I am looking to apply to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT and Stanford.
My backstory is rather unusual. I graduated High School with a 4.0 GPA at 11 (I will turn 16 in a few weeks). I also dual enrolled at a local university and received a 4.0 there my last semester. I attended Bard College at Simon’s Rock (it’s called the Early College b/c the average starting age is 16) at 12. However, I wasn’t quite ready for college yet and left after three semesters there with a cumulative GPA of a 3.03.
On the other hand, I am very skilled at piano. I attended Juilliard Pre-College whilst in high school, and New England Conservatory whilst in college. I have been on America’s Got Talent, performed at the White House and have been a prizewinner at many international competitions performing around the world. Most of my “pianistic” accomplishments (not AGT though) where achieved after I left college.
My academic honors are not lackluster either. I won a TV game show that was designed in collaboration with American Mensa. I attended WWDC 2014 as a special guest of Tim Cook and know Steve Wozniak personally. I even have a day named after me in my home county.
I have recently continued taking some non-degree courses at a local above-average public university and have a GPA there of 3.95 ( about half the amount of courses I took at Bard with a few repetitions).
My test stats are (all taken late last year):
ACT: 36
SAT: 1600
SAT Math Level II: 800
SAT Chemistry: 800
After all this, my main concern is whether or not the admission will be able to overlook my 3.03.
Thanks for reading this and I look forward to y’all’s responses!
Assuming that everything in your post is accurate, you still need to present yourself in a fashion which causes elite universities to want you on campus as part of their community. “I did this” & “I did that” is not enough.
Your application will be unique enough that it isn’t possible to really ‘chance’. IMO the 3.0 at 12/13 will not be why you don’t get offers.
I understand why you have picked the 5 you have, but I strongly urge you to work on learning more about each place: for you, fit will be particularly important, and these 5 schools- while they have some commonalities- have some meaningful differences. My hunch (based on nothing except your post and a quick internet search) is that MIT and Stanford will be better fits than H & Y, with P somewhere in the middle- but I wouldn’t put any weight on that guess!
You haven’t written anything at all about what you would want to major in. Define that.
Are you done with the piano? If not, then maybe you should be looking at places where you can continue to pursue that appropriately. In which case Johns Hopkins/Peabody comes to mind.
First of all, what have you been doing since you left Bard College?
“I won a TV game show that was designed in collaboration with American Mensa. I attended WWDC 2014 as a special guest of Tim Cook and know Steve Wozniak personally. I even have a day named after me in my home county.”
None of these are academic honors. Have you participated in competitions like Science Olympiad, Scholastic Art or Writing Awards, etc? do you have AP or IB awards?
What type of international awards did you win in playing piano, if you are willing to share?
What was your course set for high school like? How rigorous?
It seems that piano is your main passion, so why not attend Julliard or another conservatory?
What can you parents afford, and what is your citizenship status?
State of residency?
What did you study at Julliard and at the New England Conservatory?
Most of the “accomplishments” you listed are not really accomplishments but rather eye catching, headline type of stuff that I would not appeal to most serious academic institutions. Your naming these as accomplishments may reflect poorly on your judgment or maturity but this is just my humble opinion.