Help a current Junior with his college pursuit!

Hello! I am a current Junior who is highly motivated. Wanted to know if there is anything I can do to strengthen my application and see If I am even headed in the right direction, so that when the time comes, I am ready. I am hoping to major in Finance and Accounting.

Stats:

  • From MA

  • Asian High Income

  • Goes to top rigorous Boarding school. School is well known in admissions

  • GPA: 3.97/4.0

  • SAT: 1560

  • Class rank: N/A

  • 9 AP’s (School is not an AP school)

  • Classics Scholar(Latin and Greek)

  • Math Up to differential equations

  • Does college research in classes

Ec’s

  • Founder of a Financial literacy Non Profit
  • Accounting Internship
  • Venture capital internship
  • DECA founder and co-head
  • Finance and investment club co-head
  • Yale young global scholar
  • Research
  • Hosts finance and business podcast
  • Two sport varsity athlete(might play d3)
    • Plays Travel Baseball
  • 100 volunteer hours
    • Volunteers at temple
    • Special olympics
  • Holds leadership roles
    • Class president
    • Dorm Prefect
    • Advancement Ambassador
    • Global Ambassador
    • School President
  • Holds Part time Job as a cashier

Awards:

  • High Honor Roll
  • First year with DECA hopefully will get some awards
  • Presidential award silver

Colleges:

  • Safety
    • IU
    • Bentley
    • UMASS
    • Baruch
  • Target
    • BC(School is feeder)
    • Georgetown
    • UVA
    • UNC
    • Notre Dame
    • UT Austin
  • Reach
    • NYU
    • All Ivies
    • UMICH

Questions:

  • Need help with Awards, anything helps me.
  • Will colleges know that I go to a rigorous boarding school, which is why my GPA is not perfect?
  • How is my list, is there anything I should add/remove. I care a lot about work hard/ play hard schools.

Several of your targets are actually reaches.

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To answer your question, you are headed in the right direction. You have put together a very good list.

With regard to your other question, your application will include the name of your high school. The Admissions Officers who review your application will know the level of rigor at your school. It’s their job. To know the high schools is what they do for a living. In a typical Admissions Office, each Admissions Officer has a territory and they do the initial processing of all the applications from their region. They get to know each of the high schools really well. S/he will have no trouble knowing the level of rigor at your school. While 3.97 is not perfect, it’s about as close to perfect as you can get without actually being right there. If they need any further reassurance of your excellence, your 1560 SAT will provide that.

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With regard to ECs, do what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well.

Also, you might want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. While MIT is not on your list, the same approach is appropriate for other selective universities as well.

Yes. You grades will be interpreted in the context of the high school that you attend. Also, you do not need to be perfect (and 9 APs are plenty).

The eight Ivy League schools are not all the same. Figure out which ones are a good fit for you and why. This is likely to come across in your applications in one way or another.

If by “all Ivies” you are also thinking of other highly ranked schools such as Caltech, Chicago, MIT, and Stanford, please keep in mind that these are not in the Ivy League (although what Stanford is doing in the Atlantic Coast Conference might be even harder to explain).

To me it looks like you are doing very well and are likely to have some very good options.

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Ok, thanks for the insight. Which one of my targets are reaches. Additionally, are there any other targets I should add?

Just about all of the schools you listed as targets are reaches for everyone. Any school with an acceptance rate below 20% is considered a reach for everyone because the rejection rate is so high that even students like yourself who appear to be matches can find themselves rejected because there are so many applicants with similar profiles and the colleges don’t have enough spots for everyone. The state universities on your list which appear to have acceptance rates high enough to accommodate you actually have very low acceptance rates for out of state students.

However, you have a good list of safeties where your admission is highly likely that I don’t see big problems with your list.

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You are a very, very strong applicant and may very well get accepted to your targets, but I would put UNC, UVA, Norte Dame and Georgetown in the reach category. I am not sure about UT Austin but my guess is that it is also a reach.

I do think you have at least several acceptances!

Yes, Texas has an acceptance rate of about 10% for out of state applicants.

And I agree that this applicant may well get accepted to a number of these schools, but for the purposes of having a balanced list, needs to be cautioned about high rejection rates at these schools and to adjust expectations accordingly.

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A school which would be a good addition to your list for your interests is Babson. It provides an excellent overall education and would be a great fit for your interests in finance and accounting. With a 17% acceptance rate, it is still a reach, but less so than many of the schools on your list which have acceptance rates under 10%.

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A good target for finance & accounting would be a school like Villanova (26% acceptance rate).

