
full pay
Intended Major(s)
Econ + Applied Math or CS for 2026
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.92
Weighted HS GPA: 4.65
Class Rank: Unpublished but top 6/130
ACT/SAT Scores: 1600 sat
List your HS coursework
(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)
took all AP exams, all 5s (total 9 so far, 11 by app szn)
English: AP english lit
Math: AP AB, BC // multivariable now, linear algebra senior year
Science: ap physics 1, now in ap physics c
History and social studies: AP macro+micro, APUSH, AP world, now in AP euro,
Language other than English: AP Latin
Visual or performing arts:
Other academic courses:
Awards
USAMO Qualifier 1x (abt to be 2, did well on aime last month)
USAPHO Honorable Mention 2x (hopefully can medal this year)
USACO Plat
Congressional App Challenge Winner
HMMT Sweepstakes Top 5
Eagle Scout
Extracurriculars
Policy Chair of Multinational nonprofit with 100+ members; spoke at UN General Assembly, cosigned EU policy proposal (voted on and passed, org name is in the eu corpus juris), organized in-person volunteering in 3rd world countries
Published Quant Finance Research in upper mid tier journal (IF >0.5, which is high for math and mathematical finance)
President of several math/finance/econ clubs
Dropshipped some stuff (5k/m, growing)
Website and Online Business Brokerage (Founder, Partner); 2000+ in monthly profit, sold 10+ businesses, flipped some more
Boy Scouts (100+ Volunteer Hours, Troop Guide)
Venture Capital Intern (year-round)
Summer AI accelerator intern in Palo Alto
Varsity sport 1 (might be cap next year)
Varsity sport 2
Essays/LORs/Other
Math teacher very good
Physics good
History teacher decent
Uchi Prof Good
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)
Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability): SUNYs
Extremely Likely: Syracuse, georgia
Likely: umass, tufts, bc, uw, Dartmouth
Toss-up: USC (ea), Mich (ea), Gtown (ea), purdue
Lower Probability: Uchi (ea), CMU, JHU, Cornell, Duke, Cal
You are a strong candidate, so you should have a good chance at many of these schools. Perhaps @hebegebe can comment on the strength of your awards.
I would not put Dartmouth as a likely despite your legacy connections (unless there’s more than you’ve let on). I assume “UW” is the University of Washington? If applying for CS there, I’d move it to “low probability”.
Why Georgia? That seems to be the odd one among your list. (or did you mean GeorgiaTech?)
I think you’ve overestimated your chances at a few of these, but you have a solid list of safety and target schools so it doesn’t really matter if your reaches are miscategorized.
Mostly, I just came here to give you some information as you have Cal on your list. The UC schools require 1 year of visual or performing arts classes and you don’t have any listed. Unless you’ve fulfilled the requirements listed here, an application to Cal would be a waste of your time. Good luck to you!
@erg2k, congrats on all your achievements. I am going to focus on just a few of them and how I think they affect your chances at colleges.
The good news is that these are fantastic STEM accomplishments. The not so good news is that they are no longer the near auto-admit to MIT that they once were. That said, they still have an impact.
If the rest of your application is solid (strong essays and recommendations), then it wouldn’t surprise me at all for you to get into one or more of your “Low Probability” schools. And while I wouldn’t quite put Dartmouth as “Likely”, it would be at least a toss-up.
Among your low probability schools, be sure to apply to Yale RD. They recruit the strongest STEM applicants by giving them a likely letter, the only one of the HYPSM colleges to do so. One student I coached this year (I’m a volunteer college counselor) with a profile similar to years just received a Yale likely letter. Another college that sends likely letters to strong STEM students is Columbia.
Other comments:
UChicago has a very low EA and RD admit rate.
If you meant Georgia Tech rather than Georgia, note that Georgia Tech is the least predictable college for the students I have coached. I’ve had students who have been admitted to Stanford, MIT, and Harvard but wait-listed from Georgia Tech.
Feel free to ask any other questions, including over PM if you want.
Intended major can of course have a big impact on admission chances. But the students that were wait listed at Georgia Tech were math/cs type students, and were admitted to Harvard/MIT/Stanford for the same intended major. And while those colleges don’t explicitly admit by major, they also have space constraints they need to be mindful of.
Here’s a tip with Econ - if you want to go to graduate school, a math major with carefully chosen econ electives (preferably graduate level) is more competitive than an econ major with carefully chosen math electives.
Also, graduate level microeconomics doesn’t strictly require undergrad microeconomics as a prerequisite. Analysis/general mathematical maturity is more helpful. For example, Jehle and Reny is a relatively easy graduate level microeconomics text whose mathematical appendix you can probably pick up now or after a bit of real analysis.
For schools that accept by major, CS is definitely harder to get into than econ/math (more so at schools which are particularly strong in CS, like CMU and Uwashington), but that doesn’t mean you can or should major in the latter in the hopes of double majoring in or switching to CS, as that might not be a possibility.
Don’t want graduate econ, I want to go to finance (hedge fund or pe and backup ib); this advice is still good though as I want my degree to be seen as more quantitative than econ.
Idk honestly i’ve just been a georgia football fan my whole life and felt like applying. I feel that Dartmouth is a likely becuase my brother got in last year RD with far worse stats than me, and my family has been donating a decent amount for multiple generations