<p>top public school in Colorado
all cumulative
weighted gpa- 4.24
weighted class rank- 10/515
unweighted gpa- 4.00
unweighted class rank- 1/515</p>
<p>APs:
AP Euro- sophomore (4)
AP Bio- junior (3)
AP US- junior (4)
AP Environmental- junior (3)
AP Psych- junior (3)
AP Physics C- senior (?)
AP Calc BC- senior (?)
AP Gov- senior (?)
AP Microeconomics- senior (?)
AP Macroeconomics- senior (?)
had 5 honors courses in first 3 years as well
ap scholar with honor as a junior
will also have accounting I/II and English IV as a senior</p>
<p>extracurriculars:
basketball (2 years)
volunteering at task force (shelter) for financially distressed (every month)
national honors society
FBLA (Treasurer) (lettered)
link crew leader (mentoring freshman)
camp invention mentoring elementary school kids
lots of community service hours</p>
<p>great recs
great essays edited by english majors
visited all except cornell</p>
<p>All three sets of standardized test scores are in the bottom quartile for Duke, UVa and Cornell - obviously a red flag. Your GPA is great, but the fact that your rank drops from #1 UW to #10 W indicates that other students are taking a more rigorous course load than you. Further, your marginal AP scores hint at a lack of mastery of advanced subjects. Also, you don’t list other classes - do they include accelerated English and/or foreign language? Including a full spectrum of advanced core subjects (math, science, history, english and FL) is imortant. Your ECs sound generic - they show you are doing something outside of class, but no real depth or passion. Finally, your family income will likely work against you since adcoms will assume that you have resources available that other students do not.</p>
<p>You should be a strong applicant at SMU, but will likely be a long shot at Duke (ED), UVa (EA) and Cornell.</p>
<p>These schools have need blind admissions. Your finances won’t hurt your chances. And just because his/her weighted is low, doesnt mean OP hasnt taken rigorous courses. OP actually has. 10 APs is plenty. The OP just may have gotten bad grades in them to bring the w gpa down.</p>
<p>“Need blind admissions” refers to a family’s ability to pay tuition. It does not refer in any cases that I have heard, to adcom’s expectations of applicants. There are many cases where adcoms assume that high-income applicants have taken advantage of extensive SAT training, unique EC opportunities, and high-priced tutors not available to most applicants.</p>
<p>OP has a 4.0 UW GPA, which by definition means straight A’s. It cannot be a case of lower grades “bringing the w gpa down”. If other students have higher weighted GPA, they must have more classes with higher weights.</p>
<p>10 APs is plenty in abstract, but OP has Calc BC, Bio, Physics and seven humanities - a severe imbalance. This imbalance is compounded by an apparent lack of advanced English and foreign language courses.</p>
<p>You are in the ball park, but Duke, Cornell and maybe UVA seem a little uphill. You will get into some wonderful schools. Make sure you have a safety that you can love! Best of luck.</p>
<p>bmonticello23- no, I have always had straight A’s. At our school regular classes = 4.0, honors classes= 4.0, Ap classes = 5.0. It’s just that my weighted rank is lower because some people have taken more APs than me. For instance class rank 5/515 has taken 9 APs by now, and will finish with 15 by graduation. I had all regular and honors freshman year, all regular and honors with 1 ap sophomore year, 4 APs 1 honors 2 regular junior year, and will have 4 (5 if splitting up micro/macro econ) APs and 2 regulars senior year</p>
<p>rmldad- I took up to spanish III; advanced (AP) spanish is not offered at our school until senior year. AP english isn’t offered until junior year. Also we only had one AP offered as a freshman, and one (possibly 2) as a sophomore. I have made the most out of my advanced choice selection except for honors/AP english and spanish IV</p>
<p>I would suggest you talk with your GC to make sure he notes on your transcript/LOR that AP Spanish and English were not available to you until Senior year. This will remove assumptions about the rigor of the classes that you selected.</p>
<p>I would consider adding AP English and/or Spanish to your schedule for Senior year if you are able (drop Gov or Econ). If there is a schedule conflict that prevents this, be sure this is explicitly noted on your transcript. Even if you tarnish your straight A record, your course rigor will be higher. Also, your ED and EA schools will not even see the grades until they have made their initial decision about your application.</p>
<p>Your test scores are probably the weakest part of your application that you can still control (it’s tough to improve ECs at this point). I would usually recommend that you work on raising your SAT since most schools will superscore the SAT but not the ACT. However, your SAT II scores are low for the schools on your list and would need to be included if sending the SAT scores. Thus, it might be better to focus on improving your ACT score.</p>
<p>rmldad- thank you for all of your input! I am going to try my best to gain acceptance to these universities. By the way, how did you become so knowledgeable of all of this information? are you a college admissions counselor?</p>
<p>I’m just a parent who has been through the admissions process with two of my kids, although I also conduct alumni interviews for a highly selective university. Over the years I have spoken with dozens of admissions officers and read too many books about admissions.</p>
<p>I have thoroughly enjoyed learning through CC, but I would highly encourage you to verify everything you read here directly with first-hand sources. The best posts are those that include links directly to college web sites.</p>