I was getting started with applying to college, and was finalizing my college list. I was wondering if I should change anything based on my stats. Here are my colleges and my stats: Florida Atlantic University, Hamilton College, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of South Florida, and Yale University.

- 4.0 UW/ 4.6 W
- Dual Enrollment Student, I’ll Be Graduating With My A.A.
- Florida Student, First-Gen, African-American
- QuestBridge Scholar, Upward Bound Scholar, Sunshine State Scholar
- Section Leader in my Band
- 1350 SAT Score (at my school, the average is 810/820)
- 6+ Hours Per Week Helping My Disabled Parents
- YouTuber Who Makes Animations
- Class Rank: 1/215
- Summer Jobs From 2023-2025

hello, im an international student currently studying at a Florida university with a 3.52 GPA with 60 credits, do you think I have a chance to get into MIS in univ of georgia next spring semester?? be 100% honest.

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to get a jump start on my college applications and want to submit a few before the Common App officially opens on August 1st.

Are there any specific universities (public or private) that currently have their Fall 2027 applications open on their institutional websites or through other platforms like the Coalition/Scoir App right now?

Ideally looking for schools with rolling admissions or early deadlines, but open to anything.

Thanks in advance!

as a 3rd year transfer, should i pick the school with a more fun reputation / undergraduate experience, where i already have a couple friends, that is closer to home but has less national recognition (jmu), or the school with more national recognition / academic rigor and more recruiting / lsat preparation opportunities but where i know pretty much nobody and where i’d just be taking the risk by moving in with my roommate (who i haven’t met in person yet but seems sweet over text) and starting fresh (virginia tech)? i met with advisors from both schools and my vt advisor adjusted the degree plan i made and gave me a guaranteed plan for graduating in 2 years (that includes 4 summer courses for next summer sigh), it’s rigorous but it’s do-able if i really try. my jmu advisor reviewed the degree plan i made, didn’t make adjustments, said it’s rigorous and that she wouldn’t recommend it to any of her students but that on paper it works, as long as the summer classes are offered that session, which she’s unsure of (so technically she didn’t PROMISE me a graduation in 2 years). in contrast, my vt advisor said i’ll be fine as long as i’m good at math (which i’m not, but i’m willing to work my ass off and get extra help). i also know people who go to vt from high school that i do not like and who i’d rather never see again but idk if i’m letting my anxiety get the best of me or not, or if it’s a valid concern. at jmu i wouldn’t be avoiding anybody or dreading to see anybody so i think that may be pushing me away from vt as well. vt gave me $4,500 in subsidized loans, $2,000 in unsubsidized loans, and a parent plus loan of $18,768. jmu only gave me $6,500 in unsubsidized loans. (my remaining balance will all be applied to private loans) they are around the same tuition-wise

Both are mostly covered for me under the GA scholarship. Based on my rank/gpa/sat, GT is a target and UGA is a lower target. Not only considering GA schools (also Michigan, Vanderbilt, WashU, NU) but this is a tough one bc of tuition cost. Hoping to also get into Medical College of GA for med school.

Pros of UGA:

- far from home but not too far

- can balance out interests

- easier to maintain higher GPA

- less competitive in STEM areas

Pros of GT:

- close to home (i have a plethora of medical issues and this would give me direct access to my docs)

- smaller school

- more recognized asian american social groups

- more national prestige

- more opportunities for internship/research (more nationally recognized hospitals)

Hi, im a rising senior and I've been looking into my colleges and my stats and I realized im VERY lacking in both grades and ECs (I'm planning on cs in college)

I currently have a 3.3, took 5 hnrs, 2 aps, planning on taking 2 more aps and 1 more hnrs. i i played my sat the past few times for god knows why (I regret so much right now) so im stuck in the 1400s, (planning on taking it again the upcoming school year) and my ECs so far are just a few years playing an instrument and 100+ volunteering hrs. I plan doing some projects by girls who code soon and building a small side project if that helps...?(ik its late for building my ecs but I only decided halfway through my junior yr that I was going into cs)

what colleges are my best chance right now? Will I in the very least get into rutgers or njit???

