What are my chances for these universities?

Question

I know this is not exactly a full profile of me, but I'll do my best, and I'm very concerned about where I stand.

I have a 3.7 weighted GPA, Unweighted 4.1. However, this is largely due to a freshman year where I had many familial and social issues, and since sophomore year I have had only one B+, and all As otherwise (giving me an unweighted 3.96 or so). I'm taking 4 AP honors in senior year and took 4 in junior year, with a focus on higher level science and math.

I play Jazz Guitar, Piano and also play the trombone, and have played my instruments at various community events, both through the school and outside of it. I won an award recently from the Stanford Jazz Workshop.

I qualified for National Merit in the first round, but will likely not make semifinalist as my score is not high enough for my state.

I did a summer internship at a top ranked medical school in cognitive neuroscience and neurology, and my name will appear on a paper that should be published near the end of this year in a medical journal.

I studied abroad twice at the Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca Mexico, the first time allowing me to skip a year in Spanish at my school from 2 weeks of education there.

My class rank is in the top 13th percentile, but if I get straight As first semester of senior year I should pull top tenth when my weighted GPA increases. In junior year I was in the top 5th percentile.

I am looking at BU, Northwestern, U Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, UCLA and UCB, Vanderbilt, U Michigan and Georgetown (I acknowledge this is a huge reach) as my reach schools. Do I stand any sort of chance?

Assuming I will try hard on my essays and not make them pretentious and generic.

Answer 1

You should have no problem getting into BU and Michigan, the others are trickier.

You don't tell us what state you're from, how competitive your high school is or give us and SAT score which makes things difficult. I'll assume about a 2100 since a 210 PSAT would qualify for NMS semi in most states.

At the other schools on your list, over 90% of accepted students were in the top 10% of their high school class. Realize that about half the class will be recruited athletes, legacies and minorities. It's usually kids in those groups that can get away with less than average stats. So if you don't have any of those "hooks", not being in the 10% will be an issue.

A 2100 SAT score is pretty average at all those schools too. Again, the unhooked tend to have scores well above the average.

So if you can bring up the rank and get a 2150 SAT, with a good application you should get into some of those schools. A 2200 plus would make some even more attainable, especially UCLA, UCB, Vandy and JHU.