Pre-Ivy Decision Day Update

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I posted one earlier, but I figured some more info (and some decisions) may shake things up.

For grades, my school does not weigh GPA at all. That being said, my GPA is a 3.97/4.00. My school does not offer a ton of AP classes, but even in subjects that are not AP, my school is known for its rigorous curriculum (every year someone [and usually multiple people] get into Ivies.) I take and have taken the most rigorous courses offered in each of my core subjects (English, math, science, history, and Spanish). If my school did rank students, I would be top 1% out of 400, and probably the absolute top.

Scores:

AP’s:
Junior year
US History- 5
Biology- 5
Senior year
Calc BC (in class)
Physics C (in class)
Spanish Lit (in roughly AP equivalent level)
English Lit

SAT scores:
2290- Composite, 800-Math, 790- Writing, 700- Reading

SAT subject test scores: 800- Math Level 2, 800- Biology M, 790- US History

ACT scores:
35- Composite, 36-Math, 36- Science, 35- English, 32- Reading

Extracurriculars and Awards:

Governor appointed representative for Massachusetts criminally detained youth. I served as a part time adjunct researcher on a grant during the summer, and serve as the youth member on the board.

President/founder of a tutoring program for elementary students in my community (for community service!) I started this last year, and in the upcoming year I expect it to expand to all of the schools in my town. I currently have 60 hours of community service from it.

Speech captain for Speech and Debate Team. I won 5th in state for debate.

Leadership council for Model UN. At New York convention, I spoke in front of several thousand people.

News editor for my school’s newspaper

Member of my school’s student government board, directly elected by students

4 year member of my school’s Concert Band (I play trumpet :slight_smile:

Awards:

Winner of the Harvard Book award and Citizenship award (both given to superior character and academic excellence).

National Merit Finalist

Finalist in the US Senate Youth Contest

I’m a white male from Massachusetts. I have not applied for financial aid anywhere. I intend to major in History and Science or some variation thereof.

Schools with feedback:

Harvard (deferred SCEA, but I believe it was because I had a particularly cold interviewer.)
University of Pennsylvania (accepted with likely letter to the college)
Wesleyan (accepted with one of their select scholarships)
Brandeis (accepted as 17.5k a year Justice scholar)
Duke (rejected, idk why. I do know that Duke has only accepted one person from my high school a year for the last five years, and they accepted another kid with a likely, so there’s that. Also my supplements, in hindsight, weren’t that strong.)
Amherst (wait listed)

Still waiting to hear from:

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Brown

Thanks as always!

2

Bump? Really looking for some feedback.

3

As you can probably tell from the decisions you have gotten, admissions to the top schools can be a bit of a game of chance. That being said, the fact that you got a likely letter form Penn is a really good sign! Your academics (GPA and SAT) are excellent. Your governor-appointed position also sounds very interesting.

That being said, all of those schools are hard to predict. I think you’ll get into at least a couple though (Brown seems most likely, followed by Columbia and Harvard). I find it interesting that you applied to both Columbia and Brown considering how different they are.

4

Some of your accomplishments are impressive (nice job on the likely from Penn). Can’t say which ones they’ll be but I think you can look forward to a some more acceptances soon.

5

Thanks @orchidbloom and @‌dblazer for the feedback.

As far as why I applied to Columbia and Brown, it wasn’t really a curriculum choice. I just really like urban schools, and both had majors that were really interesting to me (Science and Society at Brown and Medicine, Literature, and Society at Columbia).