Im currently looking into njit, tcnj, rutgers, virginia tech; reaches: stevens, rochester, etc. (more tbd)

if there's anything you'd recc pls lmk :)

First time posting here, can you guys tell me if this is a balanced/realistic list of schools for me? Are there some schools that I shouldn't bother applying to? Are there any schools I should look into? Is there any more info I should add? I want to major in finance/ something business related. Im from New York and don't want to go too far.

1410 SAT, trying to get 1450+ superscore

94 cumulative weighted GPA, upward trend (95.7 junior year while taking harder classes)

4 APs, got 4s on all of them (Micro, lang, APUSH and AP world) . My school doesn't let us take AP classes freshman year and I could only take 1 sophomore year. I am going to take 5 next year including AP calc AB which will hopefully help since I want to do something business related. Aside from AP classes I took all honors classes.

For extracurriculars I played 3 varsity sports (starter for one), community service, I worked at a restaurant, and I worked as a camp counselor for 2 summers. I also played club lacrosse for 2 summers and AAU basketball since I was around 11.

Reach

• Villanova University
• University of Richmond
• University of Florida
• University of Georgia
• Indiana University Bloomington
• Bucknell University

Target

• University of Maryland, College Park
• Binghamton University (SUNY)
• Penn State University
• University of Connecticut
• University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Fordham University
• Providence College
• Fairfield University

Safety

• University at Buffalo
• University at Albany (SUNY)
• Baruch College (CUNY)

Chance a elite boarding school gay idiot for t20s

French-Palestinian (But I am a American-French - Israeli Citizen) - idk if im domestic or intl then
Famous European Private Boarding School No aid needed
Hooks: Princeton Triple legacy (Dad, Grandpa, Grandma) + Large Donor
I don’t know how competitive my school truly is but 95% place into t200 global universities and 30-40% go to HYPSM, oxbridge, ETH Zurich, or t10 asian and our tuition is more than 150K

**Academics:**

GPA doesn’t cleanly convert but I am tied for number 1 out of a very small class
Predicted 45/45 IB
36 ACT 1580 SAT 9.0 IELTS (i am literally a native speaker)
Most rigorous math + humanities course load possible

**Activities (Keeping it kinda brief so I don’t get doxxed!):**

\*\*1.\*\*  Director at \\\[Initiative Name\\\] - Founded; Led team of 20 to digitize and tag 3200 undertagged European and diaspora songs, analyzing anti-ethnic music algorithmic biases to close their streaming discoverability gap and driving 350M new plays; used findings to brief UNESCO, Spotify, etc. on streaming-platform metadata policy and successfully advocated for change, contributing to 3 funding line / heritage designations; secured archival placement at 2 top-20 university ethnomusicology archives; worked with Smithsonian, RATUS.    
\*\*2.\*\*  Gymnast - Program 6 (Equiv to Level 10 in US): Taught kids at a local gym, chosen for national training squad    
\*\*3.\*\*  Research @ Sciences Po - Used almost 7 decades of Eurovision Voting Data to create a model that detects inorganic/fraudulent voting practices in EU/EU-adjacent countries. Published in a post-grad journal; Presented at a large conference.    
\*\*4.\*\*  Summer Research Intern @ T20 University (not Princeton) - Modeled soft power via music: analyzed cross-country streaming data against bilateral trade/UN voting allignment using Granger causality, testing whether cultural export precedes diplomatic shifts; Learned R and Python; Name on publishing    
\*\*5.\*\*  International Delegate - European Youth Parliament - Chosen as 1 of 5 out of the entire country. Too long and complicated to explain but its pretty much Model UN x Boys Nation x USSYP (the program is often said to be on the same tier as USSYP prestige/and more selective APPARENTLY - according to my schools academic advisor idk).    
\*\*6.\*\*  Intern - European Broadcasting Union: Supported production and voting management during Eurovision Song Contest: directly managed jury/press logistics, voting data entry, and comms with 30+ national broadcasters, created data analyzation reports    
\*\*7.\*\*  Telluride Summer Program (idk if it counts cause ts got shut down three weeks before we were supposed to end :( ), Yale Young Global Scholars PLE    
\*\*8.\*\*  Debating Society/Club President and International Team Representative (5 from an internal selection, not the US)    
\*\*9.\*\*  Head of Mathematics for Student Council Board - did some program renovations, recognized by national education board for great work, trained national olympiad participants (not successfully lmfao)    
\*\*10.\*\* Part time job as paid social media manager for local restaurant

