Help with applying early decision?

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hi everyone, so I’m having a hard time deciding whether I should apply for early decision. I’m scared that I won’t get into any of my reach colleges if I don’t apply early decision, but I also don’t like any one school that much. If I did do early decision, I would choose Dartmouth (but only because Yale doesn’t have ED) So basically my question is would I be able to get into any of these schools without having to apply ED?

Reach schools:
Yale
Dartmouth
Duke
UPenn
Ponoma
UChicago

And here are my stats!
Female, Chinese

GPA: 3.93
WGPA: 4.73

I attend a public magnet school and am in the science and math program.

SAT: 2230 (superscored, taking the ACT next month)
SAT subject tests: Math II 750, Biology M 770
AP: Computer Science (5), Gov (5), Lang (4), Calculus BC (5), Bio (5), Statistics (5), MicroEcon (5), MacroEcon (5)

Classes:
Freshman: Net sports, Magnet Precal, Honors US history, Spanish 2, Adv Physics, Adv Chem, Computer Sci 1, Design and Engineering 1, Honors English 9
Sophomore: AP Gov, AP Comp Sci, Honors Spanish 3, Magnet Functions, Honors English 10, Adv Bio, Adv Earth Sciences, Engineering 2
Junior: AP Lang, AP Econ, AP Statistics, AP Calc BC, AP Biology, Research and Design 1, Analysis of Algorithms, Health
Senior: AP Lit, MV Calc, AP World History, Spanish 4, Biochem, Guitar, AP Psychology

Summer Experience:
Summer Internship Program at NIH- working in a lab on malaria research (this past summer)
Navy Academy Summer Seminar
Internship at National Institute in programming and networking (400 hrs, summer after sophomore year)
Biomedical summer program at UMD

ECS:
Cancer fundraising club (President and Co-founder)
X-STEM ambassador (Fellow)
Outreach Team of ProjectCSGirls, a national non-profit
Navy sea cadet (Seaman)
Chinese school English senior teacher (100 hrs)
National Honor Society
National Science Honor Society
Science Olympiad (placed second at state competitions)
Track and field team (All 4 years of HS)
Golf team (3 years)
Business club

Awards:
International ISWEEP finalist: Created a sustainable water filter out of recycled materials, was shown to be very effective
National SourceAmerica Design Challenge Second Place: created technology to help people with disabilities, received contract for the nonprofit we were working with, created jobs for 50 people with disabilities
NCWIT Affiliate Award: for various computer science accomplishments
SciOly regional and state medals
Stockholm junior water prize: for the water filter project mentioned above
Princeton Chinese music festival honorable mention for Chinese zither

2

Why are you taking the ACT when you have a superscored 2230? Beyond 2150 or so, most top schools could care less about standardized test scores, so you’ve cleared that hurdle already.

Your scores and ECs, and especially awards, are such that you’re competitive at all of these schools. They also aren’t enough for me to call you a likely admit, because these schools reject 3/4 of perfect scorers and plenty of applicants with ECs that are out of this world.

I’d be surprised if you didn’t get into at least one of them, though (do make sure to write “Pomona” and not “Ponoma” when you apply, or you may prove me wrong).