<p>Hey y'all, a friend of mine has done IB/AP coursework and is finishing her junior year with a 3.5 cumulative, unweighted GPA and is looking at about a 1950 on her SAT, and she doesn't believe that she can get into her top 3 choices: University of Washington, University of British Columbia, and Occidental College. I really think she has a shot at all three, but I'm wondering what others think.</p>
<p>She'll have an IB diploma (30-32 predicted score overall) when applying for college and has participated in DECA (gone to International competitions twice), a teen crisis prevention group, and theater/choir, but she is lacking in leadership positions. </p>
<p>She has a shot: my son had similar stats and got into Occidental and wait-listed at UW (which shocked us, because he was accepted into more selective schools). His unweighted GPA was slightly lower (3.3-3.4), but his IB/AP course-load brought his weighted GPA way up. His first SAT score was around 1900, but it rose to 2060. His ACT score was 31. He did have a lot of leadership positions, however. He also got into UC San Diego, UC Davis (we are from NJ, by the way), Pitzer, Willamette, Whitman, Tulane, Eckerd, New College of Florida, and Guilford. He was wait-listed at Reed; and rejected from Berkeley, Claremont-McKenna, and UNC-Chapel Hill. I would say that, unless her test scores skyrocket in subsequent seatings, she is just slightly less competitive than my son. Is she a Washington resident? Her chances would be better, in that case. If she’s genuinely interested in Oxy, I recommend making an extra effort to visit, or at least arrange an interview with a field representative. My son and I visited the campus last summer, and then we went to a little bit of trouble for him to meet an admissions representative here on the East Coast. I think that the young man who interviewed him was favorably impressed, and I don’t think many other students had signed up for that particular event at a suburban hotel - that allowed my son to stand out. Oxy is expensive, but they met our EFC. In fact, they went a little beyond, and so I think they included estimated travel expenses when they calculated the financial aid package. I’d suggest adding Willamette and Puget Sound University to her list. By the way, Oxy is not particularly generous in awarding credit for IB/AP work; students cannot expect more than one semester, whereas other schools offer up to a full year.</p>