chance me pleasee for Marshall :D low gpa/high sat T__T

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>Hi I'm an Asian Indian female living in Delaware that goes to a not really competitive public high school and USC Marshall in my top 3 schools. I'd also consider going to LAS if I don't get into Marshall.</p>

<p>Stats:
GPA unweighted: 3.4/3.5 (i fell into a rut of being lazy T__T and i have a slight downward trend; my school doesn't weight AP classes at all, and I'm a senior now so I can't improve my gpa much but I'm trying)
Rank: 25.5% out of about 400 students (rank is calculated according to unweighted GPA and many students who don't take AP courses have higher GPAs. Some students take like 4 music classes like marching band and chorus and automatically get 100s in those classes, which boosts their gpa)
SAT: 2210 (I hardly studied at all. I'm going to retake and actually study and I'm expecting 2300+)
M: 760
CR: 750
W: 700 (missed only one MC question, but essay brought overall score down)
Subject Tests: haven't taken yet but am expecting 700+ in math 2, world history, and biology</p>

<p>ECs:
- Technology Student Association (member since 7th grade and have held 3 chapter-level leadership positions and 1 state officer position; recieved 20+ top 3 awards at state level and two top 3 awards at nationals)
- Academic Bowl (not very good, but have been participating since freshman year)
- Math League (member since 7th grade, been to state invitationals every year and have won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place at regionals in 3 different years)
- Science Olympiad (freshman, junior, and senior year)
- Tennis (freshman and sophomore year)
- IUSD Youth Committee (Indian US Society of Delaware; member since 8th grade, Secretary in junior year, President in senior year)
- Be Educated (raise money to help build libraries in poor areas of India, Pakistan, and Nepal; can get an excellent recommendation from member of board of directors; Home - Donate now - Donate</a> now - <a href="http://www.beeducated.org/htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.beeducated.org/htm</a>)
- volunteered in finance department of local hospital this summer (74 hours)</p>

<p>Hobbies:
- very passionate about dance (bollywood and kpop; minimal formal training but i perform for cultural charity events and cultural shows) there aren't any places for learning indian and hip hop dance where i live, so i teach myself. was thinking about writing one of my essay on that</p>

<p>APs that I've already taken: US history (didn't take the test), psychology (3), english language (3), micro econ (2), us gov (2), calculus (1)</p>

<p>I've been spiraling since sophomore year into a rut in which I never study and barely remember to homework. I didn't do well on the AP tests, even though I usually got good grades in the classes because I didn't study for exams. However, my junior year I got a 70 in AP Calc and this really brought me down. I've gotten my act together over the summer and am currently taking an extremely difficult courseload and plan on getting straight As so that hopefully it will show on my RD applications.</p>

<p>I plan on working relentlessly at my essays to make them perfect and my recs should be good if not great.</p>

<p>Also, would it look bad/suspicious if I didn't sent in my AP test scores? Do colleges use AP scores as a factor for admissions or is it just to determine which classes you can get credit for?</p>

<p>I want to major on the business/international relations/finance side. I would like to go to a top law school after undergraduate and do corporate law, but since that's 4 years away I want to go plan to do ibanking as a back-up in case I don't want to go to law school.</p>

<p>Oh yeah and my senior schedule is:
AP Biology
Chinese 2
AP Spanish
AP Physics
AP Literature
AP Statistics</p>

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<p>bumppp please helpppp</p>

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<p>You should be fine as far as your overall application is concerned. It’s competitive for Marshall but at least you have a strong point (your SAT) to supplement your weak point (GPA). In all honesty I think your AP scores are more hindering than your GPA. Don’t send/write in the calc score on your common app and possibly the other 2’s you got. Those subjects sort of correlate with business and the last thing you want to show is that you can’t even pass tests of classes correlating to your major. Other people will disagree with me and say to you that you should list them because they’ll know you at least tried, but I think it’s a bad idea. Psychologically, you don’t want to show too many low numbers on an app and most of my friends who I told not to report bad scores actually ended up getting into schools where their friends got rejected with similar stats but didn’t do score choice on SAT/ACT. It’s your pick though but I highly recommend not reporting it whether USC says it’s mandatory on the common app or not since there is 0 repercussion for not including them. Especially for somewhere like Marshall, you don’t want to show that you had trouble with higher mathematics since I know they take that into account at least somewhat (all business schools do). </p>

<p>You have some time to make up for low numbers though, study for the SAT2 and I really suggest you focus on 2 of them and get 750+ on Math2 (best idea) or anything that can broadcast your knowledge. You’ve proved you can reason and think well (high SAT1 score), now you have to show the adcoms you actually learned real material and information so try to get high scores on material testing such as SAT2s since your AP scores don’t really show that unfortunately. </p>

<p>Your ECs are fine and in good strength so keep doing what you are doing socially. Just make sure you show that in your essays you have learned from your mistake of being an adolescent teen who was “in a rut” to being a mature individual and that you are a different person than the kid who got a 70 in calculus. Hopefully you’ll get straight As and your midyear report to USC will prove that you meant what you said and they’ll be more than impressed with those grades in those courses. </p>

<p>Sparknotes version:
-Don’t send bad AP scores. It’ll make you look totally sub par for the major you want to get into.
-Take some SAT2s with high scores to supplement the fact that you’re not sending a lot of high AP scores. You want to show you learned information, not just that you can reason well on SAT1.
-Don’t worry about your GPA (it’s honestly not that bad, I know people with 3.0s that got in. USC isn’t a UC, they look at the whole application and person).
-Make sure to get straight As so you prove your point that you’re not lazy/“in a rut” anymore. </p>

<p>Good luck and hope to see you at UCLA. </p>

<p>Just kidding! Good luck on Marshall. :)</p>

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<p>Thanks! :D</p>

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<p>DancingD,</p>

<p>I’m afraid I’m going to be less optimistic than g0ld3N. </p>

<p>UWGPA 3.4 with a flat to downward trend
SAT 2210 (very good)
APs 5 to date (3) with below average scores and (2) at the average.
USC only requires SAT2 for home-schooled students
Numerous education based ECs</p>

<p>g0ld3N is right, 3.4 isn’t a horrible GPA, but it is a long term indicator. Your SATs say that you’re smart but your GPA raises questions about how hard you work over the long haul. I’m not sure that taking the SATs again helps your cause, another high score reinforces the perception of “smart under-achiever”. SAT2s aren’t required at USC. If you need them for another school you’re applying to and you get great scores then by all means send them to SC, but don’t look at them as something to cover-up a downward trend in GPA.</p>

<p>College is hard, harder than anything you’ve experienced in high school. Colleges also want their students to succeed; it does no one any good if you get to SC and fail because you “got lazy” again. I think USC is a reach for you; it’s not impossible but you’re asking SC to take a chance that you’re now going to apply yourself in the classroom. So the question you have to answer is a very simple one: Why should USC take a chance on you? You’re going to need an exceptional essay as well as recommendations that support the idea that you’ve changed as a student - that given the chance you will show everyone that you can indeed apply yourself and excel.</p>

<p>College admissions have become very competitive, with the switch to the CommonAp this year it’s reasonable to guess that the admit rate at SC will be somewhere around 20% or less. You need to show SC why they have to choose you over all your competition.</p>