Hi there! So I just wanted your opinion on what colleges I should be looking at. Of course my dream is to go to an ivy league but it seems like a long shot.
I am a female who was born in the US and parents who migrated from Pakistan 
Here’s my overlook:
SAT (old): 1750 (I’ve only taken it once so I am taking the ACT and aiming for a 32+)
Please don’t get hung up on this. This is my score after taking it once without studying. I am aiming for equivalent of 2000+ (old sat score) on the ACT or new SAT
GPA: Junior (weighted cumulative)- 4.333
Prospective Senior (end of year)- 4.4
Class ranking (currently/junior): 1/259 (Current Valedictorian)
AP Classes: 11 (14 semester classes worth)
(All A’s except for 1 B (damn you ap ab Calc))
Afterschool activities:
Spanish Honor Society/Spanish Club (President)
School SGA (Student member of Board of Education)
Class SGA (Vice president (9th &11th) President (10th))
Interact Club (Treasurer)
Future Business Leaders of America (President next year)
National Honor Society (NHS)
International Thespian Society (ITS)
Spring Musicals
Tutoring at a nearby middle school (every Wednesday)
Pro Girl Collective
Cyber Security Team(potential)
Leadership Seminars :
Maryland Leadership Workshop
Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA)
**All core classes have been Honor
I’m not sure if there’s anything else for me to add but what do my chances look like? My parents aren’t really involved in my college process, they just expect me to get into a #1 school.
Thank you for all the help and have a lovely day
SAT and targeted ACT are likely too low unless you are an amazing athlete or win the Intel prize.
A junior with a 1750 should not be thinking about applying to Ivies unless one or two non-HYP as a very very VERY longshot.
Good luck with your parents - what I suggest you do as a junior is start looking at some colleges with entering classes that have SAT / ACT scores around what you have / expect. Then sell three or four of them to your parents.
So I have two more chances to take both the ACTs and the new SATs. If I do much better (32+ act and equivalent 2000+ on new SAT), could you give me a new outlook, or would it be the same?
I have only taken the SAT once and that was without studying
2000 will not do it.
2200 might.
Take an SAT course if you can afford it.
And that would be to get you up to the 6% - 10% chance the general applicant has.
You’d need 2300 to have a good chance to get into one Ivy if you apply to them all.
It never ceases to amaze me how few students take the SAT sophomore year to get a starting point.
Financially, it is difficult for me to take the SAT and ACT multiple times. I only have two fee waivers so that was my practice run, but never got the time to study and take the old one one more time!
@rhandco some schools have policies against that- mine does.
It probably hurts their rankings since sophomores will mostly score lower than juniors
@bushidoSam you would have a decent chance if you got your SAT score up. However, I don’t think you’ll have time to get it up by 500 points…
Did you look into Questbridge? If you have fee waivers, you should start looking ASAP.
What do you mean - a policy against what?
My two oldest children took the SAT as sophomores, and again as juniors.
It’s also important to note, that if you have a 2000 SAT score and manage to squeak into an Ivy, you will be very very lucky to survive there. Many have 2200 - 2300 SAT scores, very very few would have 2000 SAT scores, probably football players.
It seems like there is a big disconnect between your grades and your SAT scores (even considering they were attained without studying). You are in the running to have the top GPA at your school. You’ve taken 11 AP classes and only gotten one B. You are desiring a college that is expressly for high achieving academically strong students. Yet your SATs scores are very low. My question, if I were reviewing your application, is about the rigor of the high school you attend. Your low score would make me wonder about it and I’d look to other indications that you have achieved at a high level. For example, I’d look for SAT2 scores that were close to or at 800. I’d want to see AP test scores of 5. And I’d be doing this before I considered your ECs because I’d want to make sure you have the academic aptitude to be successful. Once established, I then look at your ECs.
I disagree about needing 2300 or 2200. 2100 is not unreasonable for Cornell. But short of 2200 I’d be looking for other indices that you are strong academically and I’d require an index that was not related to your school-so that means other scores.
