<p>All Ivies are reaches, no question. They have low acceptance rates that it’s impossible to tell who they will accept.
Same thing for Stanford, although it’s slightly higher.</p>
<p>Are you a California resident? If yes, and you are also in the top 10% of your class, UCB and UCLA are high match and match, respectively, for you. Otherwise, they are low reach, high match, respectively.</p>
<p>First, Early Decision. If you are positively sure you want to go to whichever college you want to apply to ED (and I mean 100% sure), you can apply ED. Their acceptance rates are higher, but that’s because a higher percentage of their applicants in that pool are more qualified than the average applicant applying there. But you have to make sure you really want to go there if you are accepted, and if you can afford the college and its most likely financial package they offer you (although you do have room for bargaining… but still be careful).</p>
<p>Second, I counted 15 ECs. Colleges nowadays actually like to see just one or two (or three) ECs where you have dedicated your time immensely as opposed to a lot of ECs where you have spread your time thin. They like to see that applicant who is just in Math Club and has reached the USAMO or the national math competition, or that athlete who has made the Nationals cut and has placed in the top 10 at Nationals… (although this is obviously the minority and very far-reached for most people).</p>
<p>Third, if you can twist that low grade in math in your essays to show how you learned from that experience, then you don’t have to worry because it’s actually a positive. I wrote about my freshman year AP bio class and how I did poorly at the beginning but learned from taking that AP course how to handle future advanced classes.</p>