Chance Me? USC, Columbia, Fordham, NU and NYU etc.

Hey! I’m a HS Junior and I wanted to get a couple of other people’s perspective of my chances of getting into the colleges I’m applying to USC (dream school), Columbia, Fordham, NU, NYU, UCLA, and Carnegie Mellon. (plus a couple safety schools that I won’t trouble you with) I am probably going to apply to these all RegDecison, plus some safety schools i won’t trouble you with.

I am a black female living in NY and want to Study Computer Science in college, maybe with a double major or minor in Animation, Digital Art, Game Development or Interactive Media, depending on the school I go to/get accepted to.
GPA and Grades

  • My school uses a 100 point scale and I have a 93, but with my grades this year I expect the grade to grow up. My guidance counselor told me my GPA on a 4point scale is a 3.7 ish but Ive seen so many different conversion charts online I’m not 100% sure. And weighted GPA I’m not sure either.

AP Classes and Scores

  • By the end of HS I am going to take 10 AP/college classes and possibly 4 AP exams (already took AP Euro, received a 2).
    (AP Euro, CollegeFrench1, AP Lit, APUSH, College presentational Speaking, CollegeFrench2, AP Lang, AP Gov+Economics, Precalc, AP Physics.)

EC and Interests

  • Some extracurriculars I take, and plan to take next year as well, are Student Council (secretary junior year), Prom Committee, NHS since 10th grade, French Club since 10th, Interact Club 11th and 12th, and Mathletes 11th and 12th. Senior year I hope to be an officer of French Honor Society, NHS and either VP or Board of Ed Rep on Student council. I’ve played volleyball for 6 years and for 4 of them I’ve played on Varsity and have been a starter. Not many activities outside of school but I’ve been trying to get better at art and traditional drawing in case I decide to apply for an animation program. I love animation, drawing and video games and would love to be able to study that in college. Going to join Business club and art club next year, but don’t weigh that in too much.

Class Rank

  • My class rank is 34 out of 160ish, hopefully will go up by senior year

SAT/Scores

  • have yet to take SAT (2 more weeks!!) But i have been studying since December and took some college board practice tests that have averaged to a 1330 score. Will also take Math 1 subject tests afterward and some more, haven’t decided yet.

Employment

  • haven’t had any noteworthy employment, but this summer I will be doing a business week pre-college program and also planning to get a summer job on my town’s park services.

Awards

  • as awards go I’ve just gotten standard school awards in Algebra 1 and Algebra 2, and also being a student-athlete scholar for having over a 90 average during the season.

Recommendations and Letters

  • I’m going to have my guidance counselor write me a recommendation, as well as my Algebra1/2 teacher and my French teacher, possibly my AP Lit teacher as well. No clue about my essay but I have two prepped because we had to write two for my English class to have for backups, but I know I’m going to write a better one.

To get into nyu or usc you need like a 1460 or 33 to get in. Purely based on standardized tests, those will be tough. Bring that 1310 up about 150 points and you will have a chance.

With a 1330, you’re going to be in hot water. Columbia will be pretty much out of reach and USC/NYU/NU/CMU will be high reaches. AA will not carry you with a test score this low. Your ECs seem to be just scattered everywhere. Do you have leadership roles in them currently?

I think Fordham is a definite match, with a 1330.
If you have a 3.7/4, that’s not too bad at all.

Similar to what @beepybeetle said, just being in clubs is useless.
It’s better to be in just one or two and actually show interest in it instead of just trying to hold a position.

If you want to major in computer science or digital art/animation, you need to start pursuing activities and clubs that are specific to that field. Have you joined the Computer science or Coding club at your school? If there isn’t one, can you start a club related to the field you intend to study? While being in french club/interact/other things isn’t bad, you should accompany these things with major specific ec’s. I think you’re fine for Fordham, but for those other schools, CS is going to be a competitive major to get into and you’re going to be competing with kids who have done stuff like make their own apps, so just be aware of that