How did you do on the AP tests that you have taken so far?
@lostaccount
I have just taken an SAT subject test in World History and plan on taking two more (Math 1 & 2).
Sophomore year I took two AP Classes and this year I took four APs (so I don’t have the score yet). I received a 5 on both AP Gov and AP Psych.
The other APs are the ones on my schedule for Senior year (next year).
I do very poorly on the SAT and practice ACT/SAT tests for some reason. I have a very hard time focusing (in general). I mostly self study most of my topics. When I bring this to attention to my physician or my parents, they find it hard to believe because of my good grades. The school has to do my evaluation and apparently there is nothing that needs to be evaluated. I was tested when I was younger for ADHD because I had shown symptoms but apparently hadn’t progressed far enough to be diagnosed.
Thank you so much!
Thank you for all the help everyone! I will look into all of your information and check it out.
@rhandco the counselors at my school don’t allow us to take the SAT before we’re juniors. I mean, we can technically sign up, but they will find out and they will not be happy. They have this policy at many other schools in my city as well.
@bushidoSam it is very possible to get good grades and have ADHD. If your physician does not recognize this, you should probably see a specialist. If you were able to get accommodations for it, it could seriously improve your score.
@ JadedJunior , Tongue in cheek here----- There is a SES-specific ailment-a variant of ADHD-that emerges in wealthy people a few months before they have to take high stakes tests-I think it is called “entitlement”. There are some parents who are outstanding diagnosticians and can see the signs even when the school system has viewed the student as excellent for 10 years. The following criteria are pathognomonic for the disorder only detectable by wealthy parents-after immense tutoring and having access to all the resources possible, the student still fails to produce scores that will open doors to Harvard. These unfortunate students usually have outstanding academic records through primary school. They falter (mildly as in not getting SAT scores that are Harvard worthy) when the academic work becomes more difficult conceptually (direct contrast to difficulties encountered by students with the other kind of ADHD that impacts most notably in the early grades and on tasks heavily dependent upon working memory). Parent hear about accommodation and seek out testing, especially by “professionals” that are inclined to find ways to qualify students. It is this variant that explains why rates of identified ADHD are markedly elevated in populations (wealthy successful families) you’d expect would have low prevalence rates and much lower in low SES communities where you’d expect higher rates (because of the strong genetic influence, parents of children with ADHD often also have the disorder and are less successful).
Not tongue in cheek----ADHD is a developmental disorder that impacts on academic functioning throughout the life span. While it is true that it can go undiagnosed, it can’t co-exist with A’s and excellent grades (without accommodation) in the primary grades. We’ve all heard stories about how many adults are just now being diagnosed. What those stories usually fail to highlight is that those adults now being diagnosed inevitably had tough childhoods and did not do well in primary school. They may have improved in later grades when the tasks stop being as dependent on working memory and rely more on conceptual understanding. Any problem that pops up anew in high school (after a successful elementary and middle school career) is not ADHD. It can be gaming the tests. It may be depression but it is not ADHD.
I don’t approve of gaming the tests.
I’ve never heard of not letting sophomores take the SAT. Taking it senior year becomes a time crunch, and planning to take it twice junior year as well.
I am a firm believer that the SAT is different enough from the PSAT that taking the SAT in 10th grade is a great experience. I cannot believe a school can place such a limitation on students, but perhaps if it is a private school.
Yes, there is a disconnect between grades and SAT score.
As for ADHD, it doesn’t matter if you have it or not if you are not diagnosed. It is too late in the game to use it as an excuse. There are many kids diagnosed who don’t use their accommodations because you get little if any accommodations in college.
I cannot understand how you could have trouble focusing and have that high a GPA. Don’t you take quizzes and tests in your classes? How can they be that different than taking the SAT that ADHD might affect one not the other?
I think the first try at the SAT can be low for someone not familiar with standardized tests.
Did the OP list a prospective major?