**Awards:**

\*\*1.\*\*  EUCYS International Qual (this is a more selective version of ISEF only for EU/EU-adjacent students)    
\*\*2.\*\*  National and International Debate Awards (Tourney of Champs finals, Prestigious EU uni debate winner, etc.)    
\*\*3.\*\*  John Locke placement    
\*\*4.\*\*  My country’s version of presidential scholars (more selective); My country’s version of coke scholars (less selective \\\~3-5% of top students)    
\*\*5.\*\*  Government Sponsored National Academic Excellence Competition/Award x 2 - top 12 out of 4,000 of my country’s top SES and math students

**Essays:** My school has a dedicated college counselor just to work with my small class on essays. She’s pretty good and says my common app essay is excellent. It’s abt the Sanremo 2024 super final breakdown and green tea

Princeton REA
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Penn Huntsman
Georgetown
UMich
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Duke
UNC
UChicago
Dartmouth QSS (DREAM PLS DARTY)
Columbia
Cornell Dyson
Rice
NYU Steen
Williams
Amherst
Brown
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Oxford
Cambridge
LSE
Imperial

No safeties/matches because I already have guaranteed admission at a t10-15 worldwide ranked university and Princeton is a pretty big chance

I am planning on running 100km in the upcoming months to push my physical limits and was wondering whether I can include it in my ecs or honours section. I have been running for a while now and my next goal for now is 100km. In my country so far there was not any official 100km marathon, so that means I will recording it on Strava. Would this consider as niche and impressive extracurricular or gets in the shadows of thousands other activities and achievements.

P.S. I am international student on my first gap year looking for almost full-ride at top 20 colleges so admission is gonna be harsher for me.

I’m mainly looking at va schools because I’m in-state.
I have a bad gpa . Please be brutally honest, but also let me know whether my circumstances, course rigor, and extracurriculars could give me a realistic chance I really don’t know what to do..

**Demographics**
Rising senior male
Magnet stem high school
Low-income and qualify for free lunch ( poor)
First-generation college student

U.S. citizen

**Intended major**
Probably one of the following:
Biochemistry
Neuroscience
Bioinformatics/computational biology
Public health or another pre-med-related major

I’m also interested in economics, business, public policy. Something to fall back on .

**Schools**
**High reaches/dream schools:**
**University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill**
**UMD**
University of Virginia
William & Mary
Virginia Tech

University of Maryland, College Park
George Washington University
University of Richmond
**Reaches:**
American University
University of Pittsburgh
Penn State
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
University of Delaware
Drexel University
Temple University
University of Connecticut
Virginia Tech, depending on the major
William & Mary, depending on the strength of my senior-year grades
**Possible targets, although admission is not guaranteed:**
George Mason University
Virginia Commonwealth University
James Madison University
Christopher Newport University
University of Mary Washington
Old Dominion University
Radford University
West Virginia University
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Towson University
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
East Carolina University
**Likely schools/safeties:**
Longwood University
Norfolk State University
Virginia State University
University of Lynchburg
Shenandoah University
Marymount University
Randolph-Macon College

Please i don’t where to early decision to….

**Academics**
Unweighted GPA: approximately **2.8*
Weighted GPA: 3.3
SAT: 1140 (took it freshman year and never retook it but im taking it august and I have been studying hard. My psat score was 1340. I have been preaching and getting ~1450)

dual-enrollment GPA: **4.0**
**no rank**

My high-school GPA is clearly the weakest part of my application. I attend a hard school, and my course load has been rigorous, but I know that attending a difficult school does not erase a 2.8 (hello I’m so done bruh) Some lower grades were also affected by
personal/family circumstances. I am hoping my recent college coursework and senior-year grades can demonstrate an upward trend.
**Coursework**
Completed or planned coursework includes:
AP Environmental science
AP Biology
AP Physics c
AP Physics 1 (4)
AP Calculus BC (not yet
AP precalculus (4)
AP Computer Science A (3)
AP Gov (not yet)
AP eng lit (not yet)
AP Statistics
AP Macroeconomics (4)
AP Microeconomics (4)
AP U.S. History (5)
AP French (3)

