Am I a pretty good candidate for ivy league schools or just any prestigious school in general?

<p>Im not sure maybe a 31+ but who knows… Your gpa isnt bad at all but UVA is very tough on nova kids at least at my school (mclean) look on your black board/ family commections thy show scatterplots of accepted students from your school. That is by FAR the best resource </p>

<p>tesfayeB - Everyone taking the tests attempts to answer every question correctly. If you have one set of scores, you should use them to build your college list. If another set is higher, that is great, but the chances of scores increasing enough to radically alter your admissions outlook are very small. That is what everyone here keeps telling you. The people who say “aim for 2200+” are giving you unrealistic goals if your current scores are under 1500, or even if they are under 2000. Here are the basic facts and figures. They come directly from The College Board, and so they are from an organization with a vested interest in encouraging students to re-take tests and purchase costly study aids. The majority of students (55%) who re-take the SAT in the fall of their senior year will improve their scores. That’s the good news. The average increase in composite scores is 40 points, though. That means that your scores are likelier to go down (35% do) than increase by more than 40 points. An increase of 200 points or more is extremely unlikely. An increase of 40 points will not change your prospects much at all. Every student who retakes the ACT or SAT does so on the hope of improving his or her scores. They all say they will prep and practice, and many of them do. If you are not competitive for Ivy League or other highly selective colleges today, you should presume that you will not be in October. I have commented before about this. You might be heart-breakingly beautiful, but if you are barely five-feet tall, and full-figured, you should not set your sights on a modeling career, and people who keep admonishing you to starve yourself to pursue that end are not serving you well. You should focus on who and what you are, and work with that. Maybe your scores will go up enough that you can keep one reach school on your list, and eliminate a super-safety from it, or you will qualify for a scholarship where you might not have. That happened with my son. He was still rejected from his reach schools, nevertheless. Asking the same question over and over again, hoping for different answers, will not accomplish anything. </p>

<p>@woogzmama some of the schools do not require subject tests. I might just focus on studying for the ACT w/writing ONLY so that way I can just study for 1 test this summer. I also might just focus on 2 subject tests instead of 3 because majority of the colleges that I want to attend ask for 2.</p>

<p>tesfaye - Have you received your SAT reasoning or ACT scores yet? I understood that you should have received scores today. There’s no point in proceeding with any more discussions on the subject until you have them.</p>

<p>What did you score on your SAT?</p>

<p>@woogzmama very low I do not qualify for the prestigious school. I kind of already knew that I would get a low score, like I did not study at all and I scored low on my PSAT which is similar for the most part. </p>

<p>I am moving on now because I cannot change that. I have considered applying to test optional schools of course. I am honestly hoping I understand the ACT enough to get a 30 +. So far I have practiced and the ACT seems a bit more doable. </p>

<p>For Questbridge:
I might have time to submit my ACT score when I take it in September.
Other than that I am going to fill out everything but I will not submit SAT II’s or my SAT score because I will be retaking them in the fall.
I am hoping I have a strong enough application to become a finalist.
Also I talked to my counselor about my GPA and it actually went down b/c of junior year so I have a 3.877-3.89 weighted so its still not a strong GPA</p>

<p>How are you maintaining so many EC’s and AP’s while scoring low on standardized tests? Seems to be the opposite problem of everyone else lol. Definitely drop some of your stuff and focus on your scores because those will matter a lot more than an extra 1 or 2 AP classes or more laundry list EC’s.</p>

<p>Well I genuinely like AP classes haha. I am not doing the best in them but A’s and B’s are not that bad. For the EC’s many of those on the list will be removed as I pick which ones matter the most to me. I am actually taking 5 AP’s next year and I am nervous/exciting but I am sure I will do fine. I DON’T KNOW WHY I do so bad on standardized tests something is actually wrong with me, but I think it is because when I guess I randomly guess a lot which is bad. I always feel like I should answer the questions regardless if I know the actual answer. That is a bad thing because 1/4 of a point is deducted for every question I get wrong on the SAT/SAT II’s. @Newkid1997</p>

<p>You DO know why you do bad on standardized tests. You just said a couple of posts ago that you didn’t study at all. At least you are being honest about it. </p>

