I am a junior attending one of the top 20 schools in California. My grades have struggled for the past two years (3.1) and this year still(3.6). The APs I’m taking are World History at school and Bio and Euro outside of school. SAT score is average, 1480, 666 but I still have two tries left so it will definitely improve. SAT Subject tests will be taken as well.
Extracurriculars seem to be my strong point:
Congressional award
LOTS of volunteering
Long-term research project with USC Professor
Interning at District attorney’s office
School Broadcast team
Film Festival wins(Grand Jury Prizes and some categorical wins in several local and large festivals)
A bunch of clubs
My major of interest is General Biology, although it seems that my strong point is at the arts section, specifically film. My dream college is Brown and they have a supplements section specifically for Arts and Writing, which I’m definitely planning to attach.
I’m going to apply ED and what really are the chances of me getting into Brown and the high-reach universities? Does the school really care about arts and unique talents?
Not to be a pessimist but I would say your low grades pretty much disqualify you for entrance to the highest of reach schools because those schools get talented artists who are also academic superstars. Tbh, with a B average in high school, why would your dream school be an Ivy that easily fills its freshman class with 4.0 students? Do you think that college courses at an Ivy will be easier than your high school? I would ask you to consider if your “dreams” are coming from inside or outside influences. Look for schools where you personally can excel and thrive.
Any idea what your rank is? Maybe your GPA is strong for your school?
Are you maybe you should do less outside APs and internships/research if it is causing your GPA to suffer. Are you making films just to look well-rounded and have something on your resume or could that be your career interest?
I would reframe this a little bit. When you wrote “bad grades,” I thought you were going to say you had a 2.5 GPA overall or something like that. If had a 3.1 last year and a 3.6 this year, I’m assuming your overall GPA is in the 3.3-3.4 territory. So while those are not outstanding grades, they are far from bad and there are LOTS of schools that would love to have a candidate like you apply! 1480 is also not an “average” SAT score. It’s quite good!
That said, yes, the average GPA and SAT at a school like Brown is higher.
I’m confused about why you would want Brown as such, though, if film is your passion. Why not USC (especially with your existing USC connection!), Wesleyan, NYU Tisch, and UCLA as reach schools? If you asked me to name an elite northeastern school, though, that would be a great pick for someone with film festival wins, I would say “Wesleyan!” without a moment of hesitation. Like Brown, Wesleyan has an open curriculum.
I would also consider schools like Emerson, UNCSA, and Ithaca College as schools that feel like they would be matches with your credentials.
I’m a little confused. Do you want film school, or do you want to study biology, hoping that your film ECs will somehow make up for your grades? If the former, then a film school at one of the colleges Booklvr mentioned is within reach if your portfolio is good enough to recommend to admissions despite lower-than-typical grades. If the latter, while the film-making makes you an interesting applicant, it’s not going to be enough to overcome the significantly higher usual GPA/test score requirements for an intended biology major. (And agree, the grades are only “low” for the upper tier of schools, they are perfectly fine/good for many colleges.)
I don’t know about how Brown’s art and writing supplement works, but I know NYU specifically directs applicants not to add portfolios unless they are applying for one of the schools (Tisch and Steinhardt) that require them for admission, so do check the instructions carefully.
After about 5 months of consideration and numerous other festival wins, I think my career path is definitely more well-suited for film.
So my question is, to get in to USC SCA, are grades more important than my supplements and should I focus more of my time on GPA’s rather than creating new films?
Also, I’m attending the SCA summer program and was wondering if anyone has had any experience witht eh program itself and have any tips?