Overview:
White
Junior
Delaware
Top 50 Private School in the Nation
GPA:
UW- 3.91
W- 4.35
Class Rank:
top 5/70
Test Scores:
ACT (took it once and not again): 34 (E34,M34,R33,S34)
EC’s:
-Clubs
Blue-Gold Club (Helps those with intellectual disabilities, largest club in school)- 4 years, leader next year (1 hour a week)
Entrepreneurship Club- Co-founder this year and plan to grow and lead it next year (2 hours a week)
Math League- Leader next year (1 hour a week)
-Outside Activites
CEO of a startup that is around $10,000 in revenue a year, founded it in 2015 (8 hours a week)
Research on solar cells and creating a new hydrogen storage cell (4 hours a week)
70+ hours of community service
Please respond with your thoughts on how to improve my overall resume. Don’t just say just Rejected or Accepted.
Structure it like this please:
Stanford:
UPenn:
UVA:
Duke:
I appreciate all your feedback!
Wow great job with the startup. I think your grades and scores look fine. You should have a good shot at all of the schools listed above.
How do you manage to run a company with only 8 hours per week? That seems quite implausible.
Thanks for the response!
The hours a week listed above are for right now while I am enrolled full time in school. From June 5 until August 15 I plan to devote 40 hours per week. Probably should have clarified that 
great point
You’re definitely a competitive applicant.
I would suggest that you take the SAT Math 2, Stanford recommends it and I think Penn likes it a lot too.
Stanford: Pretty Good chance. It pretty much depends on teacher recommendations and how you present yourself in your essays. Race, privilege, legacy status, ect. will also determine whether you get in or not.
UPenn: Very good chance. If you receive good-ish recommendations and have a quality essay, you can consider yourself accepted.
UVA: EXTREMELY good chance. As long as you don’t write your essays about pyromania and a fascination with serial killers, you’ll probably get in.
Duke: Good chance. It’s not guaranteed, but you’ll probably get in if you write strong essays and have strong recommendations.
How to Improve
- SAT Subjects (Math 2 and Literature, possibly a language if you feel confident enough)
- Put a little extra effort into you company in your senior year (not that you’re not already doing a great job). I’m assuming this will be your hook for your essays and extracurriculars, so make sure you develop this as much as you can and go as far with it as you can. Don’t ignore or drop your other activities, but make sure that your company as impressive as possible, in case admissions officers want to look into deeper.
Nobody has a pretty good chance at Stanford, unless you happen to be Malala Yousafzai.
You honestly have a good chance at all the colleges that you mentioned but being from Delaware and not Virginia, UVA might be a little tough. UVA has been known to be harsh to OOS students. Not saying that to discourage you but just to give you a heads up. Good luck!
Thanks everyone! @AmbitiousWalrus thanks for listing the ways to improve as well as detailed recommendations for certain colleges
You have good chances at all of these schools, but keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed in college admissions. I absolutely disagree with the above poster saying “no one has a pretty good chance at Stanford”. That’s a CC cliché and not accurate. There are plenty of insane applicants (Intel Semifinalists/finalists, RSI alumni, etc) that have good chances at any school, this is why there are some people who get into all of HYPSM. What’s your intended major?
Since you’re a strong applicant for all these schools, you should start planning what you’re going to do with regards to early admission next year. Both Duke and Penn admit around 50% of their class in ED, and any applicant’s chances skyrocket when applying early vs. regular. But, obviously applying ED to one of these schools will lock you out of applying early to Stanford since it’s SCEA.
All tough schools, but you gotta shot!
Penn and Duke - low reaches
UVA - match
Stanford - may the odds be ever in your favor
@gormar099 Thanks for the response! I plan on studying chemical engineering and monotone in entrepreneurship. I need to discuss the ED and SCEA conundrum with my college counselor. Is it worth going EA to Stanford and passing up upenn and Duke early?
@Loverh16 I don’t really know to be honest. The best person to ask is your college counselor since he/she is experienced with what types of students have been admitted to Stanford from your school, and whether you’re competitive among them. I would say to take a look at the Duke RD results thread and the Penn RD results thread, when it comes out, then compare that with their respective ED results thread. If you think you can get in RD then EA to Stanford, if you don’t think you can, but you can get in ED, ED to whichever one you like more. But again, I would get your counselor’s opinion first.