My daughter is hoping to attend MN in Fall 2017 (Illinois resident). She has a 3.7 UW/4.46 W GPA. ACT: 26 (Superscore 28) she will retake the ACT in September. She is a member of National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society; Math Honor Society; English Honor Society; History Honor Society; Future Health Professionals of America; Student Council; Students Against Drunk Driving; 2 year Varsity Captain of her dance team; 4 year Varsity dancer; 7AP classes the rest are all honors classes; peer mentoring, athletic leadership council; over 100 volunteer hours at local hospital. Hoping to major in neuroscience.
Chances??
What college is she going to apply to? The U does not really look at extra-curricular activities, pretty much stats (class rank, ACT) driven. They do not super score.
Keep in mind that the U is raising OOS tuition significantly each year (order of 10 - 15%) starting with this year. UIUC may be cheaper depending on major and if your student gets merit aid.
Neuroscience is listed in the College of Biological Sciences which is one of the more selective admitting colleges at UMN. Perhaps there is another option through College of Liberal Arts but CBS would likely be her first choice of college if she wants to pursue this major. She should also peruse the list of majors under CLA and figure out what her Plan B is in case she’s not admitted to CBS. There are several science majors in CLA (BA track rather than BS), including Bio, Chem, Physics, and CS. Pursuing a degree through CLA would also enable her to double major (say, bio and psych) which, while not exactly the Neuroscience major, is going to emulate some of the same course of study.
It’s important to understand the stats so check out the following links. The OIR page will likely be updated later this summer for the most recent entering class.
http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html
http://www.oir.umn.edu/student/characteristics
Your D definitely should retake the ACT or consider the new SAT. The Priority Deadline has moved to Nov. 1st (used to be Dec. 15) so she should shoot for having everything sent by late October. The application is open now so she can actually begin completing it and send standardized test results later in the fall once she’s nailed a higher score. Be sure your D checks out all the requirements and deadlines here:
http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/admissioninfo/fresh.html
Good luck to her!
@Mamelot My S will be retaking the ACT in Sept. Are you saying he could apply now, submitting everything except test scores? Or are you saying he would start working on the app now but not submit anything until he receives test scores? Thank you for your help!
@uwalummom my D3 hasn’t begun to work on the application yet so I have no clue as to whether it’s the same as previous years or changed. However, in the past it was fine to submit the application (and pay the fee) as soon as complete even if that meant waiting till school was in session in Sept. to send transcripts or waiting till a fall ACT score is available. While the Priority Deadline is moved up quite a bit (6 weeks) so has the notification period. Once he submits his application he’ll be able to access the online Application Tracker to see the status of his application. He’ll need to log in with an ID number. If he doesn’t receive one within a week or so he can just call Admissions to get that information. They should be able to give that out once they have him in the system and can verify his identity on the phone. You should be able to call as well to get the info. for your son if he’s busy or unavailable.
In previous years UMN has released accepted decisions for strong applications even before the (old) Priority Deadline of Dec. 15. Not sure if that is going to happen this year. Hopefully someone will start a thread so we can all know when acceptances start happening.
Good luck to your son!
@Mamelot Thank you very much for your help! Good luck to your daughter as well!
@mamelot do you know how hard it is to transfer from the CLA to CBS after freshman year. Assume that the better than the college GPA requirement is met.