<p>…to get into a good school such as Rice, UCLA, or maybe even Brown, Cornell, or Vanderbilt with strong academics but, at best, slightly lacking EC’s if all other parts of the application such as essays, recommendations, ect. are great as well.</p>
<p>Brown, Cornell, Vanderbilt: probably not, depending on what you call “slightly lacking” - if you’re lower-income and worked to earn money or had family responsibilities, that counts as “strong ECs” since those demonstrate adult-level responsibility. Anything that demonstrate either national-level talent among teenagers, or adult-level skill or responsibility, would be good for these schools. If you mean you never got into any leadership position, never won anything in sports or music etc, or if you mean you qualified for city-wide but never made State, etc… then no for each of the schools above.
What’s in-state for you? (UCLA costs 55k OOS with no financial aid available beside the $5,500 loans you’re entitled to so if financial aid is a concern, which it usually is, it’s probably not a good pick. If you’re in-state,don’t forget to apply to a range of UC’s and CSUs?)</p>
<p>I’m actually not in-state, but I like UCLA and will apply if there’s any financial aid available at all, which there probably won’t be, like you said. By lacking, I meant maybe 1 or 2 leadership positions/4 or so clubs, 1 sport at the JV level but Varsity next year most likely. I will most likely receive the “standard” CC awards such as NMF and AP Scholar, but nothing particularly outstanding :(. I am lower-income, and will apply QuestBridge, but that can’t count as an EC because I’ve only done volunteer work and never worked at a salary job. To me, it seems lacking for such schools, but based on that, would there be a slight chance?</p>