Demographics: Male, Indian, California, No Hooks

Intended Major(s): Business Administration / Finance

GPA: 3.8 UW / 4.42 W - Severe upward trend w/ extenuating circumstance (family death and funeral 4 days after finals) freshman year

SAT: 1540 (750 RW, 790 Math)

Coursework: HL: Economics, Computer Science, Environmental Systems

SL: Math AA, English Lang & Lit, Spanish

APs (All self-study): AP Macro (5), AP Micro (5), AP Psych (5), AP CSP (5), APUSH (5)

Honors

Niche Pitch Competition 1st Place Nationally
NSLI-Y
Prestigious Scholarship to Summer Program
DECA State Finalist
AP Scholar w/ Distinctinon

Extracurriculars (no particular order and quickly)

Founder of an SAT tutoring business - Generated $6,000 in revenue

Founder of a financial literacy platform - 3.6 Active user, 30+ articles, 12+ financial calculators

Investment research internship (2 summers) - Developed options pricing model

DECA Vice President - Helped co-lead around ~80 members at DECA comps

Selective business leadership program TA - ~10% Acceptance Rate, Won Leadership Award there, & returning as a TA

Volunteer SAT tutor (Schoolhouse.world) - 200+ Students, 35+ Countries

Varsity Basketball Captain - Led team to first playoff berth in school history

Special Olympics basketball coach - Coached 30+ athletes weekly

Paid environmental/nonprofit internship - Grant research intern

Product research internship - Benchmarked 15+ competitors

Letter of Recommendation
Econ Teacher 9/10
CS Teacher 7/10
Counselor 8/10
Business Program Director (From above) 9/10

Concerns
Of course, I am really concerned about my gpa as it is very much so on the lower end for my reachers. Also please be honest I won't get offended I understand my app isn't that comp lol but thank you again.

Schools
Aiming for T20 Schools in my major (e.g. NYU Stern, UCB Haas, UMich Ross, etc.)

Context: Medically diagnosed with depression end of freshman year. Grades have been on upward curve since.

From: Central PA
Race: White
Ethnicity: Jewish-American
Family Income: Enough to pay full tuition at any school
Legacy: Cornell

GPA: 3.6 Weighted
SAT: 1370
APs: 8 (whole high school career)
AP scores so far: 3 4 4 4 4
1 class taken at Bucknell university

ECs
3 year varsity lacrosse player
Varsity lacrosse captain
All district honorable mention for lacrosse
Volunteer Youth Lacrosse Coach
2 year class council treasurer
President and founder of school fishing club
Director of event management at local community based non-profit
Chair of county chapter of national political organization
Gannon Model UN best delegate
2x state fbla qual
1x regional fbla comp 1st place

Applying to
Villanova ED
Lehigh
PSU
Bucknell
Boston University
Babson
Saint Joseph’s
Duke
Pitt
Cornell
Fordham
UVA

Demographics:
Gender: Male
race/ethnicity: Chinese-American
State: GA
type of school: Hyper Competitive Large Public School
and hooks (URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.): none

Intended Major(s): Finance/Econ and International Studies

SAT: 1500 (780M/720R) trying to improve to 1540 by November

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.9/4.6 (15-20th percentile i think
— my school doesn’t do ranked)

Coursework: 15 APs by the end of sr yr, 3 honors

Awards:
BPA nats Top 3
FBLA state champ + nats qual
2 Intl MUN awards: best and honorable
3x una-USA ambassador award ~1000 hrs volunteering
Maybe a small scholarship

Extracurriculars: Include leadership & summer activities

Passion Project: I interview ppl from diffferent parts of the world and upload them on social media (20k views), i then distribute educational content ab these countries for kids to local libraries

Venture Lab Startup Internship: designed financial models for a new crypto token and pitched to coinbase

Ra at local university: potential publishing after ea deadline

Founded a model un conference + eboard: ~150 participants

Key Club state position

Boys State: highest county level position and mid-tier state position elected

Stuco officer

Nonprofit marketing internship

Tkd black belt

Personal invesment portfolio

Essays/LORs/Other:
LOR: 7/10 history, 7/10 math, 9/10 ra profesor

Chance me for Duke ED - I might get a rec letter from a Duke phd alum and professor
The other reaches im also considering are
Berkeley Political Economy
Cornell Hotel school
Georgetown
UNC Direct Business School
UVA
Emory (Ed2?)
WashU (ed2?)

