Chance a Voice major with crappy grades for Northwestern? <3

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey all,
Northwestern is my dream school. It's beautiful, in an area I want, and has a strong music program...
But, while I was under the impression that I rocked super hard all throughout high school, I kinda suck. See, I'm from Florida, and we're kind of notorious for having horrible grades. Our schooling system is set up to fail -.- and all of my counselors since middle school have told me that a 3.7 GPA is exceptionally well. But reading posts on CC has made me realize that this isn't the case, especially for NU.
Grr. Oh how wrong I was to believe a singe filthy word they said.</p>

<p>HERE GOES:
Junior White Female, Florida, Prospective Voice Major.
GPA : UW 3.67, W 4.12
Extensive Music ECs (Including hundreds of music related service hours, and 2 years private voice lessons), NHS, Music Honor Society (Tri-M), Karate Freshman + Sophomore Year (had to quit because of economic hardship)
Class rank: 60/489, top 15%
SAT: 1400/1600, 2010/2400... CR720, M680, W610 This is expected to go up this year, I had no idea what I was doing last time.</p>

<p>TRANSCRIPT
AlgebraI Hon - B
Geometry Hon - B
AlgebraII Hon - B/B
Trigonometry/ Analytical Geom Hon* - C/C </p>

<p>Physical SC Hon - B
Biology Hon - A/B
Chemistry I Hon - A/B</p>

<p>EnglishI Hon - A/A
EnglishII Hon - A/B
AP ENG Lang+Comp - A/-</p>

<p>World Cult Geography - A/A
World History Hon - A/B
APUSH - B/-</p>

<p>ChorusI - A/A
ChorusII - A/A
ChorusIII - A/A
ChorusIV - A/A
ChorusV Hon - A/-
PianoI - A</p>

<p>SpanishI - A/A
Spanish II - A/A</p>

<p>Art 2D - A
Creative Photography - A</p>

<p>Creative Writing - A
Freshman Transition** - A
HOPE Health + PE** - A
TA - A
Driver Ed - A</p>

<p>Projected AP scores: 5 on English, 4 for APUSH</p>

<p><em>Taken during sophomore year when I was distracted with some family issues... write about this in the essay, or no?
*</em>Stupid classes the district I'm in forced me into, prohibiting me from taking more challenging courses during freshman and sophomore year.</p>

<p>I'm planning on taking at least 3 more APs, and I've always taken the highest available course for my grade level.
I want to apply ED, but am I wasting my time :(?</p>

<p>Please and Thank you,
Corryn.</p>

2

<p>Hi there - I’ll chance you.
On family issues - YES. There was a place to put down explanations on extenuating circumstances for UF’s application so perhaps there is one for Northwestern’s.
Really <em>REALLY</em> try to crack the top 10% of your class…or higher.
For AP Language - Moseley is a kook [and the only Lang teacher at our school]. You’re going to have to self-study that one. I did and got a 5, though.
On required courses for graduation…take them online. I’m taking 4 APs this year and took PE online because 1) I didn’t want to have Mrs. Wood and 2) it didn’t fit into my schedule too nicely. So look into FLVS.
Otherwise, NW has a lower acceptance rate than UF [and with all its regional prestige around here it’s relatively competitive for in-state/OOS] at 26% according to US News. Your SAT score is solid, but you really need to get that GPA and class rank up [hint hint, honors classes are weighted the same in our district as APs but I would reccomend another AP for senior year if you think you could handle it to show course rigor]. Make sure to get straight A’s in those courses, too. If science is your thing, take AP Biology. Mrs. K is a great teacher and her course is pretty easy.
Don’t let the “I’m going to USF/UCF etc” vibe at our school cut you down from selecting a higher-tiered school. If you have any more questions feel free to PM/write on my wall-thing. Best of luck to you! :)</p>

3

<p>Ah, I forgot the lingo.
Uhhh…at the point it’s a reach/high match I think [just because of your GPA/rank - looks like the top 6% was the target group for Northwestern according to this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/146974-average-high-school-gpa-northwestern.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/146974-average-high-school-gpa-northwestern.html&lt;/a&gt; ]</p>