<p>hahahah yeah amen this is true. I just feel like studying would not bring it up that much IDKK I am currently so discouraged/confused w/life</p>

<p>Studying will help some, but no, it is not going to propel your scores to the levels of your dream schools. But as I wrote in my earlier response to you, being discouraged b/c you cannot attend only the tippy top schools in the country is pointless. Most students aren’t able to even when their stats are within the ball park simply b/c there aren’t enough seats for all of the qualified students.</p>

<p>It is not the end of the world. It does not mean you won’t have a successful future. Go to a lesser school and shine where you are planted. Make the most of it while you are there. Make a name for yourself. Get the honors and opportunities that come to the top students at those schools. And, yes, there are many!! </p>

<p>Being the top student at a lower ranked school will open up doors for you. Seek out professors. Get to know them. Ask them for research opportunities. Ask them for internships. If they see you working hard and seriously interested in their work and classes, they will appreciate you as a student. Far better than a student that is a wall flower b/c everyone else is succeeding and shining far beyond that student. The student functioning near the bottom of the class is not going to be the one given one of few opportunities.</p>

<p>Okay you need to get yourself together. None of your scores matter. You might as well pretend they don’t exist and you are starting new. Guessing always occurs because you don’t know the answer. That means you need to find out what specifically you need to learn. Quit being discouraged and use the guides on this site to help you. Get some books out and get studying because it will make a difference. You’re in the middle of summer and you have a lot of time to study, and if not, quit whatever you’re doing. Get the blue book or the ACT book and start practicing and figuring out what you’re terrible at and fix it by googling it. Never miss a problem and go on to taking the next test. You can improve your score a lot. If you fail to, you are either stupid and should not attend these schools or lazy and incapable of putting forth the effort to produce success, in which case you should not attend these schools either. The only people who are bad test takers are the people who don’t know the answer - and there’s always an answer, you just have to discover how to find it. Now get off this damn site and open up a prep book.</p>

<p>@Newkid1997 okay. @mom2aphysicsgeek thank you!</p>

<p>you have a massive number of extracurriculars, and that looks great. but your unweighted and weighted GPA are pretty low (strictly speaking of ivy league expectations!). if your test scores are out-of-this-world, i think that you have a chance. otherwise, i doubt it. but there are plenty of good schools that i think would accept you. good luck!</p>

<p>Yeah that is the general feedback that I have received looking back to my thread. I really appreciate the advice, all I am doing right now is prepping for my standardized tests. @julia1414</p>

<p>Spend less time on CC talking and more time studying for the SAT/Doing awesome ECs/Reading interesting books. Almost anyone can score high, you just need to learn the system of the SAT. If you haven’t seen all of the great guides on CC (Ok, this should be the reason you’re on CC), here they are.</p>

<p><a href=“Everyone, read this before posting: Best of SAT Prep Forum and FAQs - SAT Preparation - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/763933-everyone-read-this-before-posting-best-of-sat-prep-forum-and-faqs-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I have to disagree with other people here quite sharply. The OP tests very poorly, and she should not base her college hopes on performing significantly better in the future. Her solid grades, rigorous courseload, and enthusiastic participation in extracurricular activities are ASSETS, not LIABILITIES. OP should focus all her energies on identifying some test-optional and less-selective colleges where she stands a chance of getting in, instead of continuing to pin her dreams on unrealizable goals. She is who and what she is today, and that is the person who is applying to college. Although it’s quite true that some students do better on the SAT and some on the ACT, it is very rare for the difference to be dramatic enough to make a difference. If her scores on the SAT were under 1500, then the odds of getting over a 30 on the ACT are exceedingly slim. Oh, I bet that someone will post here about a cousin’s boyfriend’s best friend who had a 3-test composite of 1000 on the SAT and a 35 on the ACT, but that’s as believable as an e-mail from a Nigerian prince. Please, please, Tesfaye - focus on the hundreds (if not thousands) of colleges where you have a chance of getting in, not the ones where you don’t. </p>

<p>Okay I think I received enough advice today</p>

<p>Is prestige really your only/main factor for what colleges you want to attend…?</p>

<p>Sorry, but she tackled that question several times in the thread.</p>