Ivy League Admission?

Question

If I'm aiming for Ivy university and

my SAT reasoning total is 1970 and ACT 30

does it sound pretty likely for me to get accepeted?

Oh by the way I took SAT physics and I got 760.

Answer 1

The long and short of it would be that it is unlikely you will get in, because it is unlikely that unless you are a valedictorian or salutatorian who has SAT scores all 770 or over, who cured cancer(not literally but you know what i mean, someone who has done something amazing) you will get in. There are just so many intelligent kids out there that even kids with SAT composites of 2100-2200 who get 760's on their SAT 2 exams and have a 3.9 GPA are statistically unlikely to get in.

One thing that might change my answer is your own personal definition of Ivy League schools. I assume you are talking about the Harvards and Yales and other Ivy League schools that are at the top of the top of national universities, and that's what i answered for. Although it is difficult to get into all ivy league schools, some are easier than others. For instance, you may have a decent chance of getting into Middlebury College, an ivy league school in vermont, since they accept 17% of the applicants, as opposed to yale and harvard who only accept 9-10% of their applicants. Also, their average SAT scores are lower (between 1910 and 2200 as opposed to probably like 2200-2350 at harvard and yale) meaning you have a better chance of getting in.

One thing to remember is that the most important thing colleges look at is your transcript. If you want to go Ivy take challenging courses and do well(unfortunately this means pretty much all A's with maybe a B+ or two thrown in). You must also have strong extracurricular activities and a strong letter of reccomendation. One admissions officer said that he threw whole applications out if there was a comma splice in the essay, no matter how smart the kid was!!!!!

Time to sum it up. Based on what you said about your scores you have a low chance, probably 4% or less, of getting into Harvard-Yale etc., although you may have a greater chance, say 35% of getting into Middlebury with your scores. The most important thing would be GPA, and you might want to try to raise your SAT or ACT scores to around 2100 on SAT or 33 on ACT. Good luck and remember that a lot of it is luck of the draw- Do they need kids from your area to help their college look diverse, Are you a minority, Did you do something just amazing that they would love to say, "Hey look at what one of our students did"? All these will help you get in and could play a bigger role than standard test scores.

Good luck!