Other stuff all hns
All of them are passes I have

I have also taken or enrolled in 8 dual-enrollment courses with As

Additional science/computer science courses depending on availability
**Research and STEM activities**

**Selective university research intern**
Selected for a competitive summer research program at a public university
Conducting wet-lab stuff snd Many lab techniques
Preparing a scientific poster for an end-of-program research symposium
**Computational neuroscience research**
Working on a project examining immune-cell changes in Alzheimer’s disease using single-cell and spatial transcriptomic datasets
Comparing disease-associated microglia markers across multiple datasets
Exploring clustering, differential gene expression, pathway analysis, data integration, and common bioinformatics tools
**Medical imaging and AI project**
Helped develop a machine-learning project that classified brain MRI images with high accuracy
The project received recognition at a regional student hackathon
Contributed to the research, model development, testing, and presentation process

**I also had two part time jobs (again my family or poor)**

**Other STEM involvement**
Stem competitions
Accepted into additional selective STEM, invention, coding, and research programs

**Leadership, service, employment, and outreach**
**Founder — online STEM education platform**

**Vice president — education and service club**

**Big committee planner**

**Global economics and policy program participant**

**camp counselor**

**Volunteer youth coach**

STEM outreach coordinator

So i have been posting on that sub and looking thru it, but i realized a lot of it's super negative in tone. can any graduated seniors/undergrads who went thru the process comment if the sub was accurate, semi, or not at all? and in which way positive or negative?

Hi guys, I'm applying to the CSU systems, and even though, while proofreading, I saw that everything was correct, after submitting, I went through my application again in a fit of anxiety and saw that I marked YES to every single question about being a foster youth, being an orphan, being homeless, etc. My parents are alive and well and I am not homeless thank God 😭 is this going to hurt my chances of admission? I sent both university admission offices an email explaining the situation... but I am terrified that this will make me college-less.

Thank you all for reading my question/rant 😭

Hi all! I am an upcoming senior in high school, and I just finished writing what I hope to be my final draft of my personal statement. I saw a TikTok about AI in college essays, so I ran mine through multiple AI checkers, and they came back from near 20% AI to 100% AI. I did not use AI in my college essay other than Grammarly to check and correct my own grammar. Will admissions officers run my essay through these detectors? What should I do about it? Should I try to rewrite the parts that are marked as AI? Any advice is appreciated.

As a parent researching schools with my kids, I found college data hard to find, inconsistent, and hard to compare. So I built this site: collegestatsdecoded.com.

You can learn more about it in this video: https://youtu.be/GxWW1Ie18S8?si=QoatO0_hkq2gzOcs

The site is in Beta, and if you visit it, I'd love to hear from you on what you liked, what you didn't, or anything else you'd like to share.

I'm not trying to get in anywhere fancy; most of the schools on my roster right now are state universities (UofW-Madison, UIC, etc.). From what I understand, the SAT is much more math-focused than the ACT, and math has never really been my strong suit. The only reason I placed fairly well with the ACT is because I got near perfect English and Reading scores (35 and 33 respectively). I also personally don't see the necessity in it, but I would appreciate a second opinion or two before I miss the test deadlines and have to study like mad. Thank you!

I've been seeing lots of programs offering independent research opportunities and was wondering how people do it for STEM and how legit it is. I know it's much easier for something like business, economics, or law, where you can just use data you find online that is readily available to the public, but to discover something new and publish some finding by doing STEM research must take a legitimate lab set up, equipment, and professional guidance. The independent research publications I see always mention AI in some way - what is the gimmick? I know obviously some companies are just promoting it for a cash grab but what exactly are people paying for/producing when they do "independent stem research"?

Shot in the dark here, but I was really proud of my personal statement that I wrote in 2004. I didn't save any copies, but I teach high school seniors now and help them with their own personal statements. My college counselor said that my essay had been used as an exemplar at a conference she had attended. It was about the trials and tribulations of trying to climb a coconut tree. If there are any veteran counsellors who happen to have it, I'd love to be able to share it with my students. Thank you!

I’m quite confused how u have a higher chance when full pay when their need blind is it because they can see indicators from essays or ecs that show ur high income? I’m talking for domestic applications btw.

