<p>I just got rejected from Penn ED and I’m feeling pretty down. Now I’m worried that my (humongous gigantor) list is 92% reach. Crap. Suggestions for matches?? :(</p>
<p>The blah-blah…
SAT Verbal:800
SAT Math:750
SAT Writing:790
SAT Total:2340
SAT II:800 Math II Biology, 740 USH
AP/IB taken/scores: 5’s USH, Eng Lang, Stat; 4 World history
GPA weighted: 4.5~
GPA unweighted: 3.87
Rank or % estimate: 18/464 (top 5%)
ECs: generic, bad by CC standards
NMSF
NJ Asian girl, high income bracket/no FA needed
undecided major… looking at psych/econ/bio
submitting a very good art (drawing) portfolio… my teacher recc says it’s better than many of her college students’</p>
<p>Amherst College<br>
Brown University
Columbia
Cornell University<br>
Duke University<br>
Johns Hopkins University<br>
New York University<br>
Northwestern University (legacy)
Stanford University (already sent)
Swarthmore College<br>
Tufts University<br>
University of Chicago<br>
Vanderbilt University<br>
Wellesley College<br>
Wesleyan University
maybe HYP for “fun”</p>
<p>U Rochester, Rutgers, maybe Pitt</p>
<p>Not much unity to it, I know, except name recognition. Ahem. I’m not very picky. 20 is too many, but I am paranoid and my mom is crazy (Asian). =)
My dream would be for that Stanford app to pull through… but that’s highly unlikely.</p>
<p>The list is reach-heavy but the stats are awfully good, too. I’m surprised about Penn.
Maybe you wrote a ho-hum “Why Penn?” essay (if there was such a thing). Or it was the combination of demographics (Asian, NJ) and “generic” ECs. I would have expected a deferral at least. </p>
<p>I’d say NYU is a high match. Maybe Tufts and Vanderbilt too. Rochester is a match. Rutgers and Pitt should be safeties. </p>
<p>Just because you have 10-15 reaches does not mean you need as many matches. I’d be very surprised if a few the matches and at least a couple of the reaches did not come through. The question is not so much whether you have enough as whether they are the right ones (schools you’d sincerely, enthusiastically like to attend). </p>
<p>So which of the schools on your list (other than Stanford) interest you the most? If Wesleyan is one of them, I’d suggest Macalester as a similar but less selective alternative. Or as vossron suggested, Reed as a slightly less selective alternative to Swat. Or Grinnell. A less selective alternative to Duke and Vanderbilt (Southern, sporty, big Greek scene, a little on the conservative side) would be Wake Forest.</p>
<p>Another, less selective women’s college may have the old money social cache to please your mom and a supportive atmosphere to please you. Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke both have the advantage of consortium arrangements with other schools on your list.</p>
<p>Given your numbers, it does seem surprising that you were not accepted – let alone not even deferred. That suggests you may have put insufficient effort into your essays, perhaps not conveying a real sense who you are or how much you care about Penn. Or, there may have been a red flag of some kind in your application – arrogance, dependence etc (although your posts certainly don’t give off a sense of arrogance) or maybe something (grade grubbing, etc) that crept in through your teacher recs. The good news is that you still have time to try to figure that out. Maybe you could have another set of objective eyes (or two) read over your app to see what you might be overlooking. You probably need to be especially careful given the wide net you are casting in your applications – that makes it harder to convey real excitement about any particular school. Having said all that, there’s a good chance you just got unlucky. Absent some fundamental issue (which, if it exists, you can hopefully pinpoint), I would expect you to have pretty good results RD.</p>
<p>Why do you think that you won’t get accepted to Stanford? Does Stanford get a lot of apps from NJ? I know they do get a lot of apps from Asians, so that may not be a help there.</p>
<p>It sounds like your home location and your lack of hook may have caused your rejection. I think they get a lot of high stats apps from the NE, so they reject those w/o hooks that make them “stand out.”</p>
<p>Vandy, Duke, UVa, Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Emory would be good choices since I don’t think they have high Asian numbers and might want more. What about Santa Clara?</p>
<p>I’m going more for larger universities than more small colleges. Swatt/Reed are probably too intellectual for me, haha. Like, places where people study but still have fun/ have a decent social life (though I’d still probably be happy in UChicago). Which is why Penn and Stanford are/were my top choices, but everyone knows how easy those are to get into. :P</p>
<p>^thanks for that, I never noticed that had early notification until that. I need to step up my research.</p>
<p>Penn probably had too many NJ applicants… they split them among 5 different officers. :[ I don’t think it was any one outstandingly repulsive quality of mine that kept me out though. More likely my essays weren’t good enough, but I thought those were never dealbreakers?. I’d thought that nice art would be a hook in a school with a great fine arts program, but apparently not. I’m going to hope that I at least get into NU, that’s more than good enough…</p>
<p>I’d reccommend Duke for you. I’m a freshman there now, and it seems pretty similar to what you are describing. Also, bio and econ are both amazing here. Contrary to what a previous poster said, however, there are a ton of asians here, so I don’t think that would help you all that much. But you should definitely get in, given your numbers. I had a 3.5, 2100, coming out of high school (one in Durham, that sends 15-20 kids there every year, however) and got in.</p>
<p>Your numbers are very good, but there are just too many good applicants. The moral of the story is that every one should have matches and safeties. Don’t worry, I am sure that you will been in a good school next year. It is true that schools your list are all reaches or high reaches. But some of them could be matches/high matches.</p>
<p>If you don’t like small school, perhaps you should forget Amherst, Swarthmore and Wesleyan. You still have Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, New York University, Northwestern, Stanford, Tufts and Chicago. You should get accepted at least 5 of these 10 schools.</p>
<p>I will suggest that you have Rochester, Vanderbilt, Wellesley (already in your list), TCNJ and George Washington as your matches in the worst case scenario. </p>
<p>Rutgers is your safeties. But you probable don’t need one.</p>
What about Santa Clara?</p>