What are my chances at T20 schools?

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I’m applying to MIT, UChicago, Michigan, UC Berkeley, Penn, Stanford, Columbia, and some safeties

Race: Asian
Gender: Male

gpa: UW: 3.99, W: 4.6
senior year courses: Math 451 and Math 452 at Umich, Econ 401 and Econ 402 at Umich, Stats 412 and Stats 413 at Umich, AP Bio, DP Latin, AP English 12, AP Human Geography
Act: 36
SAT: 1570
Class rank: Top 5%

Total APs taken: AP Psychology(5), AP CSP(5), APUSH(5), AP Calc BC(5), AP CSA(5), AP Gov(5), AP Macro(5), AP Micro(5), AP Physics C(5), AP Chem(5), AP Statistic(5), AP English 11(5) + senior year APs

Awards:
Qualified for nationals in personal financial challenge
Banking and Finance national winner in Business Professionals of America
National AP Scholar
USAMO Qualifier (Top 200 in Nation for math)
USACO Silver
USAPHO Qualifier

ECs:
Chess Club(Played for 10 years with numerous awards), President
Taught chess to underprivileged kids for 2 years
Volunteered at summer chess camps
Math club, Vice President
Math tutor
Economics Club, President
Wrote an economics research paper with a professor at Ross School of Business
Financial Literacy and Investment Club, Secretary
Public Speaking Club, Captain
Business Professionals of America, Competition Committee
Key Club
Tennis for 4 years

More than good rec letters overall

2

You have pretty much every merit badge you could possibly have, so you have to know that you are a competitive candidate. From another post you were worried about not having a national award- but with the exception of a tiny number of them, that is definitely not a silver bullet.

At this point, the only part of your application that you can control is the ‘soft’ side- your essays, which will speak to what you bring to the university. If you haven’t already, spend some time this summer reading MIT’s admissions blogs. Note that they pay a lot of attention to building “a” perfect class, not “the” perfect class. They will, definitively, admit students next year whose stats are noticeably less impressive than yours. Whether you will be one of those students will depend on how they see the ‘fit’.

Good luck: you will shine wherever you go.

ps, one note on safeties: there have been a few threads this admissions cycle from students who applied to super-selective and super-safe places, but nothing in the middle. Be sure that if your only choice was one of your safeties that you would be genuinely ok with that.

3

Make sure your parents can pay $70K/year for Berkeley before you apply.

You didn’t mention what major you are interested in, but I assume finance/business/economics/math. There are several excellent universities and colleges which are not as hard to get into as the ones on your list. Do some research and apply to some of them.

You have excellent chances at your list, but those are reaches for everyone.

4

hi @daav123

Finally, another USAMO qualifier on here! So I just went through the application cycle this year. Just for some background info, I had a 1590 SAT / 36 ACT and had most of the academic achievements you could obtain in high school (DECA/FBLA, USAMO, USACO Plat, USAPhO, etc.) I was waitlisted at MIT and got into HYPS.

Here’s my own chance me thread for reference: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2100728-chance-me-for-top-cs-schools.html#latest

I think you have a really good shot, but be sure to write good essays. Best of luck!