<p>I just decided to apply today but the school has been in the back of my mind for a while</p>
<p>OOS (CT)
GPA: UW 2.97 through junior year
SATs: M 760, R 600, W 620
Recs: very good, 2 teacher recs as well as guidance rec
ECs: 4 years xc, varsity 3 and captain senior year, 2 yrs indoor and outdoor track, Editor in chief of school newspaper, class vp, attended boys state, life scout</p>
<p>Overall, I've taken a mix of level 1 and honors classes. Senior year I made high honors first quarter and still have very good grades for the semester. I want to go for Mechanical Engineering if that makes any difference</p>
<p>The Engineering School has the highest stats of any at UMass. Your SAT of 1360 is right at the 50th percentile, your GPA is probably around 3.3-3.4 weighted, which puts you right at the average.</p>
<p>So I think your chances are decent. Being OOS may help because UMass is trying to increase the number of OOS students.</p>
<p>I actually think that the GPA is low for UMASS engineering. I was told that the average for that school was close to 3.6 - in fact I think it is on their website (engineering). I can’t remember the SAT’s but mine were 1340 and I thought those were on the high end - not the mid-50th. I spoke to someone in admissions for engineering SAT scores and they said they wanted to see at least a 550 in CR and a 650 in M for engineering - so that’s about a 1200. I also seem to remember them saying the avg for engineering was more like a 1300 (this was on the campus tour last March). Where are you getting your information?</p>
<p>Well, the UMass engineering web site says “The Class of 2009 entered with a collective 3.6 high school GPA and an average combined SAT score of 1250.” so you might be right about the GPA, depending on what the percentage of honors classes are.</p>
<p>But I remember them telling us a higher number than 1250 for the test scores at the Accepted Students Day, although it’s entirely possible I’m misremembering.</p>
<p>If the average is 1250 (or even 1300) then he is looking pretty good test-score wise. If his math/science subject grades are higher than his overall GPA, I would think his chances are very good.</p>
<p>My S is in the Chemical Engineering program. So far he is having a great time there, but it has only been one semester.</p>
<p>The ChemE department is very highly regarded according to people I’ve talked to in the industry. It gets overshadowed by the big guns in MA, but it is supposed to be pretty good.</p>
<p>My math grades are all As and Bs, so thats no problem. As far as science goes, my gpa is on par with both general sci and bio (freshman and sohpomore year) but I had an A- in chemistry and I’m borderline B+/A- in physics this year, so those are definately higher.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. This was kind of a spur-of-the moment decision to apply, but the more I see about the school the more appealing it becomes.</p>
<p>We forced my S to apply as a safety (in-state for us), and he wasn’t excited at all. The Accepted Student Day really turned him around on the school, though. And we have run into literally dozens of alumni/ae, and every single one said “It’s an awesome school, I had a great time there”.</p>
<p>It’s not the most picturesque campus in the world, but Amherst is a great little town. My kid really likes it.</p>
<p>I see you also applied to Penn State, one of my S’s classmates went there and loves it. Darn long drive from here though.</p>
<p>I’ve got one other question. I submitted my application using commonapp.org on the 15th, and while I recieved the confirmation e-mails from commonapp, I have yet to recieve any sort of communication from umass. I’m a little nervous as I applied last minute and am hoping everything got in on time. How long will it be before I recieve any sort of confirmation from them?</p>