<p>I'm an African-American rising senior with first gen status. I also reside in Virginia. I have also had a big academic turn around in my high school career.
Grades:
I went from being a confused freshman with a 2.75 gpa to averaging a 3.5 gpa sophomore and junior years in the most rigorous AP and honors courses available at my school. So due to my horrible freshman year I accumulated a 3.2 cumulative GPA for all three years. If you count my senior year first semester it will rise to a 3.3. My school does not rank and weighs very little( only honors not AP, and only gives a .5)yet I've still taken mostly rigorous classes. After freshman year had only one C in AP Macroeconomics.
EC's:
As for extracurriculars, I've played freshman and JV basketball and co-captained both. I'm running varsity track and field this winter and spring seasons, and I am the president of my school's Future Business Leaders of America. I am a member of the science honor society and I volunteer teaching 1st grade students at a local church every week. Junior and Senior Math Teams. National Business Honor Society. Have played travel basketball and soccer during high school.
Test Scores:SAT I 2140 Math 730 Critical Reading 700 Writing 710
I'm taking SAT II's in October.</p>
<p>Just visited UVA today and it was an AMAZING place! I want to go SOO bad! Can I get in? What can I do to improve my chances? What other schools should I look at? Thanks</p>
<p>100% in. High SAT's, URM, In-State, Varsity Athletics, Rigorous Course Load, First-Gen, Leadership Roles, GPA Turnaround, etc. Good Luck at UVa.</p>
<p>I would normally agree with jtm's statement that a low freshman GPA could be mitigated by much higher grades afterwards (esp. considering URM status, which is substantial at UVA), but honestly 3.5 is also considered to be a low GPA for enterance into UVA. I personally know a few individuals who had GPAs in that range and SATs around or above 1500 (2 sections) who were rejected from the University. </p>
<p>This is, of course, not to say that you have no shot of getting in. If you really want to go to UVA, by all means you should definitely apply without reservation. That being said, don't be under the impression that you are a lock for admission as a previous poster said, as UVA puts the most emphasis on high school grades and records in the application process (from what I have gathered, this is definitely true). A low GPA would almost always put UVA as a reach for a high school student.</p>
<p>3.5 isn't that low for IS; but the school (looking statistically at CC stats profiles) seems to prefer high grades and low test scores rather than the other way round. But rigour is the most important... have you thought about dual-enrolling?</p>
<p>In Nova those stats including the SAT would not get you in. The minimum GPA with your corresponding SAT's that was admitted from the Naviance Scattergram I checked was 3.7. But remember that is NOVA, but includes many URM's The average GPA for this year admits is 3.98 for UVA and the average SAT is 2063.</p>
<p>A 3.5 is still low for in-state. I definitely second the stats in question would not get you into UVA from NOVA, but also it would be hard from Richmond and Tidewater Virginia. Maybe SW VA...</p>
<p>I just spoke with admissions person at U.Va about when my d should send in her application. I want them to see her fall semester senior year grades.
They get 1,000 applications from now until December, then 15,000 applications from December until the January deadline. </p>
<p>Anyway, having heard the rumors, I asked the lady did it matter what part of the state you were applying from? She said last year that out of the 66% accepted in-state, 50% came from NORTHERN VIRGINIA. She said they ignore where a student is from and just look at his stats, etc. She also noted that Northern VA has a very dense population, so it made sense that more came from that part of the state. But they only go by what a student presents to them, they don't care a whit what part of the state he is from.<br>
That idea that locale in VA matters in admissions is a myth.</p>
<p>Funny...I have spoken to people in admissions who also said that they do not ration out spaces according to specific location. What UVA is trying to do, which I think is admirable, is to make the effort to draw in as many qualified low income kids as possible. In the past many years that I have lived in charlottesville, the university has become a more diverse place, which benefits everyone.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The average GPA for this year admits is 3.98 for UVA and the average SAT is 2063.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Average is 3.98 weighted? While I do not doubt that a significant portion of the student population have 4.0's, it also suggests a really really small standard deviation, small even for top schools; it implies those admitted with 3.7s and 3.8s (which are reasonable grades if you come from really competitive schools) must be a small percentage, something that I doubt.</p>
<p>Okay, time to load those bloody pdf's and take a look at the stats...</p>
<p>My county FFx in VA shows that a person with a 3.7 and something approaching a 2200 SAT is really on the bubble. Using actual data from this years applicant pool in Fairfax, not statewide, that GPA/SAT combo. There were six applicants with a 3.7 and SAT scores ranging from 1850 to 2260. Of the six applicants two were denied, three were waitlisted and one got in. Surprisingly the 3.7 / 2260 was waitlisted while a person with a lower score but same GPA was the one admitted.</p>
<p>Obviously there is a lot more to holistic admissions than the numbers, but generally speaking all of the admitted applicants are running right along the 4.0 line on the grid.</p>
<p>My school in Loudoun Co. Virginia (right next to fairfax) sends 5-10 kids out of classes of about 310 to UVA each year. The avg. weighted GPA is 4.09 and the average SAT is 1855. Basically, everyone who has taken hard classes and is in the top 5% gets in. Any GPA below 3.7 is probably too low, as the University cares more about GPA than any single other factor in the admissions process.</p>
<p>I assume you mean 3.7 unweighted, right? Every student I know who got into UVA from my school was a straight A or close to straight A student (4.5 weighted, 3.9 unweighted types).</p>
<p>An average SAT of 1855 seems extremely low for a group of students accepted to UVA. Every non-URM student I know admitted to UVA had an SAT in the high 2100s, 2200s or above. The overall average (two section) SAT of UVA last year was between a 1280 and a 1490 and, assuming slightly higher stats, 25 percent of UVA students scored above a 1500 (old scale) on the SAT.</p>
<p>Whether that 3.98 figure is weighted or unweighted makes a huge difference. I have no personal experience with weighted grades, and weighted grades tend to be overinflated anyway. I definitely see how 3.7 weighted is on the bubble, but if the school practices grade deflation a 3.7 UW student may be fair game. </p>
<p>As an OOS student I came out of HS with an A-minus average and an unweighted rank of 18/220 (take out the students who aren't going to four-year schools and you get 18/110); half of this be attributed to misprioritisation, disorganisation (I lost my chemistry lab book one year, resulting in a really bad fourth quarter grade) poor time management and half of which can be attributed to the fact that I was a year ahead of even the AP-student cohort in courses, such that the majority of my energy in my senior year was allocated towards my dual-enrollment courses. I have no idea what a 94% average translates to if 93% is the minimum for an A, but when evaluating a 3.7 UW, course rigour (maybe taken with respect to rank) seems more pertinent than the number itself. Despite being rank 18/110 (after discounting poorly-performing, vocational and community college students), I was a level ahead of my valedictorian in most of my courses, for example (I was taking linear algebra at a local university while my val was still in first-year calculus). So I really think looking at the whole transcript, rather than merely the GPA, is really important.</p>
<p>It is true that different school districts handle grading differently which is why I pointed out that I was providing Fairfax County grades. They are known to be tough tough graders in a rigorous environment No weight for any GT or honors and the minimum for an A is 94. </p>
<p>I really can't say if the scattergrams of the applicants I mentioned are weighted or not. It would depend on the courses they took. Whether or not it is weighted a 3.7 from our county regardless of rigor will not be enough by itself to create a winning application. </p>
<p>There are just too many high end students (including first generation, urms, and underpriveledged folks) for a 3.7 to be competitive.</p>