Anonymous wrote:who do not have much in the way of leadership or pointy ECs? A profile might be 1550-1580 SATs, 13-15 APs in all subjects + all 5s, MV Calc and above, all As or maybe 1-2 A-. ECs are regular ECs including PT jobs, Varsity sports (not recruited), volunteering, tutoring, coaching, clubs and honor societies. Normal awards like AP Scholar. Solid essays. Full pay. My student falls into this category and they are not alone.

They can get in to top schools, with that profile, but they are less likely to without the leadership and without ability to convey true impact with their ECs. Also at some high schools 1-2 A- puts you outside the top 5% making ivies not likely unless the school is feederish, regularly gets students from the bottom half of top decile in.

Add leadership and impactful EC to the top stats you list, with true 4.0uw no A-, and the odds are much higher for ivy+.
EC do not have to be fancy but typically are 25+ hours a week total, with leadership and impact in two different ones, and LOR that say best kid this year or best in a few years. That recipe is not common but can get one student multiple top10/ivy admits unhooked.

Northeastern, BU, BC, Tufts….

Anonymous wrote:My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

+1. At our public HS, even the higher income families are balking at the cost of private college for kids not eligible for aid. It's getting harder and harder to justify the cost, especially for kids planning on grad school anyway.

Anonymous wrote:It depends on where your HS sends kids and assumes they are at the very top of their class. At our HS the very best unhooked kids like yours can get into Northwestern, Chicago, Cornell, Penn and we do okay with Yale, but not H or P. Also CMU, Michigan and Georgetown. No one ever gets into Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown or Duke, per Naviance scattergrams no matter how high stats are.

This is the same as our public high school on the west coast, except no one gets into Yale either. The high stats kids also go to Pomona, UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Tufts, Emory, Rice, and WashU.

Anonymous wrote:Lower Ivies or T20-30.

Lower Ivies? No. T20-30? Yes.

Anonymous wrote:who do not have much in the way of leadership or pointy ECs? A profile might be 1550-1580 SATs, 13-15 APs in all subjects + all 5s, MV Calc and above, all As or maybe 1-2 A-. ECs are regular ECs including PT jobs, Varsity sports (not recruited), volunteering, tutoring, coaching, clubs and honor societies. Normal awards like AP Scholar. Solid essays. Full pay. My student falls into this category and they are not alone.

This candidate does not sound "pointy" or lacking leadership. Sheesh.

Could reasonably be a candidate anywhere.

It depends on where your HS sends kids and assumes they are at the very top of their class. At our HS the very best unhooked kids like yours can get into Northwestern, Chicago, Cornell, Penn and we do okay with Yale, but not H or P. Also CMU, Michigan and Georgetown. No one ever gets into Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown or Duke, per Naviance scattergrams no matter how high stats are.

If you have access, check your kid’s HS Naviance. Assume that the outlier green check marks don’t apply. If you see an area that is like 50-50 accept-waitlist, assume DC needs to apply ED to get in.

From my kids HS those stats should get you into T15-25 LACs and an okay shot at T20-T30 schools. It sounds like DC has earned the right to take an ED shot as a T15 school, but it’s a longish one.

If you are male and want to do anything STEM and from a competitive public HS, is the general advice to ED (assuming full pay)?

Anonymous wrote:Brown/ Columbia / Cornell / Dmuth/ UPenn / Vandy all possible ( T11 thru 25)

Cornell is the most probable actually a low reach. Others are lottery.

state flagships

Brown/ Columbia / Cornell / Dmuth/ UPenn / Vandy all possible ( T11 thru 25)

A kid like that can go anywhere. Listen to lots of podcasts and watch youtube videos from sources you trust. GL.

My kid with these stats is only applying to state flagships.

Duke