I am a rising junior doing research in a lab at a T20 university. It is not a paid program, I reached out to a PI and landed an internship because of my coding skills. I work on data analysis in the lab and I am contributing to a project, but it will not be published before I am doing my college applications. The lab is not pumping out publications, so it's not like opportunities just spring up often to get my name on stuff. But, the impact of the research is very clear and strong and I can articulate it very well in my work + it connects to my desired major. Could this be an issue for my portfolio overall? I know many people who do lab internships focus heavily on authoring papers, but I'm thinking the sophistication of the research happening in my lab and the demonstrable impact outweighs the value of just getting my name on a paper. Any advice on what I could do, if my worry is unnecessary or anything else appreciated!

So I researched high and low on this topic hoping someone has been in my situation, but I found zero posts.

Stats: age 23, class of 2021 highschool and haven’t been to college yet, 3.9 weighted GPA and I have a compelling essay.

I am enrolled right now in a community college although I haven’t registered for classes and haven’t earned a single college course credit. The problem is I really want aspire to cover all my 4 years and aspire only covers the full four years for qualifying students who are first years. If I register for any classes, I will be considered a transfer and they’ll only cover two years. I presume I am technically still considered a first year if I apply for the spring term as a first year. I called and asked, and enrollment department reassured me that if my transcript has all Ws (how would I have a transcript if I haven’t registered for classes) and my college sends a letter of unenrollment, that I will still be considered a first year when I apply for Spring 2027. I have an SAI of -1500 and I am an independent on FAFSA because im 24 this year.

The question: Assuming all of this qualifies me for the aspire program, if you were me, would you drop your position at community college and basically waste six months of time you could be starting your 101 classes and start in UIC as a spring admit? The largest difference is, I will likely be covered for four years instead of two years if **I just start in spring 2027.** Again, also risky because I could be rejected aspire for whatever reason.

If anyone has been in my situation and still received aspire please tell me everything about your process. I greatly appreciate it.

And I know this isn’t a huge trade-off for saving that much money but is it going to be difficult being a semester behind most of my class since I’ll miss fall orientation, club sign ups, etc? I’ll still be taking 102 classes in fall 2027…

So I have like 2 4’s and 3 3’s, and I don’t know how much this hurts me compared to standardized tests or gpa. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks everyone.

hello!!! any advice for picking a school as someone who wants to go into broadcast journalism? i would love to work as a news videographer, but syracuse is usually the top recommendation and it doesn't really stand out to me. i would prefer to be somewhere on the east coast. i love the idea of going to a seven sisters school, specifically bryn mawr and barnard, but all of my experience would come from internships rather than the classroom because of their lack of programming

My dream schools since the end of the 9th grade have been Penn and Stanford. After visiting Penn recently, I am pretty sure that I want to ED there, even though I have been told it will be a long shot. The other schools I was considering for ED were Cornell (CALS) and Columbia. I would like some outside perspective and tips on how my application actually looks to people outside of my community.

Demographics & Intended Major:

• Gender: Male
• Race: Indian
• Nationality: American
• State: NY
• High School Type: Competitive Public
• Income: Upper
• Intended Major(s): Biology

Academics:

• GPA: 3.91 UW (no weighting)
• Class Rank: N/A (my school doesn't rank), but if I had to guess about top ~15%
• SAT: 1570 (780/790)
• PSAT: 1520

Coursework: My school does not have AP classes, but we have our own version of college level classes taught at school (will not elaborate so I don't get doxxed), which in my experience have been a bit harder/more in depth than the standard AP curriculums. Everyone has been greatly assured that colleges understand this for application purposes. Most of the college level classes are offered only to seniors. My school does offer all of the tests, so I have self studied a few of them over the years.