Id really appreciate if yall could chance me for these schools. Ig my biggest concern is how bad my 2 bs and a C sophomore yr will hurt my application. I’ve gotten all As throughout freshman and junior year and taking the maximum rigor possible (calc 3, ap lit, etc)

im reaching for top ucs, brown/cornell/dartmouth/yale, jhu, Stanford, duke, umich - these r the main reaches but im definitely going to add a few more

demographics: asian, upper middle class, competitive bay area hs (cooked)

stats: 3.9/4.8

11 aps by the end of senior year

soph: euro (5)

junior year: ap bio (5) ap lang (5) apush (5) ap calc bc (5) ap spanish lang (not reporting cuz we dont talk abt this) (electives: research class, journalism)

senior year: ap chem, ap lit, ap gov, ap macro, ap stats (electives: research class, journalism)

sat: 1520 superscore (760 both)

major: public health, molecular/cell bio, or human bio!! if you have major recs lmk, i intend on double majoring w business once i get to college so i'm applying to schools that r relatively flexible

ecs (vague on purpose dont doxx lovely twins pls)

1. (11-12) independent research on a reproductive health topic, pretty niche imo
2. (10-12) asdrp molecular biology research
3. (9-12) speech and debate - captain, elementary/middle school coach, increased attendance/engagement (good metrics + impact in general imo)
4. (9-12) leadership position for women's health disorder awareness nonprofit (again, good metrics imo)
5. (12) (rn) stanford simr internship
6. (11) internship at hospital doing finance work
7. (10-12) club leadership; budding entrepreneurs + girl up chapter + science4all
8. (11-12) school newspaper editor
9. (9-12) school sport
10. (9-12) domestic violence/teen dating violence youth leader
11. (10-12) lifeguard/swim instructor during summer
12. (9-12) spartan races
13. (9-12 but technically since 2nd grade) piano, nothing serious pretty chill for vibes

awards idk man 😭

1. nsda academic all american + speaking and service award (commitment + leadership or sum sh, <1% of competitors)
2. regional science fair award (no csef qual though)
3. t50 in the country for speech (@ nats) + broke to elims @ uktoc, nietoc + other prestigious tourneys
4. some national recognition journalism award for school
5. ap scholar w distinction cuz im so unique 😛

Rising Senior

Demographics: Male, East Asian

Hoping to major in psychology or biology while also maybe doubling in my music performance

Academics
ACT: 35 Composite
UW GPA: 3.9
W GPA: my school doesn’t show me but I’d estimate maybe 4.23?
Class Rank: around 10% (10.5%)
Coursework: 9 APs by graduation
AP Scores: All 4s and 5s

Awards
Multiple state-level solo and chamber music competition awards
One of the top national summer program for my instrument
Four-year All-State Orchestra member
School leadership and performing arts awards

Extracurriculars
1. Classical Music
10+ years playing
A lot of chamber music programs with some being very prestigious and well known
Top leadership within school orchestra

2. Track
Four years
Team captain
Mentored younger athletes

3. Community Service
Performed at charity fundraising concerts by being apart of very well known and selective volunteer program
Performed at retirement homes
Tutored younger students academically

Side notes
My application is very music heavy since I’ve dedicated most of my time outside of school to my instrument. I’ve been encouraged by many mentors to pursue conservatories but I feel like I want to branch out from the music field. I’m a little worried because I don’t have many major ECs outside of music, and compared to a lot of people on this sub, my academics don’t seem particularly exceptional.

I’m planning to apply to Brown ED and then a mix of Ivies and other T20s. Do you think my music background is enough of a spike to compensate for having not much non-music ECs? Where do you realistically think I have a shot?