“AP Classes: 11 (14 semester classes worth)
(All A’s except for 1 B (damn you ap ab Calc))”
This is confusing. You have not taken 11 AP classes. You have taken 6. You scored a 5 on the tests for the two you took last year but are awaiting the 4 taken this year. A 5 is obviously a good score that may reflect strong mastery but a surprisingly low % correct can yield a 5. So just 2 scores, especially in gov and psych (often considered absurdly easy) don’t tell enough to make a judgement. If the others come back as 5’s, that will support the idea that the As you received in classes reflects genuine mastery rather than being a reflection of a problematic school. How you did on the 2 SAT2s you took could also be very telling. If you got 800s or close, that would also support the idea that your GPA reflects strong academic achievement. By the way, there is no point in taking both math SAT2s. If you are going for competitive schools, the Math 2 is the only one to take.
I have known high functioning kids with ADHD, so I disagree that one cannot have a successful high school career and have ADHD at the same time. They may be rare but they are not mutually exclusive. :-<
@lostaccount I see your point, and I know that the most common ADHD scenario includes bad grades, but that is not always true.
Keep in mind many elementary, middle, and even high schools have classes set up so kids who aren’t performing well(whether it’s due to lack of effort, lack of understanding, some disability, etc) can still get A’s. It’s not uncommon for teachers to base a large portion of students’ grades on homework, completion, participation, etc. Some even allow students to come back after school to finish tests they ran out of time on, and said tests are often full of questions that are directly from the notes and require no thinking whatsoever, just rote recall. Speaking of notes, some teachers even allow students to use them on tests.
My brother was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and he was able to get straight A’s in middle school due to the practices I described above. He is also very intelligent, which allows him to think at the same speed as others despite having a more distracted mind. However, when he went to high school, it started biting him in the butt since the teachers actually held him accountable for not paying attention in class. If OP does go to a non-rigorous high school like you suggested, she very well could be getting straight A’s while having ADHD.
I acknowledge the possibility that OP might be making excuses for her test scores, but I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt.
@JadedJunior @lostaccount @rhandco
If you read my comment to you, you can see that I stated that the additional 5 AP tests included in the account are the ones on my schedule for next school year (senior year). Although I agree with the difficulty level about AP Psych, I disagree about AP Government. In a class with a teacher who only reads from a piece of paper of notes to teach us, I had to self teach most of the material to myself because of the fact that I could not focus on her. I am not saying that I have ADHD, as my parents and doctors have dismissed it, but I will not state that I don’t have focus and memory problems. I am not using it as an excuse because somehow I was able to make it through my tests.
As you all have questioned and stated, my school is not very academically ranked. There is a greater focus on our athletics than our academics. That being said, the effort that I have put into school for the last 3 years should not be dismissed because I have worked very hard with many long nights to have such good grades and high class ranking. I never used my focus issues as an excuse and I hope that I can do well on my future SAT or ACT tests.
Thank you & sorry for turning this into a medical forum!
You may have ADD (focus) not ADHD (hyperactivity).
It’s also quite possible to be “twice exceptional”, ie., to suffer from ADD and be very smart.
if the student attends a low performing school, it’s unlikely it’s a high-SES-related situation. What’s more likely is that the doctor focuses on ADHD, didn’t see it, and didn’t focus on ADD (in part because ADHD is a problem for teachers who will report it whereas ADD is an internal problem and many adults simply dismiss the student’s experience.)
You should be restested.
What’s the average test score at your school?
There’s a huge difference between scoring 28 at a school where the average score is 18, and scoring 28 where the average score is 26.
@bushidoSam While not ivy league, there are many excellent colleges that are test optional you could perhaps look into. List here at http://fairtest.org/university/optional (Bowdoin, Smith, Holy Cross, Wesleyan, Wake Forest - some good schools!)
While you still have opportunities to test again early next year (and it’s definitely worth getting the “red book” and prepping with actual past ACT exams) it might not be a bad idea to use the above list to find some options where you can draw on the other strengths of your application to present a picture of yourself as a student. There are many, many fine colleges and you will find one where you will succeed. Good luck!