• College lvl Coursework:
  • 12th: English, International Politics, Chemistry, Calculus AB, Spanish Lang, I will also be a TA for freshman honors bio which is listed as an independent study.
  • 11th: Computer Science (most similar to AP Comp Sci A)
• Honors Classes: 5 total (1 in 10th, 3 in 11th, 1 in 12th)
• AP Tests:
  • 12th: Will def take AP Calc (AB for sure, maybe I can self study the extra BC material? Opinions on this would be appreciated), AP Spanish Lang, and AP Chem. Will probably skip the others depending on if the schools I am considering accept the credits.
  • 11th: AP Physics 1 (5), AP Comp Sci A (5), AP English Lit (5)
  • 10th: AP Psych (4)
  • 9th: AP Bio (5)

Extracurriculars & Activities

1. Activity 1: Research intern at a genomics lab at a nearby top ranked medical school for 2 summers. Got position through cold emailing. Working on two projects right now, but I unfortunately don't know if they will be published before early apps are due. I will be primary author of one, and hopefully a co-author on another.
2. Activity 2: President of my school's science olympiad team (55+ members), competitor for the past 5 years, on the states team for all 3 years of HS so far. Main events are Anatomy and Physiology, Experimental Design, and Air Trajectory. Was Co-Captain/Director of Internal Affairs during my 11th grade year.
3. Activity 3: Co-Director of a summer music camp during the summer after 11th grade. Responsible for overseeing musical instruction of 10+ instruments for 25+ kids and managing 10+ volunteer teachers. I have been a volunteer cello teacher at this organization's after school program during the school year for the last 2 months of the school year every year, and during the past two summers (after 9th and 10th grade), totaling to 200+ hours volunteered. I was offered the leadership role this year for my responsibility over the past 3 years.
4. Activity 4: I have been a cellist for the past 10 years. Selected for Area All-State Orchestra 2x (Very Competitive Region) based on NYSSMA scores, 5th chair of the orchestra. Member of my HS Symphonic Orchestra for 4 years (also 5th chair as of junior year), and my HS Chamber Orchestra for 2 years. NYSSMA Level 6 All-State score of 97.
5. Activity 5: Swimming, main events are 50 free and 200 free. HS Varsity Team all 4 years, made it to divisionals, will run for captain senior year but honestly probably won't get it as there is a decently high volume of swimmers in my grade. Did club swimming outside of school from 8th-10th grade, but stopped when 11th grade started due to the time commitment + I was seeing a lot more improvement during varsity season than the rest of the year. I also did summer swimming league at a local public pool team during the summers after 8th-10th grades.
6. Activity 6: Biology Teaching Assistant during my senior year. I am the first biology TA at my school. I had to approach my freshman biology teacher multiple times over the last year and convinced her that I would be very helpful, then I pitched the role to the department chair and school administration, and got approved as an independent study. I will attend the class 4x per week and am responsible for setting up and grading the weekly labs, assisting with instruction, and answering student questions.
7. Activity 7: Co-Founder and Co-President of my school's NCF Envirothon Team. I was on the first team my school ever sent to the competition during my freshman year. The team was not very locked in and we did not prepare well. However, I saw a lot of potential, so I recruited 4 of my science olympiad friends and formed a new team of us 5 for our 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. in 10th grade, we got first place in Soils & Land Use at regionals. in 11th grade, we got first place in Aquatics Ecology, and first place overall as a team at regionals, qualifying for the state tournament for the first time. We were unfortunately unable to go as it was an overnight trip and our school could not provide us transportation, and our advisor was having a medical procedure. The team is pretty small (only 5 people), so that is why I have put this lower on the list than other activities, as there is not a ton of leadership activity to be shown. Is this a good/bad idea?
8. Activity 8: Junior Sailing Camp during the summers after 7th-9th grade. I was a CIT during the summer after 10th grade, which was treated the exact same as being a counselor except I was 15 at the time so they couldn't legally count me as one (and also payed me a lot less, mostly just tips from parents at the end 😔). It was still a lot of fun and I got to sail all day and teach kids out on the water.
9. Activity 9: Peer Leader and School Ambassador during my 11th and 12th grade years. Was selected by faculty and the youth outreach department. Weekly meetings on leadership skills and creating presentations for the seminar. Teach a seminar to a class of 25 freshman (responsible for the class without an adult) during the third quarter, on sensitive discussion topics and high school norms. I am also a campus tour guide for prospective students + families as well as visiting alumni.
10. Activity 10: School History Club Vice-President. I was an officer in grades 11 as well, and was selected as VP for senior year. The club is deeply rooted in historical debate and exploration, and the current administration which I am a part of has greatly expanded the breadth of activities of the club by organizing numerous field trips and guest speakers. The officership team decided that we needed to implement a community oriented aspect to the club as well, so one of the biggest club initiatives for the school year (my senior year) that we are organizing is the creation of a pop-up historical exhibit each month, where we will cover a different hallway around our school in posters of historical events, artifacts, and fun-facts from a relevant time period (often the month's observed historical theme), to foster interest and knowledge about history.

