Demographics
*Ethiopian-American
*from Georgia
*I have a legacy at Georgia Tech
*Male
*I can read/write Amharic fluently and I’m so-so at French
Intended Major(s)
architecture and maybe double major it with international affairs. I am also looking at civil engineering but architecture is my first choice
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.65
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): n/a as of rn
Class Rank:school doesn’t tell
ACT/SAT Scores:30
*I’m in metro Atlanta in a fairly balanced school
Extracurriculars
*played club soccer all my life, played high school soccer but I couldn’t play past 2 years
because of injuries
*Cross Country
*Robotics
*I’ve been helping kids at church learn Amharic (Ethiopian language) for the past 3 years
*summer program at Georgia Tech
*deacon past 3-4 years
*volunteer at a clinic
Cost Constraints / Budget
*I am flexible enough to afford oss tuition but I do hope I can get some scholarships
Schools
Reach
-Georgia Tech
-UC Berkeley
-Ohio State
-Boston University
-Clemson
-USC
-UCLA
Target
-Penn State
-UGA
-University of Oregon
-University of Washington
-Michigan State
-University of Colorado Boulder
-Virginia Tech
For UCLA and UCB, calculate our 3 UC GPA’s. UC’s are test blind through the 2024 admission cycle and both will be Reach schools. Are you prepared to pay $65K+/year with little to no financial aid as an OOS applicant?
For OOS students, only AP/IB classes taken 10-11th grades are given the extra honors points in the UC GPA calculation and UC’s require a year long class for Visual/Performing arts which is sometimes a requirement missed by OOS applicants.
You don’t have a weighted GPA? Do you not have any Honors or AP?
Just on the 3.65 and let’s say your weighted is 3.9 and a 30 ACT (superscore or not?) -
I’m not saying not to apply to reaches - but you won’t get in.
Your targets - PSU (tough), UGA (no), Oregon (maybe a safety), Boulder (in), Va Tech - no. UW - no. Michigan State - maybe.
You need to put schools on your list like - South Carolina, Alabama, MS State, Arkansas. Maybe UTK. Cincinnati, Kentucky. Within Georgia, Georgia Southern. Murray State may have scholarships for you.
As long as you end in a school with ABET certification, you’ll be fine.
Usually our school posts our weighted GPA’s but they’ve only placed our unweighted as of now thats why. I do plan on taking the ACT again but the 30 i got is not a superscore. Thanks for the school recommendations too.
It’s very competitive, but look at Cal Poly. They have Architecture, Civil, and unlike many schools, Architectural Engineering. They are also one of the few schools that offers Fire Protection.
Colleges and high schools vary on how they calculate weighted GPA. It generally means little unless you know and use the recalculation that a specific college uses.
HS weighting is all over the map. That’s why colleges/universities don’t use that number. If they weight, they will choose their own metric to standardize. I find HS weighting to just be a useless red herring.
Well - every profile we filled out asked for the HS weighting.
But yes, some schools had you fill in a profile - a repeat of transcript - and would ask if it’s regular, honors, DE, or AP - and they weighted how they wanted.
But ‘most’ and she applied to 21 asked for the schools.
I believe the scale I gave is the most commonly used. Again, I get each school may have their own way. UCs have one way. AZ doesn’t use all classes, etc. But the method I provided appears to be most common and is an easy way to somewhat measure rigor in conversation.
You can tell a 3.5 and 3.6 won’t have much whereas a 3.9 and 4.6 will, etc.
He’s going to be asked - so he should be prepared.