I am a senior in high school.I have a 26 ACT, and I am taking it one more time to try and bring it up. My unweighted GPA is 3.3571 and my weighted is 3.5. My GPA is going to rise after this semester that ends in three weeks because I have a 4.0 right now for this semester. I have taken 1 IB class and 5 AP classes.
I am wanting to major in journalism
My essay was a vulnerable moment in my life. I used a lot of imagery and it showed my creative writing skills.
My extracurriculars:
-Editor-in-chief of my school’s newspaper for two years. Created my school’s online newspaper
-Have been on yearbook staff for four years
-President of my school’s club UNICEF
-Model UN member
-Have tons of working experience
-Attends a local Baptist Church every week, I have been on one mission trip
-A member of a teen council for a huge art museum in my town. I attend a meeting every other week
-Have played piano for 5 years and had 30 minute lessons every week for those five years
-Hearts for Humane club member
-A few hours of volunteer experience at a cat rescue house
Can someone give me an idea on my chances to get into Pepperdine and Cal State Long Beach?
I think you have a good chance at both of those schools. Both have an acceptance rate of around 40% and you stand above national average. I think you should consider more schools like Rutgers, New Brunswick (58%) Purdue, West Lafayette (59%), Indiana University - Bloomington (78%). You could even try some christian colleges, BJU, Pensecola, Liberty, Hiles Anderson etc. if you really want to. You have pretty good extracurriculars, and maybe a B+ academic grade, which, as you mentioned, will go up.
PS. I had no idea going to church counts as an extracurricular.
haha I put that I go to church because Pepperdine is affiliated with Churches of Christ so just in case if it means anything to attend church
For Pepperdine, based on CDS:
Average Unweighted GPA last year was 3.59. ACT score 25th percentile was 25.
Both GPA and test scores are on the low end of their target acceptance range. You have very good EC’s. Pepperdine also considers Church involvement very important in their application review along with your essays which could help your chances.
Pepperdine is probably High Match.
CSULB admits by major and eligibility index (CSU GPA x200) + (ACT composite x10). Your EI calculates out to 938. CSULB will probably be a Match if local or High Match if non-local.
Are these the only 2 schools on your list? You definitely need to consider other schools since neither is a solid Match school. Not sure what kind of schools you are looking at but San Jose State, San Francisco State and Sac State have good journalism programs and are Match schools.
For Christian schools look at Cal Baptist, San Diego Christian or Azusa Pacific University.