<p>Our school gives weighted and unweighted GPAs to kids…and we rank by unweighted.</p>
<p>My parents will pay in state room/board, tuition, and books (the latter won’t be a huge issue, since they said we’ll find uses books haha).</p>
<p>I know I’m not likely to get much money via scholarships on my GPA…I’ve talked to my counselor, and he said that based on my socio-economic conditions (which I think we being a little optimistic, as we aren’t poverty line…inner city school…anything like that) and heritage, I could expect to get some good money. If it comes down to it, my two IB english teachers have said my writing-ability (essays, poetry, articles, expositions, and a novel) has potential merit for scholarship money. Err, again though, that is an X factor.</p>
<p>And my counselor told me (though I had already been searching for options) that I should look for Hispanic/latino scholarships…yes yes I know the whole AA system is hated by most, and to be frank, I do despise it too. But for this instance, I figure I’ll give my hand to truth, and say I’m hispanic, in lieu of giving my hand to my morals, and check “none of the above” or whatnot for ethnicity. </p>
<p>And indeed, I’ll strive for the 400 extra points on the SAT…my breakdown is 690 reading, 800 writing, 510 math…haha so there is alot of X factor for this. But my mom just told me she would pay for me to take it again in December, which I think would make it just in time for all of my deadlines.</p>
<p>As for what is special about those schools, DC is a great city for biomedical research/industry…the schools seem quite nice in most regards. Simple as that. And both seem to have a really wide variety of foreign exchange programs, I’ve never been out of the country/west coast, so I’d love to do that in college. </p>
<p>None of these schools are incredibly selective, and I have WSU as my safety, and UW as my in-state reach/financial safety(as UW is higher ranked than all the private schools). So in any case, I know I’ll go to college. I figure I have a chance just as much as anyone else. Also, my counselor said that east coast schools tend to have lower quantities of hispanics…so being semi qualified with a lower-end GPA, but in full IB, he thinks I have a shot.</p>
<p>Also, whoever suggested Tulane, it’s much harder to get into than all my other schools…</p>
<p>Not true. Villanova and George Washington are equally as selective as Tulane. The fact that you perceive it as more selective is good for Tulane though.</p>
<p>AU is a great school, but is not known for biological sciences.</p>
<p>statistically, Tulane accepts about 26% of their kids, GWU accepts about 37%, and Villanova accepts 46% according to collegeboard</p>
<p>Right, but Tulane has a free app so there is less self-selective filtering of unqualified applicants compared to the other schools, most likely. The best way to tell if the schools are fairly comparable as far as selectivity is to look at the average test scores of the freshman class.</p>
<p>School name SAT 25-75% CR, M, W</p>
<p>Tulane 630-720, 630-700, 630-720</p>
<p>Villanova 580-680, 610-700, 590-680</p>
<p>GW 600-690, 600-690, 600-690</p>
<p>So Tulane’s a bit more selective in that sense, but certainly not light years difference.</p>
<p>Still, I can’t find many biomedical companies, research organizations, etc in New Orleans.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why that is important as an undergrad. You do research on campus or at the med school, and during the summers you can try for internships anywhere, potentially. I guess I am not sure what your concern is along these lines.</p>
<p>GWU accepted 31.5 % this year.</p>
<p>"Right, but Tulane has a free app so there is less self-selective filtering of unqualified applicants compared to the other schools, most likely. The best way to tell if the schools are fairly comparable as far as selectivity is to look at the average test scores of the freshman class.</p>
<p>School name SAT 25-75% CR, M, W</p>
<p>Tulane 630-720, 630-700, 630-720</p>
<p>Villanova 580-680, 610-700, 590-680</p>
<p>GW 600-690, 600-690, 600-690</p>
<p>So Tulane’s a bit more selective in that sense, but certainly not light years difference." </p>
<p>Very good point fallenchemist. Kids are not eager to spend $50 - $75 on an application when they have little chance of admission.</p>
<p>Also, the high school gpa and class rank is a decent indicator except that some high schools are much more competitive than others. All three of these schools have about 60% of enrolled students in the top 10% of their high school classes.</p>
<p>Don’t scrap Tulane because you are afraid you won’t be accepted. With the free application, what do you have to lose? You will be spending $75 per application to these other school that are equally selective and you have no guarantee of gaining admission there either.</p>
<p>American U. is great for many things. However, the common opinion is that it is not a good place for sciences.</p>
<p>I believe GWU has many more pre-med students than American, which means they have more of an emphasis on sciences. Also, GWU has an engineering school which may present some cross-over learning opportunities, such as biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>If you look at common data sets for each college, you can see how many people graduated last year in various majors. You can also look at the department’s websites to see how many profs and instructors are in a department. If you see few majors and few profs, or too high a number of instructors instead of profs, they are all warning signs.</p>
<p>Also, look at the facilities available in a college for the department in which you want to study. It will also tell you how much the college values that department. For example, American has put its money into new and updated facilities for business, law, public policy and international relations, and has not built modern science facilities. Many other colleges have recently built large new science buildings, such as Lafayette and Dickinson Colleges.</p>