<p>Asian Male
GPA: 3.9uw 4.7w
Rank: top 2%, class of 700.
Courses: 8 AP classes, 1 Self-study, rest honors/required
SAT: 1990 (610cr,700m,680w)
SATII: 800m iic, 730 chem
ECs: 3 Clubs - all 4 years - officer position in each + piano + 2 years club
Club awards regional/state level
CS: 4 years - same place - 400 hours+
Awards: AP scholar w/ distinction, competitions, school awards, presidential service award etc.</p>
<p>Everything but your test scores are good. That will cost you seriously if you don’t get it up. If your test scores were as good as your GPA, I would have said you were a good match. However, with those test scores, you are unfortunately reaching. Admissions of NU is very competitive so if you have weak spots it will likely cost you a chance at getting in. Your ACT is going to have to be at around a 32 for you to be a match, anything below that and you are a reach because I believe NU’s 50 percentile for ACT is 32.8 and that includes athletes so realistically, the average is probably over 33.</p>
<p>Absolutely but think of it this way. Applicants are evaluated with 100 being the highest score and the top 20 percentile get admitted. Each category, GPA, test scores, ECs, etc. are all weighted based on importance and given a score depending on how good it is. Now most likely the most important will be GPA, followed by test scores, then recs, essays, etc. I would estimate that GPA and test scores would make up 60-70% on the evaluation. We’ll just say that GPA is 35% of the evaluation and test scores are 30%. Now, let’s just say you score well on everything except for test scores. So you get a 32 out of 35 on GPA, a 9 out of 10 on recs, a 9 out of 10 on ECs and then a 12 out of 15 on everything else, which is each individually divided into separate categories but combined here for simplicity, except you get a 15 out of 30 for the test scores. So you get a score of 77. Let’s say another applicant isn’t quite as good as you got everything except for test scores. He only scores a 28 out of 35 on GPA, 8 out of 10 on recs, 8 out of 10 on ECs and 10 out of 15 on everything else, but he has a 27 out of 30 on test scores. He gets a score of 81. See the problem here? You have a lower score despite being better than the other applicant in every single category except for test scores and he is regarded as stronger than you. Test scores take up so much weight in an evaluation that being really bad there hurts you so much that it might not be possible to make it up. I mean this system did evaluate you overall right? Everything was included. Of course what I used in this example isn’t what NU uses and I have no clue how much weight they actually assign to each category but I’m just trying to show you how much having an extremely weak category hurts you. Especially at ultra-competitive universities like NU. That’s why it’s critical for you to get everything strong so you score higher than your competition and get admitted.</p>
<p>Thanks for the analysis anthony, I see what you mean
I just pray my act score can come out okay, although I haven’t done much to prep…
Anyone else?
I guess what I am trying to stress in my application is consistency and persistence with EC’s and GPA.</p>
<p>I think you are a very competitive candidate. NU has a very high ED acceptance rate, and your stats are phenominal. I say high match, low reach.</p>
<p>I am taking the Oct 22nd ACT (2 days T.T) and the scores will be sent. I will cancel if I dont feel good about them. I’m a really bad test taker so I dont know… :P</p>
