I go to a highly ranked private school in Chicago (top3 in state and sends a lot of kids to a lot of good schools)
GPA: 3.3uw (can become 3.4 after 1st semester senior)
3.4w ( can become 3.6)
APs: 6 including senior year. School only offers about 13. Impossible to take more than 4 in one year and impossible to take AP’s sophomore year. 2 junior year, 4 senior.
ACT: 35c
Extracurriculars: Varsity Golf, Sierra Club, Model UN (won two awards at international events), Business Club (founder and president), 300~ hours of volunteering with special needs kids, created my own website where I post free business and finance articles, will intern at UBS in spring of senior year.
Essays: For Common App, I made a really creative essay that focuses on my growth.
Recs: Also will be good and focuses on my growth again.
Do you think I have chances with: Duke, UChicago, UNC, U MIchigan, Georgetown, and Notre Dame?
Thanks!
Based on your stats it looks like you have a good chance at any and all of the schools you listed in your post. What I would say/advise is to focus on different aspects of your life depending on which application you are working on. The common app essay is very important to have strong but I think your supplementals could be played to your advantage. For example, Georgetown has a heavy focus on service and the fact that you have had so much meaningful volunteer work could be spoken about to great effect in a supplemental essay as long as you are genuine about what you write. Additionally, UChicago looks for a very specific and sort of quirky, out-of-the-box type of applicant and I think it would help you a lot if you looked at their example supplementals on their website. Since I am speaking from personal experience I won’t comment on the rest of the schools you listed as I did not apply to them but I’m sure with a little bit of research you could see how well you match the types of applicants those schools look for. By no means am I saying that each school only admits one “type” of student, but I am saying you seem to have great chances with your statistics (which you shouldn’t worry about too much) and some of your extracurriculars and personality traits could look extremely appealing to some schools when comparing them to some others.
I have to be honest. That GPA is well below average for all of the schools listed. Even if you got it up to a 3.6, you’re competing with people with near perfect grades. The ACT is excellent, but it won’t be enough to increase your odds much. Those are all hyper-competitive schools. Also, an out of state public is going to give priority to residents, making it even more competitive to get in out of state.
@coolguy40@suzy100 My school is very competitive and sends kids to a lot of top 20 schools if that helps. But I do have safeties and matches I just didn’t put them on this thread.
@Tom234 Apply ED only if you fall in love with that school. At UChicago it is more than a 10x improvement in acceptance rate between ED1 and RD.
I was going to mention your GPA, but you replied to that. Given what your school’s students have done in the past in applying (Naviance?), what does your Guidance Counselor say? Where do you stand in class rank vs. the rest of your class? If you go to a competitive HS that sends many, do they also have a similar GPA? Or are you at 3.3 and they are all 3.9 and 4.0? What 2 APs did you take and how did you score on the AP tests?
@BrianBoiler My school does not do class rank nor Naviance. We don’t talk about GPA as students at our school but I know that a lot of people at my school struggle sophomore and junior year, which I did not. My GC said that I should apply to UMich and UNC but didn’t comment on others. I took AP Euro and AP Bio but I won’t send the scores.
@Tom234 a lot of schools don’t rank. Your GC will know if your performance is superior or similar or inferior to the many other students from your school. Another way to determine how your school compares to others, your AP scores may help answer that question. If you took the AP classes but don’t send your scores and your competition does send their 5s in, the AO may come to the conclusion that even though your school is a great high school, you didn’t score as well and therefore…
But, if you want an honest opinion, I think the best person to tell you if your GPA is going to be a factor or not is your guidance counselor. That’s all I’m saying. Without that context, I’ll say your GPA is too low to be a serious contender.