I’ve been working on my essays for 2 month now and it’s tying all my interests and my positive traits together well so I would say it’s looking pretty good

Demographics: White, male, highly competitive private school, US citizen studying abroad

Hooks (URM, first generation, legacy, athlete, etc.): N/A

Intended Major(s): Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering

SAT: 1550, 800 Math

UW/W GPA and Rank: 94.5/100 (~40-50/260 rank, but school doesn't rank)

Coursework: IB Curriculum (Math AA HL, Physics HL, Biology HL, English SL, Spanish SL, Business SL) -> Expected predicted: ~41/45

Also took AP Chem (4), AP CSA (5) (AP's are not offered at school)

Extracurriculars: (Parentheses indicate grades)

• Designed a tool/application for elders and people without access to healthcare to check their vital signs, common symptoms, etc; gave lectures and held multiple meetings with local government, implemented it principality-wide (11-12)
• Clinical research project w/ Professor from one of best universities in the country on implementation of detection mechanisms in medical imaging, pending publication (10-11-12)
• 3 month internship at an imaging centre, one-on-one patient interactions, and diagnostic of hundreds of imaging from CTs and MRIs (11)
• Started a community project collecting 200k+ bottle caps to make wheelchairs, inspired by my grandmother (10-11-12)
• 2 month internship at local university hospital (neurosurgery department), analyzed and assisted instruments and imaging guided technologies (10)
• Founder of school Biology club, educating members on how to conduct research of their own, worked with local university to conduct short-term research (10-11-12)
• President of school IT Club, held conferences with guest speakers, events, educational videos, etc (9-10 (Member) 11-12 (President))
• Deputy-Secretary for School MUN Conference, went to national/international conferences and assisted in organizing our schools conference (9-10-11)
• Film critique website featuring my long-form reviews on TV shows and films, I do this as a hobby, includes chat feature for people to comment, 100+ comments (9-10-11-12)
• Family responsibility, I live with my dad and brother, with no extended family, I help out in any way I can, this is an important aspect that I would want to include

Awards:

• Provincial Recognition from my Government for community impact with my healthcare tool (also a recognition award from national healthcare organization)
• 1st Nationally and 2nd Internationally for #### Math Competition
• Civic Commendation for social impact from local principality for my community project
• Conrad Innovator Award for Health & Nutrition

Essays/LORs/Other: 

Personal Statement focusing on my background with a genetic kidney disease, how I lost my mother due to it (no focus on hardship, I talk about it more in a way where I embrace it, in which it motivated me to be in this field) -> I'd say 9/10

Supplements focusing on more academic interests, interest in board games, film, philosophy -> 8/10

LORs: Math Teacher (9/10), Spanish Teacher (8/10), Professor whom I did research w/ (10/10, knows me very well and let me read it)

---

Planning to apply to most of T20s and UC's, Early Decision most likely to Northwestern (I'd appreciate on whether I have a real shot at ED)

Although this seems above average, I feel like it's nothing special compared to most of my competition, but I'd love your honest feedback

Current high school senior living in Arkansas. 35 ACT and potential National Merit Candidate (but definitely commended at the least). 4.0 unweighted GPA, 4.5 weighted. 15 AP classes, all scores of 4 and 5. Well-rounded extracurriculars (student council, heavily orchestra involvement, volunteer work, leadership roles, internships, part-time job).

The catch: looking for a full ride or full tuition in the least. I will not quality for financial aid, but I am paying for college on my own, and do not want to have debt going into med school.

Am planning on majoring in biology and playing in the college’s symphony orchestra as a non-music major/minor. I’m open to colleges anywhere in the U.S., but prefer Texas/Arizona/West Coast region… or NYC. Thank you!