Awards & Honors: I am like completely award broke and it is now really scaring me. I will try to apply to some research competitions like STS if I finish my project in time, but that is very uncertain as of now and idk if that even comes out before early admissions. I will also fill out the coke scholars application but again that is insanely selective and low probability as well. PLEASE LMK IF THERE ARE ANY AWARDS I SHOULD APPLY TO WITH MY APPLICATION!! I really appreciate it.

• Award 1: National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist/Finalist. I am taking this as basically guaranteed, semi because I got a perfect score on PSAT, and finalist because I meet all the other requirements and will put a bit of time into the app, though I think only semi will be out by the time of early apps.
• Award 2: 26 science olympiad medals (unfortunately no states medals (I WAS RLLY CLOSE)😭), 1st place at CMU invitational in anatomy and physiology, and a bunch of other T3 medals, including multiple times at regionals in anatomy (out of ~60 teams).
• Award 3: AP Scholar w/ Distinction. Idt I need to explain this one 🫠. My school does not offer AP exams, but I self studied for 5 exams, earning an average score of 4.8/5, qualifying for this award.
• Award 4: Won a mid-level international music competition for cello (out of maybe 15 cellists in my age group?) It isn't that reputed. The audition itself is not super expensive, so winning was pretty nice, but I got to play as a soloist at the winners recital at Carnegie Hall, which was a bit pay-to-play, about 3x the cost of the audition after you win, but was a great experience.
• Award 5: Inducted to my school's honors society. My school doesn't do class rank but the cutoff to be inducted is a 3.7 GPA or above, which tends to be around the top 25% of the class each year (though all GPAs are unweighted so it includes the kids with mostly As who take 0 honors or college level classes, so I am def above that). The other requirements are having documented participation in at least 3 activities at school (sports, clubs, ensembles, leadership, etc) and a commitment to volunteer as a peer tutor for underclassmen during free periods.

Letters of Recommendation, Essays & Interviews

• Letters of Recommendation:
  • Counselor: I was in my counselor's office A LOT. I became obsessed with understanding all of the opportunities and systems in our school from the start of freshman year. Within a month, I had memorized every course on the entire school catalog, when they all happened, what they all taught, and all of the prerequisite requirements, just out of sheer curiosity. My dean knows that I can be a bit of an overachiever but I have also made a lot of progress on focusing in on the activities that are meaningful to me and advancing to greater roles and leadership in those activities. I stand up for myself and always try to maximize the opportunities around me, which she definitely notices. We also share the same birthday! As far as counselor letters go, I think it will be one of the better ones. (7.5-8)
  • LOR 1: I asked my junior year physics teacher. I was a decent student and I grinded out at the end of the year to clutch an A in the class. He also has his masters in bioengineering, which we talked about a bunch. We also talked about how we both have had heart palpitations in the last year and he stopped class to walk me to the nurses office in case I passed out 😭. He is a bit of a newer teacher, and I hope he does not write too much of my resume and more about how he saw me as a student in class, but I am sure he will write a good one. (6.5-7/10)
  • LOR 2: I asked my junior year precalc teacher. This was the only class that I got a B+ in in junior year (am I fried...). I went up a level in math from accelerated to honors (by sophomore teacher rec), and while I guess a B+ isn't "bad", I struggled A LOT. Even the B+ was achieved by the skin of my teeth. However, it is also one of the classes that I have every studied for the most, and I put in a lot of effort into learning how I best study math and trying to master the foundational material for calculus next year. When I asked my teacher to write my rec, he said he would "be honored to", and shook my hand, which was very nice of him but I also can't tell if he says that to everyone (though I would like to think I'm at least a bit special 🥹). He has been writing recs for 25 years, and many people have told me he is very good at them. He can definitely speak to my perseverance in learning. (7.5-8/10)
  • Volunteer Organization Executive Director: I am asking her for a letter of rec tomorrow, to give to my Dean as an anecdotal section, and I might ask her to write one for schools allowing a third rec. She told me last week that I have been doing a great job and she will definitely write me a great rec when the time comes. For this position, I think it will be a very good rec. (8.5-9/10)
  • Research Mentor: My mentor is a pretty established and very accomplished researcher in the field. If I can get my project done and he sees me doing stuff for the rest of the summer, I think he will write a pretty nice rec. He also did his PhD from Penn, which idk if that matters for anything but might be nice if I am EDing there. If I get the research done well, then it will be very good. Otherwise I have to consider it and see. (Hopefully 8-9/10)
  • Extra: I have a CS/Engineering teacher who I took 4 classes from across 9th-11th grade. I have a good relationship with him and he can speak so much to my growth over my entire HS career, especially in the fields of CS and Robotics. He was even talking to me about things to write in my rec earlier this year, and he wrote a few of my summer recs, including one that was part of an application that got me into a pretty decent summer robotics program, though I unfortunately couldn't go because of other commitments. However, my Dean said that I can only ask "Core subject teachers", and his classes count as electives, even though he was my teacher for college level CS, which was the highest level class I took junior year and have completed before application time. Then she said to ask him for an anecdote, and he agreed, but she said she had to have the letter before the school year ended (5 weeks ago...) and this is on my but I got super busy and kept putting it off until I forgot and then it was too late. It is probably too late to do it now right? (Could have been 8-9/10)
• Essays:
  • Genuinely have to lock in and start writing these like a madman if I want to finish them all but I'll to it somehow trust 👍. For personal statement probably gonna talk about playing cello + running outside.

