Out of the top schools, even with good grades, what extra things should I do to have a better chance.
Look at this book
Most applicants for elite universities have good grades and test scores, and so with just those your chances aren’t much different than the school’s overall admissions rate, which is probably in the teens or single digits.
To raise your chances of acceptance above that number, you need to differentiate yourself; stand out from the crowd. You need a hook. While “well-roundedness” is the stereotype, it’s just as good, if not better, for you to have a single theme that dominates your application. If you play violin, for example, an ideal hook would be that you’re in a state or national youth orchestra, and you tutor violin to low-income children on the weekends. If you like writing, you won a state or national essay or fiction contest, and you got $5,000 in grant money to start a writing workshop at your school to help other students improve their writing.
@kingbibi, that totally cracked me up, because you just described me. I am in state and national youth orchestra, and I mentor URM students in Orchestral music in the summers. Not to make me a better applicant, though…just because I throughly enjoy it. I hope you’re right and it helps, though. We will see…