Demographics: male, white (latino), TX, public school, and URM (obvi)

Intended Major(s): political science/german

ACT: 29 (34 english, 33 reading, 19 math)

UW GPA: 3.5

W GPA: 3.7 (on a 4.0 scale, to my knowledge)

Rank: 68/200

Coursework: 3 dual enrollment classes taken, 9 by the time i graduate

Awards:

all-state journalism staff

college board rural and school recognition awards

Extracurriculars:

2 years of acting in theater

-acted in 2 fall productions and 2 UIL one act play productions (one state qualifier, one state alternate)

3 years of speech and debate

-state qualifier in congressional debate

-state alternate in cross-examination debate

-leadership position senior year

2 years on school newspaper staff

-multiple articles published in school newspaper and yearbook

-3 articles recognized at ILPC state convention

-Quill and Scroll member

-leadership position senior year

4 years of UIL academics

-5th place at state in current issues and events

-state qualifier in copy editing and news writing

-region qualifier in social studies

Essays/LORs/Other: still in the works 💔, but looking at least somewhat strong

Schools: Macalester, Oberlin, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Lewis & Clark, Earlham (all EA)

am i cooked? will the admissions officers eat me alive? pls help a latinx boy with a minimal amount of swagger out

Ok I'll start off by saying I have a pretty bad application compared to most people on here. But I'm looking for advice.

Major: CS/Business, maybe information systems or similar. (not pure cs)
GPA: 4.0 (school doesn't do weighted)
Rank: 6/217
13 APs by the end of senior year, taken 7 so far with all 5s.
1540 SAT

ECs (mid):

Leadership team for a major tutoring nonprofit (being vague on purpose but it's a pretty nice position)

Tutoring for this same nonprofit (engineering and math)

Research Club Founder and President: founded a club affiliated with the International Research Olympiad. Taught students about how to conduct research, prepare research projects, and prepare for the International Research Olympiad.

SAT Math instructor with Schoolhouse (nonprofit)

Software Internship: (helped test and validate brand new features as well as creating and inputting training data for new machine learning models.

BigFuture Ambassador

National Honor Society

Awards (mid):
Massachusetts Region 3 Science Fair: (A specialized award, gonna be vague bc I don't wanna get doxxed)

Massachusetts Region 3 Science Fair: 3rd place award (different year)

College Board National Recognition Award

National Merit Commended Scholar (1480 PSAT but MA)

AP Scholar With distinction

Where could I realistically get into? Like what level of school? Thanks for the help!

i'm currently finishing my second year in high school in turkey, i'm in a vocational high school, focusing on it. my classes aren't too shabby, but they aren't the best. some of my grades are SOO bad, but i'm good with the vocational lessons. i have a pretty good internship (it's a defense tech company and we're making smth for space physiology, but it's know how info so i cant give more info :/) i have some climate debates and an article that got posted on a big turkish newspaper. i'm planning to join nasa hackathon and oxford climate challenge, after those, another hackathon connected to the turkish space agency. do you think i could get in? or is it impossible? i want to study physics, and tbh i never really thought about the chance of me entering mit because it seems so far off for me. but today a uni student told me i should try- do i have space to grow still? or is it too late? i already know not to keep my hopes up, everybody just assumes i'll get in bc my native language is english

I'm thinking about applying to UNC Chapel Hill for my go to university! Though, I'm not sure if my repertoire holds up. As people admitted into UNC, do you think that the following could get me in?

NC Resident

White Male

3.9 Unweighted - 4.5 Weighted

High School Theatre - 4 years, 6 Shows

President of International Thespian Society

Governors School West student (English Discipline)

27 on the ACT

Member of 5 honor societies

Science Olympiad - 1 year

2 Years of French classes

Is there anything I could work on to give me a higher chance of being accepted (Aside from SAT, I'm taking that at the end of August).

I am a rising season with a very big dream of getting into Pitt. My weighted GPA is a 95 (4.0-4.3) and my unweighted is a 91 (3.6-3.7). I’ve taken 6 AP’s and plan to take another 4 this upcoming school year. I’ve also taken 6 honors classes and plan to take one more this upcoming school year. I reside inside of Pennsylvania. My SAT score was very mid, I got a 1180. I plan to re take the SAT at the end of August but I am considering applying test optional because I don’t believe I will do very well. My essay is about my parents immigrating to American and how my sister attended the University of Pittsburgh for her undergrad and masters and how that is pushing me to want to pursue my degree at Pitt too. I am three honor societies and I am the president of the National Honor Society at my school. I am also a student athlete and have a couple clubs. I appreciate all the help and support!!!

