Chance me for Northwestern, Michigan, UCLA, and more

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey, everyone. I'll be a senior next year and I'd like your opinions on how I'm looking. I'm male, from Missouri (attend a highly ranked public school), and nervous/excited for the college application process!</p>

<p>Please Chance me for:
Northwestern - planning to apply ED to Medill
Michigan - probably will apply to Ross, but I'm not sure if it will diminish my chances of getting into the actual university (would someone mind explaining this to me?)
UCLA
Virginia
USC
Notre Dame
Boston University
Brown
Harvard - my dad went to Business School here</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA: 4.0 (out of 4.0)
Weighted GPA: 4.125
Class Rank: 7/383 (top 2%)</p>

<p>Explanation of my grades:
My school does not offer many APs so I have taken only three so far. I am taking five next year, though, for a total of eight. Just for comparative purposes the valedictorian of our class of '13 took 11 AP classes. Also, my school does not offer honors classes, but at every opportunity I have taken the "accelerated" or "challenge" version of the class. These classes are more difficult; however, they are not weighted.</p>

<p>ACT: 32 (E34 M35 R32 S25)
Have yet to take SAT IIs (not sure if I will/need to?)</p>

<p>Extra Curriculars:
- President of the broadcast program at my school at my school. I am very active in broadcast and traveled to LA with the program for a national convention. I haven't won any major awards yet, but I placed well at the convention and most likely will pick up some hardware my senior year. Also, our program's daily show (which I am a part of) has won national awards.
- Director of Transition for the Freshmen Mentoring Program. Basically got this position because of my broadcasting. I run/MC all the assemblies for the program and make videos for it.
- Play hockey competitively year round
- Junior Exec
- will be in Senior Exec
- NHS
- roughly 50 hours or community service through NHS and FMP (will be about 100 next year)
- academic letters every year
- varsity letter in XC Freshman year (had to quit due to knee injuries)
- played on the freshman baseball team (quit before the Sophomore season because I got on a competitive Summer hockey team)</p>

<p>Northwestern, Michigan, and UCLA are my top choices. I'm applying to Harvard and Brown, but I'm not looking at them too seriously at those schools so I'd like to hear your guys' opinions on my entire list (I know chance threads sometimes turn into arguments about only the Ivy League schools, haha). </p>

<p>Also, if you guys could rank me on a scale of 1-10 (1 meaning basically no chance and 10 meaning I'm in for sure) that would be super. The high match/low match stuff confuses me a tad. Thanks in advance for the responses!</p>

2

<p>UMich: match for LSA but high match to low reach for Ross.
Northwestern: Low reach
UCLA: High match
USC: High match
ND: High match
BU: Low reach
Brown: Reach
Harvard: Reach</p>

<p>Note that your ACT Science score is rather low that may hurt your chance.</p>

3

<p>Ok thanks. And if I’m looking to major in non-science related fields, would colleges not care quite as much about the low science score?</p>

4

<p>I agree with billcsho on matches/reaches. Most colleges tend to focus more on the other sections of the ACT. However, your science score can easily be raised. I had a 25 in February and raised it to a 32 just by taking a few practice tests and developing a strategy (ex. do sections with 5 questions first, 6 questions next, 7 question section last. Just make sure you also skip around on your answer sheet. :slight_smile: ) Try to take a few science practice tests over the summer and sign up for another ACT if you can. Since you’re not majoring in science a 25 wouldn’t absolutely kill your chances, but raising it would help a lot. Good luck!</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the advice, bookworm! Unfortunately for me I have taken the ACT three times now and no matter what I try can’t seem to raise my science. Through study my other sections have gone up, but my science has stayed around the mid to upper 20s. I think for that reason I’m done taking the ACT because I don’t really think I’d be able to raise my score, plus I’m perfectly happy with a 32.</p>

6

<p>Bump. Sorry, I’d just like to hear some more opinions.</p>

7

<p>The science section in ACT is more about reasoning and interpretation. Although it is usually not weighed as heavy as other sections, a low score in any section does not look good in your application. Just like those top schools that consider mainly CR+M, you still don’t want to get a writing score in the low 600s or below. For Ivy calibers, you’d better to have all ACT sections above 30. For other top schools like UMich, you still want all sections above 27-28 (mid 50 for composite is 29-33) for a better chance.</p>

8

<p>Northwestern-reach
Michigan-match
UCLA-high match
Virginia-high match/low reach
USC-high match
Notre Dame-high match/low reach
Boston University-low match
Brown-reach
Harvard-reach</p>

9

<p>Ok thanks, everybody. And how are my ECs looking? Does the broadcast stuff look pretty good for Medill?</p>