Another nice long chance thread!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a white female student at one of the best public schools in NC (not that that's saying too much, probably)</p>

<p>UW GPA: 3.3571
W GPA: 3.9286 (our school has a crazy high weighting system, I know)</p>

<p>Class Rank: 33/130 (barely top 25%, I think)</p>

<p>SAT: 2240 (800CR/700M/740W [E9])
SAT II: 800 US History, 770 French, ? Lit (waiting)</p>

<p>PSAT: 224 (80 CR/74M/70W)
Will almost certainly be a Semi-Finalist. Finalist, of course, is just a toss-up, especially with my grades.</p>

<p>AP Scores: (waiting)
US History
French
Psychology (self-studied)</p>

<p>And just in case the brief version of my stats wasn't exciting enough for you, here's my full academic history! It's like Christmas! First semester/second semester. </p>

<p>9th Grade:
Honors English I - B/A
Algebra I - A/A
PE - F/B
Biology - D/A
Theater I/Ceramics - B/B
World History - B/A
Honors French III - B/A</p>

<p>10th Grade:
Honors English II - B/B
Geometry - B/B
Civics - A/A
Earth Science - A/A
Theater II - B/B
Drawing & Painting - B/F
Honors French IV - B/B</p>

<p>11th Grade: (UW 3.93, W 4.93)
Honors English III - A/A
Honors world classes - A/A
Honors Algebra II - A/A
AP US History - A/A
Journalism I - A/A
Chemistry - B/A
AP French Language - A/A</p>

<p>(Hopeful) Senior Schedule:
AP Literature
AP Human Geography
Honors Precalculus
AP Comparative Govt.
Honors Journalism II
French course at UNC-CH</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Founder/Co-President Amnesty International (11, 12)
Co-Founder/Co-President of a schoolwide tutoring program (11, 12)
Newspaper (11, 12) - Section Editor (12)
Founder/Co-President Movie Club (11, 12)
volunteer at an elementary summer school (nothing big, not sure whether to include or where, but I love doing it)</p>

<p>Awards:
National Merit Commended
National Merit Semi-Finalist (pretty sure)
6th place in state, 8th place nationally on the National French Exam</p>

<p>WILL be applying for financial aid; single mother makes <30k a year. Definitely not first-gen though.</p>

<p>Not sure what I want to major in, but I like things like history, languages, political science, psychology...in other words NOTHING very business-, science- or math-related. </p>

<p>Applying to:
Vanderbilt or Rice (maybe...ridiculous reaches)
University of Southern California (dreaam school)
Tulane University
University of Alabama (guaranteed full scholarship, so I imagine it's a safety)
possibly Occidental or Pitzer</p>

<p>Obviously I need more schools, so suggestions are very welcome! I prefer:
- big city setting/at least not completely rural
- fairly large - not a huge fan of LACs
- NOT COLD. As in, no colder than Virginia. And nothing in the Midwest. My whole family lives there and I'm sure it's a very charming place, but...it's just not for me.
- NOT RELIGIOUS. I'm very serious about this. Nothing with any sort of religious affiliation at all.
- something...that would challenge me a little bit? I actually tend to do badly in really easy classes</p>

<p>Thank you for reading all this!</p>

2

<p>Your GPA looks good, as do your PSAT scores and SAT scores. I would try to improve your GPA just for the sake of upping class rank. Your ECs look good, and 8th place on French exam in the nation is extremely impressive. </p>

<p>I’m not extremely familar with Vanderbilt/Rice standards (though I definitely know of them haha), so I would say reach for both, though not as high of a reach as you might think. Maybe a lower reach. </p>

<p>USC – Match. I really think you have the SAT scores, though I would try to up GPA since their are going to be a lot of people applying with weighted GPAs over 4. </p>

<p>I’m not quite sure of the others though. </p>

<p>Here are some suggestions:

  1. NYU, decently large, urban, probably a good match for you score wise and GPA wise. Plus the fact that it is a really good school, comparable to USC. Is Colder though.
  2. George Washington University. In DC, urban setting, non-religious affiliation, 10,000 ish undergrad. Awesome for political science, DC has more internships open than students to fill them. Seriously. This could be more of a low match/safety for you. </p>

<p>I would suggest Georgetown but it is religiously affiliated, and Northwestern/U Chicago are in the Midwest. Plus Illinois is freezing.</p>

3

<p>Why do you have an F in P.E. and art?</p>

4

<p>dedicateddem - Wow thank you, I’ve never thought of USC as a match in any way! I will do my best to get my GPA up, but I’m afraid there’s only so much one semester of senior year can do. Hopefully it will pull me over a 4.0 weighted, though. And I’ll look into the schools you mentioned, thanks for the suggestions! </p>

<p>Keasbey Nights - Uh…good question. Honestly, probably the same reason I have B’s in most other things for two years. Well, PE was actually due to excused absences that I didn’t have time to make up, but it was still my fault for not talking to the teacher.</p>

5

<p>That’s an interesting mix of colleges you have there. How about UNC or Wake Forest? Along with Pitzer you might want to look into Pomona and Scripps - all are small LACs, but together they feel more like a small university. You should qualify for generous financial aid. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>I have nothing against UNC and Wake Forest, but I’m really not wild about staying in state (sorry, I forgot to mention that in my first post!) although I would probably apply to UNC if I thought it would accept me. I’d love to go to Pomona, but wouldn’t that be a wildly huge reach, as in not even worth the application fee? Scripps I haven’t looked into before. Thank you so much for the suggestions!</p>

7

<p>in with university of southern cal
high match with rice</p>

<p>keep working, looks good
bring up that rank a bit more though</p>

<p>chance back? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/733636-mediocre-gpa-pretty-good-sat-score-please-chance.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/733636-mediocre-gpa-pretty-good-sat-score-please-chance.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>Thank you! I’ll try to bring my rank up as much as I can, although I only have one more semester. </p>

<p>And I can try to chance back, but unfortunately I don’t know all that much about it. =(</p>

9

<p>EDIT: I somehow pulled a 790 in the Literature Subject Test! Guess it’s too late to edit my original post, though. More suggestions/chances would be wonderful!</p>