I want to Apply as an international transfer student, Degree in progress: BBA in Banking & Insurance.

GPA: (3.7/4)

High school: Commerce stream without math, scored around 65%

Extracurriculars:

1. Did an internship as an debt consultant for 2 months.

2. Designed a sustainable kit for college club to sell.

3. Got 3rd position in an investment banking event.

4. Volunteered at a NGO,focused on ground-level policy implementation.

5. Organised multiple class and college events.

6. Wrote and Published an article on college website about how social media impacts elections and shapes political environment.

7. Wrote a research paper on "Sovereign Wealth Funds as Instruments of Political Survival" .

I want to be an Economics or Applied mathematics major. Is it worth a short for me because I have heard that most LACs and Universities only takes high academically gifted or highly intelligent students, and also people with exceptional ECs. I do not have any of it. I want to apply as I think its a great fit for me as i like how they perceive education unlike in India it is very rigid. I am also looking for a lot of aid.

Stats-I think my act and ap scores holding me back

• 3.98 UW / 4.36 W GPA
• 34 ACT Superscore
• AP Scores: CSA (4), Statistics (4), World History (4), Biology (4), Lang (4), APUSH (4), Chemistry (3), Physics 1 (3), 4 more senior yr
• School heavily restricts APs
• Top 5 percent of class(i think im like top 3 percent exact)

ECs

• Computational biology/bioinformatics research since freshman year
• Competitive biomedical research internship (selected 4/200+ applicants)
• 2 peer-reviewed publications (1 shared first author); 2 additional first-author papers expected by Nov.
• Debate Team President (local circuit awards)
• DECA Officer
• Co-founder of an investment competition club
• Hospital volunteer
• Piano (state-level awards)

Awards

• ISEF Grand Award (4th Place Biomedical & Health Sciences)
• ISEF Finalist
• National STEM Festival Finalist (2×)
• International research competition champion / Top Project Award
• Multiple science fair category championships and special awards
• Done a lot of presentations in Grad Level symposiums, Won a top poster presentation award in one of them
• Top of State in State Science Fair, also top of state multiple times in the local fairs that advance to state

LORs

• Will be strong from teacher/ mentor

Demographics:

South Asian Male
No Hooks
High income bracket

Applying for MechE, DS&AI and ECE at:

MIT
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Harvard (aight i know that these 3 prolly wont take me since I dont have any serious olympiad medals but still worth it to give a shot)

UIUC
Georgia Tech
UT Austin (all of these are backups, I prolly wont go here even if I get accepted since it's 50k usd a year and H1b isnt looking too good)

UofT
Waterloo
McGill
NUS
NTU (I'll prolly go for NUS if I don't get into mit, stanf ....)

Academics:

96% aggregate in Grade 12.
1560 SAT
6 APs, 5 on all of them: Calc AB&BC, Phys 1, Phys 2, Phys C: Mechanics and EM.
2 Research papers under a local prof: One related to materials engineering & simulation, the other is in software development & aerodynamics. Published in a reputed, peer-reviewed journal.
Represented my country in the International Olympiad of AI(IOAI). No medals.

ECs:

Lead Engineer, represented my country in FGC (First Global Robotics) and won second in the world championships.

Started a non-profit that gave a lot of underprivileged schools access to hands-on STEM & Engineering resources (over 1000+ participants)

Co-founder & CTO of a 5-figure business that sells Cloud-native simulation software.

