What are my chances of getting accepted?

[ShayHello]

Hey everyone! So, I'm officially a senior in high school which means that college applications are in a couple months. I'm definitely nervous, and I want to get a good idea of which colleges I have a legitimate chance of getting accepted to. Will you please read my stats and let me know what you think my chances are?

ACADEMICS:

IB Diploma Candidate

SAT Score: 1910 (retaking it next month - hoping to break into the 2000s)

ACT Composite Score: 29

4.2 weighted GPA / 3.6 unweighted GPA

Enrolled in Honors/AP courses throughout high school

EXTRACURRICULARS:

ASB Board Representative (act as a liaison b/t my school and my school district)

NHS (National Honor Society) President

Lead Attorney in Mock Trial for past 4 years

CSF Member

Founded an after-school tutoring program at a local elementary school (also a volunteer)

Member of my church choir

ASB Junior Class President (2012-2013)

I'm interested in doing neuroscience/pre-med in college. The colleges I'm interested in are:

UCLA

UCSD

USC
University of San Francisco

UC Berkeley

University of Rochester

NYU

What are my chances? Thank you!

[Captain Jeeves]

I'd say you've got a pretty good chance at a lot of those! Your SAT/ACT is a little bit less impressive compared to your hugely impressive stats, but said stats will definitely boost and/or cover that if you don't quite get as high as you want on your retake. However, I happen to know that NYU requires SAT subject tests. I'm not sure about the rest, but NYU definitely does. Do you have plans to take these?

Your extracurriculars are stunning and your GPA is great, so basically if you keep those up you're set. I'll admit that I'm not the most well-informed on most of these colleges, but I'm flipping through the Fiske Guide 2014 and here are the SAT/ACT middle half ranges for each college:

• U of Rochester: SAT CR: 600-700 M: 650-740 ACT 28-32
• UC-Berkeley: SAT CR: 600-720 M: 650-770 ACT 28-33
• UCLA: SAT CR: 570-680 M: 610-740 ACT 25-31
• UCSD: SAT CR: 540-670 M: 610-720 ACT 25-31
• USC: SAT CR: 610-720 M: 670-770 ACT 29-33
• U of San Francisco: SAT CR: 510-620 M: 520-630 ACT 23-27
• NYU: SAT CR: 630-720 M: 630-740 ACT 28-31

A bit of explanation: the middle half means the half between the 25% and 75%. Also I'm going to use ACT for examples because I don't know your divisional SAT scores, FYI.

Rudimentary diagram:

_

_Top 25%

_//////////////////
_//////////////////

_Bottom 25%

The ///// shows the ranges submitted to the college. So if you were close to the lower number [like with the ACT at USC etc] you'd be closer to the bottom 25% than to the top 25% of scores submitted by accepted students. Does that make sense?... at all?

If you're okay with not having the top scores, then by all means still apply, especially since standardized tests don't test a lot of the things necessary to be an excellent student, though I'm sure you're one anyway :]. Just because you may not fit exactly in that range doesn't mean you have no chance. It's just a general idea of what the many other applicants may have. If you really want to apply to USC as given in the example, by all means go ahead. But on the other hand, if you end up going to U of San Francisco, you're going to be above a lot of the people in the ACT, which means you might be at the top of your class, again taking into mind the possible inaccuracy of testing. That's something you might want to consider - would you rather be at the top of your class or kind of in the middle-ish area, or what?

Anyway, this is stuff my guidance counselor told me. I'm just passing it on haha! Hope it helped, and good luck on your applications!

EDIT: oh gosh this was a lot longer than I thought it would be wow.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Captain Jeeves

[by.andrew]

If you're an out of state/international applicant, I'd say chances are looking ok with UCB, USC, UCLA, and NYU. Maybe high match/low reach for you. The state schools look at GPA closely, and 3.6 UW will put you in a lower tier of applicants (The schools that I have listed have median wGPAs of 4.1~4.4). Unfortunately, current SAT scores is a bit low as well. If you manage to push that up, you'll certainly be much more competitive.

Good Luck!

[ShayHello]

If you're an out of state/international applicant, I'd say chances are looking ok with UCB, USC, UCLA, and NYU. Maybe high match/low reach for you. The state schools look at GPA closely, and 3.6 UW will put you in a lower tier of applicants (The schools that I have listed have median wGPAs of 4.1~4.4). Unfortunately, current SAT scores is a bit low as well. If you manage to push that up, you'll certainly be much more competitive.

Good Luck!

Thanks for your advice! I'm hoping my SAT retake will bump up my SAT score.

I'd say you've got a pretty good chance at a lot of those! Your SAT/ACT is a little bit less impressive compared to your hugely impressive stats, but said stats will definitely boost and/or cover that if you don't quite get as high as you want on your retake. However, I happen to know that NYU requires SAT subject tests. I'm not sure about the rest, but NYU definitely does. Do you have plans to take these?

Your extracurriculars are stunning and your GPA is great, so basically if you keep those up you're set. I'll admit that I'm not the most well-informed on most of these colleges, but I'm flipping through the Fiske Guide 2014 and here are the SAT/ACT middle half ranges for each college:

• U of Rochester: SAT CR: 600-700 M: 650-740 ACT 28-32
  
• UC-Berkeley: SAT CR: 600-720 M: 650-770 ACT 28-33
  
• UCLA: SAT CR: 570-680 M: 610-740 ACT 25-31
  
• UCSD: SAT CR: 540-670 M: 610-720 ACT 25-31
  
• USC: SAT CR: 610-720 M: 670-770 ACT 29-33
  
• U of San Francisco: SAT CR: 510-620 M: 520-630 ACT 23-27
  
• NYU: SAT CR: 630-720 M: 630-740 ACT 28-31
  

A bit of explanation: the middle half means the half between the 25% and 75%. Also I'm going to use ACT for examples because I don't know your divisional SAT scores, FYI.

Rudimentary diagram:

_

_Top 25%

_//////////////////

_//////////////////

_Bottom 25%

The ///// shows the ranges submitted to the college. So if you were close to the lower number [like with the ACT at USC etc] you'd be closer to the bottom 25% than to the top 25% of scores submitted by accepted students. Does that make sense?... at all?

If you're okay with not having the top scores, then by all means still apply, especially since standardized tests don't test a lot of the things necessary to be an excellent student, though I'm sure you're one anyway :]. Just because you may not fit exactly in that range doesn't mean you have no chance. It's just a general idea of what the many other applicants may have. If you really want to apply to USC as given in the example, by all means go ahead. But on the other hand, if you end up going to U of San Francisco, you're going to be above a lot of the people in the ACT, which means you might be at the top of your class, again taking into mind the possible inaccuracy of testing. That's something you might want to consider - would you rather be at the top of your class or kind of in the middle-ish area, or what?

Anyway, this is stuff my guidance counselor told me. I'm just passing it on haha! Hope it helped, and good luck on your applications!

EDIT: oh gosh this was a lot longer than I thought it would be wow.

This was really helpful, especially the Fiske Guides!

I've taken three subject tests (Math 2, English Lit, and Biology M). I did really well on English Lit (720), but my Math and Bio score were on the lower end.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Gaby