Asian/Male/Junior/NJ [3.2 GPA, 1420 SAT, earth and planetary sciences / environmental geology]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Asian

  • US domestic (US citizen)
  • State/Location of residency: New Jersey
  • Type of high school public HS:
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional):
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):

** [Earth and Planetary Sciences - Environmental Geology Option (BS)]**

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.2
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.9 (A-5.0, B-4.0, C-3.0)
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank:
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1420

Coursework
AP Calc AB
AP Stats
AP Microeconomics
AP CS A
AP Environmental Engineering (planned in senior year)
AP CS Principles (planned in senior year)
AP Calc BC (planned in senior year)
AP Litt (planned in senior year)
Physics Honors
Chem Honors
Bio Honors

Awards

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
3 years Varsity Tennis - 9, 10 & 11. Tennis Team Captain (expected in Senior Year)
2 Research Papers published in the areas of Sustainability and GeoPhysics
100 hours of volunteering in Freshman, Sophomore and Junior years. Received Americorps Presidential Award for Community Service.
Worked part-time as a choreographer / dance tutor for a Junior Dance School and coached the team to a performance at the Carnegie Hall
*National Level Music Event Performances *

Essays/LORs/Other
Recommendation letter from AP Calc Teacher, a strong one expected
Recommendation letter from LA teacher, a decent one expected

Please help me in identifying my safety, likely, target and reach schools.

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Way more info needed:

What majors are you considering?
What is your budget/EFC? Do you need financial aid?
What types of schools?
Big vs. small?
Urban vs. Rural?
Public/Private?
In state/OOS?

If you can be more specific as to what you are looking for, the better advice you will get. This forum has so many people with a wealth of knowledge. Please provide more info.

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Major - Earth & Planetary Sciences, either Environmental Geology or Geological Sciences
No budget constraints
Private or public school is fine. Prefer closer to NJ
NJ is in-state
No particular preference in urban or rural or small or big

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Your unweighted GPA is going to be the biggest limiting factor, but there are many very good schools that would be happy to have you.

In addition to NJ publics, I would suggest exploring the offerings within of the SUNY system. Not only does this system offer a variety of excellent schools covering a range of competitiveness, but they’re also a good financial value, even out of state, and generally close to home (some closer than others of course). I feel as if taking a closer look at what the various SUNYs have to offer would allow you to look at your other preferences in microcosm - there are urban, suburban, and rural options
 larger and smaller
 and with different campus “vibes.” Seeing what appeals to you the most within this set of schools could help you clarify what to look for elsewhere as well.

For example, Binghamton is probably the toughest admit, but not necessarily out of range for you. It has about 14K undergraduates, on a residential suburban/rural campus. The geology department has multiple tracks, including environmental geology, and lots of field work, guest lecturers, research opportunities, etc. If you’d like something a little more pastoral than the NJ publics, Bing could be really appealing.

If a more urban campus appeals, look at SUNY Buffalo and SUNY Albany. If a smaller school would be attractive, look at SUNY Geneseo (NY’s honors LAC). For a strong co-op program and a Great Lakes location that enables direct study of the related geology, SUNY Oswego could be a good choice.The New Paltz campus could be a good option too. Compare the curricula, settings, field work and research options for the various schools and see what stands out to you.

For a private LAC with particularly strong environmentally-related programs, Allegheny could be a good school to look at. (It’s in far-northern PA, close to Lake Erie between Buffalo and Cleveland.) In addition to a variety of field work, the geology department has a cooperative program with the Duke U. Marine Lab in Marine Geology. I think you’d get merit $ from Allegheny. Other PA LAC’s are worth a look too - Juniata, Dickinson, Lafayette, Lehigh. And NY LAC’s - Colgate could be a good reach, and Hamilton a higher reach; St Lawrence is an easier admit but has some amazing environmental programs and a well-respected geology department.

There are many good options - hopefully you can do some representative campus visits and get more a sense of the kind of environment you’d like.

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Is Rutgers Arts & Sciences college going to be a reach?

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Based on your academic interests, this site should be of interest:

As some suggestions for schools that may fall within a suitable selectivity range, look into St. Lawrence University and Miami University; as a potential reach, look into Union College.

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If you have no budget constraints, look at Penn State. They have an excellent geology program. Not sure about the planetary sciences part though. Apply early.

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Your SAT is around the mid point of accepted students but your GPA is below the 25th percentile. Admission is possible but not a sure thing.

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Thanks everyone for the responses. I was wondering if weighted or unweighted GPA matters more @ Rutgers. Is my weighted GPA of 3.9 (I may end up with a 4.0 in my senior year 1st semester) not worth much?

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These are schools that seem to have strength in their geology departments, as reflected in the number of majors and/or the depth of the offered degree (Master’s/PhD). There are small, medium, and large colleges. Rural, suburban, and urban locations. They are sorted according to my very fallible sense of what might be your chances, but I am not an admissions professional.

I recommend that you look first for schools that are extremely likely to admit you, that your family will pay for, and that you would be happy to attend. Once you find those schools, then I’d start looking at increasingly selective schools, if you still want to. Additionally, a school’s selectivity does not necessarily reflect on the quality of the education provided. For instance, Syracuse’s selectivity has gone down significantly in the last year or two. Although its popularity has certainly risen, I doubt that the educational quality has changed much over the last two years.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Kean (NJ): About 11k undergrads
  • Montclair State (NJ): About 16k undergrads
  • Penn State: About 73k undergrads
but getting to University Park as a first year is much less likely
  • Salisbury (MD): About 6700 undergrads
  • Slippery Rock (PA ): About 6900 undergrads
  • SUNY Brockport (NY): About 5700 undergrads
  • SUNY Fredonia (NY): About 3600 undergrads
  • SUNY Oswego (NY): About 6100 undergrads
  • Susquehanna (PA ): About 2200 undergrads
  • West Chester (PA ): About 14k undergrads

