Chance me please!

<p>Hi, I'm OOS white female from Connecticut and am going to be a senior this upcoming year. Applying for fall 2013 year. Please chance me?
GPA: 3.87 unweighted
all A's & B's, multiple honors classes and 2 APs senior year
SAT: 1640
math-490
reading-560
writing-590
I know my SAT is kind of low, but I plan on taking the SAT 1 or 2 more times, aiming to get at least a 1700. I know I definitely have to get my math score up.
Extra-curriculars:
National Honors Society
4 years of softball--2 varsity letters for softball
2 years of winter track
Multiple community service clubs, such as Habitat for Humanity, LINK club, Me to We club (30+ hours each year)
Relay for Life
EIF Revlon Walk/Run for Cancer
Dance-outside of school
Tennis-outside of school
Travel softball over the summer
Camp counselor for 2 years
etc.</p>

<p>Do you have a particular major in mind? Some majors are much more competitive for admission than others.</p>

<p>Have you considered taking the ACT? Since it’s a different sort of test, some people do better on it than on the SAT.</p>

<p>I agree with booklady. You should really consider trying the ACT once or twice. My D only got about a 1790 on the SAT but her ACT score was the equal to a 2100. We never even sent her SAT scores in to any school and she was accepted everywhere she applied.</p>

<p>Taking the ACT would be a good idea. UD is continuing to become increasingly competitive for admission. They had nearly 27,000 applications this year and ended up with a freshman class of 3,855 (from an estimated 10-12K of applicants accepted). UD puts a primary emphasis for admission on rigor of HS courses (honors/AP etc. preferred), grades in these advanced courses, GPA and GPA trends, and class rank. Also VIP is rigor of classes during a student’s Sr. year of HS. Take 5 courses both semesters in major subject areas (with as many honors/AP classes as possible) and do as welll as possible in them. Have your first semester grades sent to UD as soon as they are available. UD takes a dim view of Srs who try to “coast” their Sr year. In line with these comments your school stats look very good to me and IMO would place you in a position to be at least competitive for admission. Improving your SAT scores (or higher scores in the ACT) would certainly improve your chances. Certain majors at UD (i.e. Nursing , Chemical Engineering, and a few others) are extremely competitive for admission and IMO you probably would have some problems being accepted into these majors without higher SAT/ACT scores. Being from Connecticut might be a factor in your favor. Some people feel scheduling and going for an interview (not required) also might increase an applicant’s chance for admission (but this is debatable), but certainly it can’t hurt. Best wishes to you.</p>

<p>Thank you for all of your input! I would most likely go in undecided (or as they call it, university studies-undeclared). I have taken the ACT but I got a 23 on it…would it be worth it to retake it? This is my #1 school, so hopefully I can improve my test scores and have a higher chance of getting in!</p>

<p>I think you should make sure you have some other options that you can live with.</p>

<p>Unfortunately (or fortunately), UD is becoming much more selective and you seem a little far off from the acceptable range.</p>

<p>I would recommend taking a Prep Course and taking both the SAt and ACT again. If you can increase your ACT score to at least 25 and increase your math/reading SAT scores to above 1100 combined IMO this would, in combination with your excellent HS stats, significantly improve your chances of admission. Write a dynamite essay and work your tail off to get the best grades possible the first semester of your Sr. year. UD likes to see students challenge themselves in HS. This indicates to them that such students are then also more likely to continue this scholastic pattern in college, and are best prepared to handle the rigorous courses at UD. Unfortunately OOS applicants won’t find out about UD admission decisions until next March, so it certainly would be most prudent to have a back-up plan available, just in case. IMO from the excellent stats/ECs you have that you would be a fine addition to the UD family. Best wishes to you.</p>

<p>XGMF,
I think you have received a lot of good advice here. Mwallenmd, has a lot of experience.
I do think that visiting the school and having an interview are very important for students on the cusp. Besides demonstrating interest, it gives you the opportunity to connect with the admissions rep who will read your application. We found that this really helped my D. She only had a 25 ACT and a 3.4 GPA. The connection she mad with ad. com, took her from a long shot, to an admit. Don’t give up, take both tests again, work hard, write inspired essays, and visit the school. Good Luck, and I hope your dreams come true…</p>