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  • From MA

  • Asian High Income

  • Goes to top rigorous Boarding school. School is well known in admissions(40% of school goes to t-25)

  • GPA: 3.97/4.0

  • SAT: 1560

  • Class rank: N/A

  • 9 AP’s (School is not an AP school)

  • Classics Scholar(Latin and Greek)

  • Math Up to differential equations

  • Does college research in classes

  • Finance Major

Ec’s

  • Founder of a Financial literacy Non Profit

  • Accounting Internship

  • Venture capital internship

  • DECA founder and co-head

  • Finance and investment club co-head

  • Yale young global scholar

  • Research

  • Hosts finance and business podcast

  • Two sport varsity athlete(might play d3)

    • Plays Travel Baseball
  • 100 volunteer hours

    • Volunteers at temple

    • Special olympics

  • Holds leadership roles

    • Class president

    • Dorm Prefect

    • Advancement Ambassador

    • Global Ambassador

    • School President

  • Holds Part time Job as a cashier

Awards:

  • High Honor Roll

  • First year with DECA hopefully will get some awards

  • Presidential award silver

  • Ap Scholar

  • Weakness is definitely Awards. Should get more this year

Colleges:

The guidance counselors.at your rigorous boarding school will be your best source of advice.

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I meann, can one kid truly do so much ? Be prepared to defend that.

i assume a business major ?

Your safeties are safe - technically IU isn’t because Kelley is now holistic but I’m guessing as you are well above prior norms it will be fine.

Nova may be a target. The rest for most aren’t but you noted 40% of your school goes to a top 25.

Your reaches are that but again, you made a comment about your boarding school - so I would develop the list with them and not us.

What major - I didn’t see. I assume business. Not all have it of course and forget the school name - Econ isn’t business.

These schools may feed into a desired career but you’d be studying something you don’t want.

You had Bentley. Why not Babson ?

Overall I would shrink the list. It’s far too many.

And I am assuming 1. Finance major and 2. No budget issues - you are good to pay $400k.

Good luck.

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Say I didn’t go to a rigorous boarding school and I to a public High school. Then how would my chances be?

But you DO go to a rigorous boarding school.

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Your chances would still be very strong and would vary depending on which public high school you were attending. Your 1560 SAT would certainly validate your academic achievements regardless of the high school.

So much of the Admissions process from the college’s point of view is to balance the make up of the class with a group of incoming freshmen who bring a variety of talents, abilities, interests, and backgrounds. Regardless of what kind of high school you’ve attended, they don’t want to fill up half the class with graduates of Milton Academy, or Wellesley High School, or Boston Latin. And they do want to bring in students from all over the country, and even from all over the world. At a certain point all of their seats are filled and they have no more spots left. So, it’s not just a question of whether your credentials meet their admissions criteria, but whether your profile fits what they’re looking for.

I missed the part about the rigorous boarding school. I agree that your counselor would be of great assistance.

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I agree. The publics, where you are an out-of-state applicant, UVA, UNC, UT will be a crap shoot, even with your excellent stats.

You appear to be an excellent student and will no doubt have a lot of great choices. Applying to so many reach schools will take a lot of time and energy on your behalf, so I would refine that part of your list, as others have suggested, to determine best fit.

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Please talk to the counseling folks at your boarding school. They will have a good sense of how students like you do in terms of admission at the colleges on your list.

Many many many college students never received prestigious awards. Do things you enjoy doing and do well. If you get an award, fine. If not, don’t fret about it.

As noted above, colleges will see the name of your high school. But please understand something…even if you had a perfect GPA in high school, it would not guarantee acceptance to your reach schools…because LOTS of kids applying have perfect GPAs and 90% or so get rejected from these colleges.

I agree that some of your Target schools should be moved to the reach section.

Are you happy with your sure things on this list of colleges? If so, you are fine.

My opinion…applying to 24 colleges is a lot. You will have to do a wonderful job on all of these applications and essays. I think you need to reduce this list to places that really are what you want…not a list of the schools that have the highest rankings (which is what this list looks like…your targets and reaches)

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This would be an uncommon double major. What are your career goals?

More importantly, why do you have some schools on your list that don’t offer a finance and/or accounting major?

Are you trying to be recruited, or would you try to walk on? If recruited, have you been reaching out to and speaking with coaches? You don’t have many D3 schools on your current list.

I concur with others who have said all your targets are reaches, especially if you are applying to the business schools (as applicable.) Why is Baruch on your list? (not work hard/play hard, and has a relatively large proportion of commuting students.)