Likely (60-79%)

  • Hobart Wiliam Smith (NY): About 1700 undergrads
  • Juniata (PA ): About 1300 undergrads
  • SUNY Geneseo (NY): About 4500 undergrads
  • Temple (PA ): About 26k undergrads
  • U. at Buffalo (NY): About 21k undergrads
  • U. of Delaware: About 19k undergrads

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Rutgers – New Brunswick (NJ): About 36k undergrads
  • St. Lawrence (NY): About 2200 undergrads
  • Syracuse (NY): About 15k undergrads
  • U. of Pittsburgh (PA ): About 24k undergrads; the earlier you apply (like August), the likelier it will be an acceptance

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Binghamton (NY): About 14k undergrads
  • Franklin & Marshall (PA ): About 2100 undergrads
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic (NY): About 5200 undergrads

Low Probability (less than 20%)

I can’t speak to Rutgers specifically, but it depends on each university. Some schools (like Indiana University) will grant admission to certain programs based on a weighted GPA. Other schools like to look at unweighted GPAs because not all schools weight in the same way (your school gives 1-pt extra for honors/AP whereas others it’s 0.5 and others might be 0.5 for honors and 1.0 for AP). Some schools will recalculate your GPA based on their own formula.

If you look at a school’s Common Data Set (search “College Name” and “College Data Set” and you should find them) it will indicate how much importance a university places on rigor, grades, test scores, etc. Generally, at more selective schools, the expectation is that a rigorous courseload is taken AND that a high GPA is earned. And for the popular schools, they have plenty of applicants with the most rigorous courses and a high GPA and high SAT scores.

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Yes to looking at the Common Data Sets. Specifically, Section C7 tells what weight the particular school gives to various academic and non-academic factors; and Sections C9-C12 give information on first-year students who matriculated at the particular school. This may give you a basis for comparing your statistics to recently matriculated students at a given school.

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Weighted GPAs typically don’t tell you very much as high schools weigh GPAs differently. They also don’t translate well across high schools. At one high school, a 4.2 could be valedictorian, and at another it could be top 50th percentile.

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Rutgers uses self-reported academic record (SRAR), which means that it can easily recalculate its own version of unweighted or weighted GPA if it wants to, rather than taking the one calculated by your high school at face value (some colleges supposedly do that) or having to do data entry on every applicant’s transcript on application. But Rutgers’ web site does not really say what kind of GPA is used in frosh admission.

You might not necessarily want to have colleges take your high school weighted GPA at face value, because then you will be competing against applicants from high schools with more exaggerated weighting. The exception may be if such a GPA is used to meet a threshold for automatic admission or scholarships (rather than being used competitively).

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Thanks everyone for the detailed response. No wonder CC is the go to place for college applicants like me. Really appreciate the time you have all taken to respond to my queries. So, as some one focused on Rutgers, I just wna to point out that Rutgers website does mention explicitly that they look at weighted GPA. If you look into their website @ admissions(dot)rutgers(dot)edu/apply/how-we-make-decisions#tab=panel-3, they state the following:

Academic performance in high school or its equivalent:
Strength of academic program (number/type of academic, honors, or advanced placement courses completed)
Grades and grade trends
Weighted grade-point average(s)
Cumulative rank, when available

Based on the feedback I have received from the forum members I am guessing Rutgers recalculates weighted GPA. But does anybody know the criteria they use for computing weighted GPA? Thanks.

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i’d strongly consider miami university! my mom got her undergraduate in geology from there in 1999 and currently is very successful working as a consultant for an international firm. you’d likely get merit money as well!

i also think the other suggestions are pretty good — i applied to colgate this year so i’m a bit more partial there.

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I‘m aware of a lot of Bing outcomes as it gets almost universally applied to by kids here from across the spectrum; from a safety for ultra-high stats kids to first choice for the budget-conscious to aspirational dream school for medium stats kids.

It is not technically out of range with that transcript, but it’s real close. A 1420 is not quite at the 50th percentile, so it won’t be a huge help.

I can’t speak to the strength of the programs the OP is interested in, but Union College and Clark University might be worth a look as they are known to be somewhat forgiving with GPA.

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Thanks for the feedback! I wanted to present a range of SUNY’s; I knew Bing might be a long shot, but I’m not familiar enough with the admissions landscape there to chance the OP, given how OOS vs. in-state, and the relative competitiveness of different programs within the university, might affect the odds. I’m confident that there are good options in the SUNY system for him, and thought Bing could be worth a try, but definitely not to be counted upon.

(Likewise re: OP’s question about Rutgers, I didn’t leave Rutgers out of my suggestions because of an assessment that it’s out of reach - I just don’t know, and I assumed his in-state flagship was already on his radar anyway.)

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Agreed the SUNYs are worth a look. It doesn’t apply to Bing, Buffalo, or SBU, and it hasn’t been confirmed for the class of 24, but many SUNYs offer in-state tuition for NJ residents, just another thing to consider.

https://www.suny.edu/go/oos/#

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A 3.2 to 3.9 seems off. But you say 5 for an A. Most common seems to be .5 for Honors and one for AP - how does yours work ? Sounds like no .5 option.

So Arizona is top rated and not sure if the major is impacted but the school itself is a safety. But - it’s not near New Jersey. But it’s extremely well regarded in these fields.

Florida Tech would meet your interest - also not near NJ but a coup for you with your stats. It’s in the Mecca of these type majors, especially space related.

For local, Stony Brook.

But as others noted - local schools like a Montclair State could fit your need.

In general the 3.2 will hinder you but not cripple you. Your finances will help you but limiting yourself geographically will limit you.

Best of luck.

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