Ive been looking through a lot of admitted applicants from schools like Stanford Duke and Cornell and Ive noticed some people with lower GPAs SAT and AP scores getting in over people with much stronger stats. Is this mostly because of essays books or something else? usually their ECs arent too crazy either

I am a 17-year-old student from Colombia, currently on a gap year. I wanna study Physics in the US, but I can't afford it without a full scholarship. I am currently preparing and raising money for the SAT in August, my current practice score is 1530 (with 800 in math).

Here is my profile:

I'm from a small traditional town in Colombia and my school didn't offer AP/IB or any advanced STEM curriculum, so most of my preparation has been through self-study.

Academically, I've been heavily involved in math Olympiads. I was state champion in 2023, reached the national, and placed in the Top 11 in 2024, and qualified again for another national final in 2025 but couldn't attend because of financial constraints. In 2025 I also participated on the Breakthrough Junior challenge with a video on Bell's test, and it reached the top 20% in the peer review process.

Since there's little to no science opportunities for kids in my community, in 2024 I founded a free physics club at my local public library, where I've designed and taught hands-on lessons to about 70 students over roughly 30 sessions, plus I have organized outreach science activities in partnership with local schools, and I'm currently trying to expand it through more partnerships with local schools.

I'm also the leader of my school's math Olympiad team, where I helped build the program and mentor younger students (Basically before me there was no program, then in 8th grade I placed second in the state olympiads, and I created the team, prepared other students, evry year found competitions for the school to participate in and lead the school's first sustained success in national mathematics competitions).

I also led my school's robotics team to a state championship and national finals, have a small YouTube channel where I make animated videos explaining complex physics topics like Superposition, the wave function, Bell's test, etc. and I've worked as a paid tutor in math, physics, and English since middle school.

One important part of my context is that I come from a town with very limited STEM opportunities, and between 2022 and 2026 I underwent multiple surgeries for a complex liver tumor, which caused me to miss a significant portion of school and interrupted some of my extracurricular plans. Actually, I took a gap year precisely because of my last surgery.

Is a 1520 enough for the leagues? I only took 14 AP classes and got all 5s but also a 4 in Calc :,) I'm applying to UPenn, Princeton, and MIT. Although I only have 1 IMO Silver and 2 IPhO Golds, I think being published at Wall Street and having my own business will make up for it. Itzhak Perlman also lent me one of his violins, the guy told me he's never heard anyone play with so much clarity as me.

To those who got in for "less", what's ur secret 😳🤞

PLEASE CORNELL I WANT U SO BAD I WANT TO GO TO AN IVY LEAGUE I HAVE COMPETTIVE GPA/SAT I HAVE GOOD ECS JUST LET ME GO TERE

My family makes enough money so that I won’t get any need based aid

I have 35 act good ec’s and 4.3 gpa
How do I go about applying for full rides and what are the chances I get one? Thanks in advance

here’s my personal ranking of the t20s based on party culture (greek life parties, city nightlife, sports culture, etc.)

S - Duke, UCLA, UMich
A - Berkeley, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, UPenn, ND
B - Northwestern, Stanford, Cornell, Brown, Rice
C - Yale, MIT, Columbia
D - Princeton, Harvard, JHU
F - Caltech, CMU, UChicago

what are your guys’ thoughts?

THE MOST UNBIASED OBJECTIVE RANKING IN HISTORY /s

(Think it’s relatively accurate but obviously tell me any changes you think I should make!)

1. Duke
2. UCLA
3. UMICH
4. Vanderbilt
5. Notre Dame
6. UPenn
7. Dartmouth
8. Stanford
9. Northwestern
10. Yale
11. Brown
12. UC Berkeley
13. Harvard
14. Princeton
15. MIT
16. Columbia
17. JHU
18. Cornell
19. CMU
20. UChicago

I've read enough admissions committee notes and talked to few former readers to say this with some confidence. The generic "started a nonprofit," "founded a club," "president of five organizations" resume is not such a flex anymore. It got popular because it worked a decade ago, and now every competitive applicant has one, which means readers have seen the same three nonprofits (mental health awareness, a tutoring drive, an Instagram page with 200 followers) a few thousand times each cycle.

IMO, what is worthwhile is staying in one thing for years and having something unique to point to. Not "I was captain of the debate team" but "I rewrote how our team scored practice rounds because the old system was inconsistent, and two other teams in our district picked it up." Many students can't produce a sentence like that because they spent their time collecting titles instead of doing something long enough to have a real story about it.

Harvard's own admissions data from the lawsuit showed readers score applicants on separate axes, academic, extracurricular, personal, and athletic. It's judging depth and impact, and a stack of low-effort leadership titles these days scores worse than three years in one activity with a specific, provable contribution.

If you're a junior reading this and panicking that you don't have a nonprofit, you're probably fine. If you have one you started six months ago to pad an application, it's not too late to drop it and go deeper on something you actually care about instead.

Curious how many people here actually got into their T20 without one.

I'm an east asian female trying to develop an idea for my diversity essay, and I really want to talk about my heritage and how that's important to me. The thing is, I feel like AOs will roll their eyes when they hear another story about an upper middle class asian girl going to her parent's home country during the summer and/or something along those lines. Any advice?