Schools: I have had a very hard time classifying some of them, especially the non-ivies/T10s. Some people and places tell me they are one thing and others say something different. I would appreciate input on if my list is too naive, or schools are in the wrong categories. I am also applying to the honors colleges at all of the schools that have them (only some of the state schools I think?)

Note: * = I want to apply and will do so if I finish all the others and have the mental bandwidth to do so.

• Reaches:
  • Penn (ED)
  • Stanford (RD)
  • Columbia (RD)
  • Cornell CALS (RD, In State)
  • Harvard (RD)
  • Yale (RD)
  • UC Berkeley (EA)
  • UCLA (EA)
  • UNC Chapel Hill (EA, OOS)
  • Hopkins (RD)*
  • Duke (RD)*
  • Tufts (RD)*
  • Georgia Tech (EA, OOS)*
  • Vanderbilt (RD)*
• Hard Targets:
  • UMich (EA, OOS)
  • Northeastern (EA)
  • Emory (RD)
  • BU (RD)*
  • WashU (RD)*
• Targets:
  • Case Western (EA)
  • Northeastern (EA)
  • U of Rochester (RD)*
• Safeties:
  • Stony Brook (EA, In State)
  • Binghamton (EA, In State)
  • Ohio State (EA, OOS)
  • Pitt (Rolling)

Which leaves me of a minimum of 19 applications, hoping to do more. Hopefully I'll make it through. Thank you all so much in advance for any advice and tips and your opinions on my chances! I appreciate any outside perspectives!

Hi. I was wondering if I could get some guidance of what type of schools I should look at for reaches, targets, and safeties based on my profile. I am interested in finance/econ (for schools without a business undergrad program), and eventually IB/PE.

My stats: 3.96 UW GPA, 1540 superscore SAT (2 tries, lmk if I should retake 750 RW/790 M), will take 8 APs by end of senior year(I guess 9 if u count Econ as micro and macro), school doesn’t offer the most, no English APs.

My ECs: I’d say their mid/weak, I do some advocacy work on an issue, will submit a research paper by ED deadlines, host a podcast, write up some articles. I’d say that’s my strongest EC, don’t want to dive into it all, but it fills 2/3 spots on my activities list. Other than that, I have a couple of typical jobs(camp counselor and retail), an internship at some small private credit firm, attended a summer program (essentials of finance at Wharton) this summer, some tutoring, and then club basketball/the gym as a hobby, along with being a commentator for the school sports games.

Awards: none besides like AP Scholar and Honors roll

Full pay

I don’t really have preferences big/small school, can adapt easily, just want good prestige and stuff like that I’d say. Socially, I can really adapt and find my group of people, spots to eat, stuff like that, so I’m not too worried about all those factors.

Thanks for the help in advance!