what are my chances of getting into stanford, harvard, yale, nyu, or columbia?

my understanding is that freshman year grades don’t count on college applications. at least that is how it was when i graduated high school and went to college.

while the schools might not care much about your extra-curricular activities, they are still a good idea. You will need excellent letters of recommendation for all the schools you listed and extra-curricular activities are a great place to shine and meet the people that will have the most sway. you might want to seek out alums from these schools to bond with and get letters from.

when it comes to cost, if a private school wants you to attend, they will find a way to help you afford it. upon admission, you will be offered a financial aid packet (given your fafsa and financial aid paperwork is complete and sent to them). it may include any combination of grants (school, state and federal), loans (private and federal), scholarships and student worker allocations. I have many friends that found it less expensive to attend a high end private school when compared to a state university because the financial aid packets were so complete.

remember ~ this will be your college experience, not your parents. if you don’t want to go to a large school where you are just a number, then don’t! the rest of your life, you will look back at those 4-5 years as the time you grew up and decided what type of an adult you wanted to become. make sure you are in an environment that allows you to try out different ideas and at the same time keeps you feeling safe and secure.

I just finished high school and in my opinion, it’s hard to say what your chances are. Like other people said, your off to a good start. What colleges like to see is consistency, so stick with those extra cirriculars through the rest of your highschool career. Don’t forget that recommendations and your admissions essay counts for alot too. If your really worried about that, you could start working on that essay next year. You could use your experiences from volunteering at the hospital in the essay. I did, and it served me well.

As far as scholarships, it all depends on your situation. If your a minority, I think its alittle easier to get money (but very little). Make sure your parents fill out the FASFA as soon as possible, to ensure you get the most they can offer (For need based).

You might be better off going to a ‘new ivy’ college. Those are the colleges that are just under ivy league basically. You’d get a really good education either way.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me, and I’ll answer you when I can.

You are only a sophomore… though you’re off to a good start, you’re going to find that how you perform in the next three years will probably have a much bigger impact academically than where you stand now. For example, you haven’t even taken SATs/ACTs yet, nor completed any AP courses (I’m assuming). It’s too early to tell what your chances are for future college admissions.

That said, as someone who just graduated from high school and went through the whole admissions process…. be careful of looking only at big-name schools and judging an institution based on how good other people think it is. Your choice in a college should be based on a variety of factors… cost, location, size, cultural atmosphere, et cetera. Do you know what you want to major in? You should look into what a college’s individual program is like for the major. Or, if you’re like me and are undecided when it’s time to apply, you might want to consider a larger school which offers a variety of good programs.

Overall, though, I would say to just take your time and focus on doing well in high school and figuring out what your interests and passions are. College is still a ways away.

NYU is a lot easier to get into than those other three colleges you mentioned there. But getting a scholarship at them is next to impossible unless you really need the money, then there is a chance. Freshman grades aren’t very important to colleges. You need to keep taking hard classes and find one specific interest that you can stress by doing extracurricular activities that involve that interest. You need to make yourself truly unique and what you have so far is nothing particularly exciing. You need to score well on the SAT and do well in AP classes. Don’t think overloading extracurriculars will help you. Like I said before, focus on a single interest and do a lot for that. For example: I am interested in the stock market. I won a stock market competition at my school, I interned at a hedge fund, and at a bank in Germany each for two weeks. I am also treasurer of Future business Leaders of America. All of these extracurriculars stress a certain interest of mine and make me more interesting (to colleges maybe not in actuality). If you can do that, keep your grades up, score well on the SAT and AP tests then you can get into these colleges. Even if you accomplish these things a lot still depends on luck.

It is way to early to tell but what I can tell you is that you need to keep your grades as high as you can, join many clubs and volunteer a lot. Study for the SAT because you are going to need a really high score to even get into those universities. To be brutally honest, unless you are perfect it will be hard to get a scholarship from these schools. I’m sorry to tell you this but these schools barely accept anyone who has under a 1500 lt alone give scholarships. I know people with 1600’s who didn’t get a dime from some of them. You still have time to get to where you will be accepted but don’t rely on thinking you can get scholarships.

I am a college professor with ten years’ full-time teaching experience.

Your description does not yet answer several questions I would ask. For one thing, if either of your parents is an alum of one of these institutions, it may significantly increase your chances of admission; they may not advertise this, but it is nonetheless generally true among the more prestigious American universities and colleges. More information about yourself would be helpful too–have you taken ACT/SAT yet, and if so, how did you do? (for example).

These institutions have particular scholarships for people with given backgrounds, interests, affiliations, and ethnicities. If one is American Indian, for example, one can start seeking scholarship support from one’s own tribal organization–not a small consideration in today’s age of casinos. But there may be a scholarship limited to Mormons majoring in piano, for example–the only way to find out is to review the available information from various sources. A good counselor at your school may know how to do this.

In general the social activities/sports/etc. are unlikely to be a deciding factor at the high-end colleges; academic merit is the big one (although this was not always true in the earlier and middle 20th century).

You also do not mention what (if anything) you might like to study; it may well be best for you to select a place with a strong program in your particular area of interest. This may also allow you to apply to a school that is not known overall for its high exclusivity, but nonetheless is well known for a first-rate program in your field.

One would hope that your parents will accept that, after age 18, you are an adult and must live your own life, not theirs. If they don’t, of course, you have the option of cutting the strings and striking out on your own–perhaps not ideal, but if that’s what it takes to live your own life, I say go for it.

Hope this helps. best, J

In order to get into those schools, you need to graduate in the top ten percent of your class (assuming you go to a good HS — higher if you go to a bad one), get 2200+ (out of 2400) on your SATs and have several other things going for you.

You are on the right track — but there is a long way to go. Asking now if you can get in is like asking if you will win the Marathon if you are only a mile into the race and near the fron

If you say that your GPA is at a 95.634, then I would say that your chances are pretty slim.

slim to none