Intended Major(s): International Relations but open to change
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 3.89 school doesn’t do weighted but I’ve done max rigor offered
Rank (or percentile): School doesn’t do
of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: All honors, 12 AP, max rigor
Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Stats, AP Spanish, AP Psych, AP Environmental Science, AP Gov, AP Macro
Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
SAT I: 1540 SAT took it once (780 math, 760 reading and writing)
ACT: Waiting for results
AP: 5 on Euro is the only one I know so far
Extracurriculars/Activities (purposely a little vague)
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
Founder and President of a nonprofit that’s educated 50k+ kids about academic topic from 300 high schools, every state, and 40 countries. 50 chapters and teaches in over 100 languages. Lots of depth and featured in a ton of huge national newspapers. Endorsed by some top schools (none that I’m applying to)
Captain for super popular and common academic competition team; 4x national qualifier by end of high school and won 1 national and 1 international award so far
Started summer camp (related to activity 2) and hosted 100+ middle and high schoolers, all costs went to charity (about 5k)
Applied for and qualified to go to a national summit for activity 2 and got to talk to CEOs at huge companies, UN delegations, and government officials
Varsity sport (varsity for 3 years and state team)
Varsity sport (varsity for 3 years)
Vice President and Co-Founder of a club that’s raised about 1k
Blog with 100k views about one of my sports
Played common instrument for 10 yrs, volunteer with it too
NHS (running for leadership next yr)
Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
UN Award
Activity #2 national award
Activity #2 international award
National Merit (gonna be semifinalist for sure)
Don’t have one yet but prolly gonna do AP scholar or Coca Cola semifinalist if I get it
Letters of Recommendation
English teacher done some essay competitions with her and I do well in her class (8.5/10?)
Math teacher I’m a good student and we talk a lot and have a friendly relationship (7/10?)
Sponsor for activity #2 (guessing 10/10)
Counselor he’s my top dawg said I’m one of the best he’s ever had (guessing 10/10)
Yes, your reaches are all reaches. It is impossible to chance for the hyper-competitive colleges. I’d take time to think about what you want in a college other than prestige – for example an urban school with a large core curriculum like Columbia will be a different experience than say the more rural Dartmouth or a college with no required classes such as Brown.
Focus your energies on creating a college list with affordable reach, match, and safety schools that you would be excited to attend.
Yes I have targets and safeties but I’m looking for feedback specifically for reaches. I’ve visited almost every school I listed and all the ones I wrote I loved! Thanks for the feedback.
What major are you considering? Did you take AP Calc BC and/or AP Physics as a junior? May I assume you will not be applying to anything STEM or Business? I think you may get into one of your reaches, but hard to know which one. From what you wrote, you do have a strong profile. On the other hand, your non-profit needs to be off-the-charts impressive for you to be admitted to the higher end of your reach list.
Taking AP Chem or AP Physics in 12th would be considered higher rigor than APES. Also Calc 3/MV if offered at your school would be higher rigor than AP Stats.
You’re a really strong candidate - congrats! You are a competitive applicant at all your reach schools. Unfortunately almost all of the really strong applicants to these schools are not admitted. As someone else noted it’s pretty much impossible to chance you. If you weren’t competitive, we’d be able to tell you that. But you are! So that’s great and you have a shot. But with these highly rejective schools it’s always a long shot. I honestly don’t think anyone can offer much more insight than that.
I agree you look like a strong candidate, but every year many strong candidates will not get into any Reaches. Exactly what will happen in your case depends on factors we cannot reliably evaluate in advance given the information available to us.
I’m not sure what other insights you are looking for. I think in cases like yours, the main value added is from carefully choosing Likelies and Targets that would be great fits for you as an individual, maybe offer merit and/or honors, and so on.
But if you believe you already have a great, thoughtful list of suitable Likelies and Targets, and don’t see a need for input on those choices, then I think you can just write your applications and see what happens.
So…do you have any sure things for admission, that you like, that you can afford?
These are all reaches, as you know. Really, trying to predict your chances of admission is almost impossible. You might get accepted and you might not. This is a very top heavy list.
My free advice, apply if you want to…but right now spend some time finding sure things and targets. And try to love these as much as you love these reach schools.
Regardless of your intended major, what @Mwfan1921 wrote is correct. APES is known as a soft AP class. So your rigor could be higher with AP Chem or AP Physics. The competition at your list of schools is intense and there will be plenty of kids checking the “highest rigor” box. You might want to reconsider your senior year schedule.
We’ve seen some people here before post “targets” that were reaches and “safeties” that were targets. It might be worth it to post them to get comfort that you have the right back-ups.