<p>Zoosermom: Obviously I have other schools and plenty of other options that I can “live with”.
socaldad42 & Mwallenmd: Thanks for all of your help!</p>

<p>

You might be surprised at how many people don’t.</p>

<p>I live in an area which, like yours, has a lot of applicants to UD. Unfortunately, I’ve seen some very disappointed people in the last two years. I also think you would be a great addition to the UD community, but it would be a shame to see you disappointed.</p>

<p>Hi. Sorry if this is disorganized and long. I think you’ve got your answer but I just want to reiterate because I don’t know about the other people who posted, but I’m a recent graduate from a Delaware high school (Delaware native, too) and 23 out of the 55 girls in my graduating class chose to go to UD. I don’t know exactly how many applied to UD, but I can tell you right now that all of them were accepted and treated UD as a safety. Among other reasons, these girls were accepted because of the in-state idea. I know for a fact you have the GPA to get in but being out-of-state makes it tougher for you. Let’s say your story was exactly the same but you lived in Delaware. You’d be accepted. If you see on a website that UD students had an approximate GPA of 3.75 (I don’t know what the actual number is), that changes significantly for all the kids from Delaware - the number goes down.
My advice to you is to keep your grades up and keep working with your activities because you need to compete with all the in-state kids. Of course, I know some people who weren’t accepted to UD so I don’t mean to say you have no chance against these people. They just have a huge advantage over you already. The good thing is, you’re doing pretty well competing with them and your SAT scores aren’t dreadful. Colleges understand that you have good grades and that test was four hours of one day in your whole life. Your grades are more important than your SAT scores. But I do agree with the person who said you could try the ACT. I myself did significantly better on the ACT than on the SAT.
Finally, your major is a factor into whether you’ll be admitted or not. I believe the Nursing program (among others) is highly competitive.
I think you have a pretty good chance, just keep all of this in mind and work hard.
Good luck to you!</p>

<p>Delphic,
you hit the nail on the head. UD take Delaware students “first”. Being in state there is a 90% acceptance rate. Being out of state it’s more like a 45% acceptance rate. My d came from a highly academic high school. ( 3 harvard, 2 princeton and 5 Yale acceptances) just to give you an idea of how crazy the academics are. About 65 kids applied and only about 25 got in to UD this year. The majority of the ones I know are solid students, athletes, and community involved. For the out of state students there has to be a line drawn somewhere and that bar is raised every year.</p>

<p>I certainly agree with the last two posters. UD, similar to all Flagship State Universities, certainly gives preferences to Delaware Residents. The thing that is unique about UD, as compared to the other Flagship State Universities, is that the majority of students at UD(nearly 2/3rds) are from OOS. This gives UD more of a flare of being a private univeristy as compared to a public university. While it is true that a majority of the OOS students come from NJ, PA, MD, NY, IMO it still feels different than if 2/3rds (or more) of the students came from Delaware. Among many other things I feel that this is one thing that makes UD attractive to OOS applicants, resulting in increasing applications; and therefore increased competition for admission. The stats UD lists on its website are obviously those of all students combined, both in-state and OOS. It would be my “guess” that OOS applicants should add about 50-75 points to the SAT scores and 2-3 points to the ACT score to get a more accurate reflection of the competition they face as OOS applicants. However, as I stated previously, UD still puts a greater emphasis on rigor of HS courses, grades in advanced courses (AP/Honors etc.), GPA and GPA trends, and class rank in making admission decisions. Competition as well has continued to escalate as UD’s academic ranking continues to rise (They had a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry in 2011). Best wishes to all applicants.</p>

<p>hi! your ECs are very good as well as your GPA but your SAT needs to be higher or they may not accept you, again it is very hard to get in OOS. I’m saying this from experience, I applied this year Undeclared at was waitlisted with a 3.75 W GPA and 1740/1120 SAT. I’m also OOS. I hope this helps.</p>

<p>Thank you for all of your input! I will definitely work hard to get my SAT scores higher. I am also going to retake the ACT so hopefully I will get that score up.</p>

<p>I got in with a 1600 SAT composite score, some EC’s, a full schedule (three AP classes), and possibly had some killer essays. I also have a hispanic (but go figure, i get the blonde hair/blue eyes) background so that might have been the reason why I was accepted. Just prove youre a hard worker and you should be okay.
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