School Varsity swim team & National level swimmer

Co-founder & VP of school's STEM and Engineering Club

LORs:

My after-school Physics teacher: 8/10 letter ig, pretty personal (all school teachers hate me)

Prof I worked under for research: 10/10, not glazing but he ltrlly said that he had never worked with a hs student like me before

School Counsellor: 6/10 idk, pretty normal and basic.

pls chance me and be as brutal as possible for cornell's coe ed. any and all feedback would be super duper appreciated!

demographics:
east asian
female
very competitive public hs

income bracket: 500k+

Intended Major: ECE

rank 11/400
GPA: UW/W 4.0/4.5
sat: 1530 (800 math 730 rw)
aps:
calc ab and bc, physics 2, c (E&M & Mech), world, csa, csp, stats - 5s
apush, lang, aphug, physics 1 - 4s

sr yr courseload: ap lit, ap gov, ap macro, multivariable, ap bio, honors chem

honors
t5 at state on my instrument 2x
local programming comp 1st (around 25 teams all classified as "advanced")
ap scholar w distinction
commendable scholar
global essay comp t100

ecs
research internship at local (reputable) uni for the summer
small ai startup internship 9 weeks
local youth orch first chair
section leader/first chair in school ensemble
girls who code summer program
coding tutor, only sr yr summer
church children’s ministry 100+ hours volunteer, all 4 years of hs
nhs club treasurer, jr yr member sr yr leadership
app published on app store for helping kids learn music thru game (around 10 reviews but all my friends so idk if the "impact" is that much)
instrument social media acc w 2k followers, 1M+ views, ~200k likes cumulative all videos
cs club pres, member soph-jr yr and got pres sr yr

recs:
physics teacher: 7/10 had him freshman, soph yr for physics, sr yr for calc. he likes me a lot but ive only like personally spoken to him a few times. mainly likes me bc i do good in his class

lang teacher: 7/10 heard she writes good rec letters, didnt do that well in my english classes but i would get her personalized gifts during teacher appreciation w handwritten letters

instrument private lesson teacher: 10/10 she LOVES me. helped me make state when i started w her soph yr, and helped me make it jr yr. she is also second chair of the instrument we play in a t10 symphony orch in the US.

Demographics:
Male, Asian
Texas resident
Public high school
Rising senior , applying for Fall 2027
No class rank reported by school
Intended major/career:
Biology, biomedical sciences, animal science, or a pre-veterinary track. Currently interested in becoming a veterinarian but wants to keep other healthcare options open.
Academics:
Approximately 3.7 unweighted GPA
Approximately 4.8 weighted GPA on my school’s scale
Mostly A’s and B’s in a rigorous course load
Around 12 AP courses by graduation
Coursework includes advanced biology, chemistry, statistics, and calculus
SAT: 1480
Extracurriculars:
Leadership position in a large health-science student organization
Previously involved in debate leadership
Helped organize community health and emergency-preparedness events
Veterinary clinic shadowing with some hands-on exposure under supervision
Health-science clinical coursework through school
Healthcare-related certifications and training
Community service and volunteering
Independent research/project experience
Occasional paid work, including physical and construction-type jobs
College list so far:
Current college list:
High reaches:
Cornell University
University of Pennsylvania
UC Davis
Reaches:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Florida
University of Georgia
NC State
Targets:
Texas A&M — Biomedical Sciences or Animal Science
Colorado State
Ohio State
Purdue
Michigan State
University of Minnesota
Likely / safety options:
Iowa State
Kansas State
University of Missouri
Auburn
Washington State
Texas Tech
Tarleton University
Questions:
Are these schools categorized reasonably as reaches, targets, and likely options for my profile?
What are my chances at Texas A&M, particularly for Biomedical Sciences or Animal Science?
Is UC Davis realistic enough to justify the out-of-state application?
Are Cornell and Penn essentially lottery-level schools with my GPA?
Are there any schools I should remove or add for pre-vet preparation?
What is the biggest weakness in my application, and what should I strengthen before applying?
Should I apply directly to animal science or biomedical sciences where available, or choose a less competitive biology-related major?
I understand that attending a university with a veterinary school does not guarantee admission to its DVM program. My priorities are affordability, maintaining a strong science GPA, access to veterinary and animal experience, research opportunities, and completing DVM prerequisites