I have been doing a little bit of research as Im a rising senior and what I’ve found is that a lot of people have very very very similar ecs. Like tutoring nonprofit is one I see a lot and then of course, speech and debate and other common school clubs maybe a few leadership positions. I think all of these are pretty great but what is that distinguishing factor in the end? Ik ppl are going to say essays but can essays be the only thing that differentiates you in these higher levels? People I’ve seen getting into t20s this past admission cycle and posting their stats online often don’t have crazy ecs but a coherent narrative that ties it together. I even saw this girl on yt getting into like Stanford and Harvard and mit for class of 2030 but she said herself that her ecs weren’t anything crazy (not going to post link cuz of privacy reasons but feel free to look up). Not saying this in a bad way, she deserved to get into those schools and they chose her for a reason, but I want to figure out what is the most important aspect of a college application. Conversely, I have been seeing ppl on subreddits posting college results with insane ecs and awards but not getting into the schools they wanted. Has any one else observed this recently. Curious as to hear what are your thoughts?

- 1k Regional LGBTQ scholarship (won by essay submission)
- National Technical Honors Society
- SkillsUSA Regional Award Spring 2026
- Microsoft Excel Expert Certification
- Marketing I Essentials Certification

The only one I’m thinking about switching is the honor roll, but I’m not exactly sure what I’ll switch it with yet. In the next month or two I should receive an arts transcript endorsement, should I add that as an honors? But I’m applying ED to Wake Forest university so I won’t get that on time and probably will email that to admissions unless I get my results back before.
I have Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 FBLA, but I was going to list them in my activities section. Should I put them here?

Edited to add awards I forgot about

im a rising junior in highschool and i have to submit my course selection soon but im really stuck between ap calculus AB and ap psychology

im already taking ap biology since i want to go on the premed track and i was thinking of taking ap psychology (since it would be easier for me to manage both alongside my other classes) and taking ap calculus AB, ap chemistry, ap physics as courses in my school but without taking the actual standardized CB tests since they cost around 200$ for each one

so i don’t know which one to prioritize and which one would make my apps improve and if not taking the actual tests would make my apps look bad

Going in to my senior year, I need to take a health class, which is a semester long graduation requirement. Since AP classes are all year long at my school, I can't fit another AP class in the second semester.

Would it be a bad look for applying to top 20 colleges to just leave the period open in my second semester? Or would it be better to take a class even if my only options would be some random elective like baking or criminal justice that isn't related to my major at all?

FUH DOES THAT MEAN I'M HELLA CONFUSED. I WANT ADVICE

Is a 1470 SAT enough for McDonalds? How many burgers could I get? 40 pieces? I’m really hungry. Does Harvard have a McDonalds? Which schools have the most McDonald’s on campus? Also, is a 4.0 unweighted enough for McDonald’s? Will they accept me even though it’s unweighted? Should I try to make it weighted so they will let me in? I am really stressing about getting into McDonalds. Has anyone ever gotten into McDonald’s with less than a 1500?

Sigh after almost 6 months being on the waitlist

Dougherty Valley High School

Which colleges/universities previously had a negative reputation but are now looked at positive overall? Any that you can see shifting in the future?

​

Всем привет!

Я учусь в школе в РФ. Хочу в Китай на хирургию/онкологию или стоматологию по гранту, когда вырасту. Сейчас учу китайский новичок. Английский (А2-В1).

Понимаю, что рано, но хочу составить план подготовки на 5 лет.

Вопросы к знающим:

1. На какие школьные предметы (кроме биологии/химии) делать упор?

2. До какого HSK надо дойти к 17-18 годам для клинической специальности?

3. Стоит ли сейчас искать репетитора-китайца или сначала просто учить язык?

4. Есть ли в Китае подготовительные курсы для подростков 15-16 лет?

5. Реально ли иностранке попасть на хирургию, или только стоматология — реальный вариант?

Я экстраверт, не боюсь нового. Посоветуйте, с чего начать уже сегодня, чтобы через 5 лет получить грант. 🙏

Главные вопросы:

· Что учить в школе (кроме биологии)?

· Какой HSK нужен?

· Стоматология реальнее хирургии для иностранки?

Скиньте ссылки на курсы, репетиторов, чаты — буду очень благодарна! Я серьёзно настроена 💉

Hey so like most of my application is centered on AI and tech stuff. But to balance this out i would obviously add a few hobbies

Potentially

1. Violin

2. Theatre

3. Football

4. Swimming

5. I know like 5 languages

So like i can add 2 of these max cz theres no more slots for others. I've accomplished the most with Football and Theatre objectively but not sooo sure whatll be the coolest?

I’m gonna keep it vague but like basically we built a novel cancerous gas monitor through a microcontroller and sensors and we go around the state I live in to businesses and communities and pitch it to them and eventually distribute the device.

The cancerous gas is a really big problem in my state and the monitor I built is much cheaper than commercial options and with more features.

External validation and scale: I placed at science fair with it and have been featured on the news for it. So far have protected 14 people in 3 different communities and we have a big partnership coming up.

Js lmk if this is worth it or nah but I genuinely enjoy doing this cuz yk it’s fun and also the news is cool 🥹

do any past applicants have screenshots/remember what the art portfolio applications looked like? or if u have any examples? thank you so much :) i have a few pieces i'd like to submit but they're all 3d sculptures and i was wondering if i could submit a gif of me rotating it. thank you

Like what if it's something that:

-Hits an actual gap in your community that isn't well covered

-Will become a legit 501c

-Partner with local organizations, schools, churches, etc

-Something you care about and will actually continue in college

-You were working for this cause already and started without the intention of "nonprofit" for college

Have a friend that asked this question. Was wondering because nonprofits seem to get a lot of hate on here but it appears its mainly because kids make those instagram pages, have a vague cause, and then plan to drop it once college admissions season is over.

with scholarships!!! i had good gpas all my school life and decent ecs (mainly dance)

Mission San Jose High School