<p>OK. Im a Junior at a small private school in Georgia. My stats are as follows:
SAT MATH: 670
SAT CR: 670
SAT WR: 620
SAT TOTAL: 1960 ( i will take once more with hopes to break 2k. I also plan to take SAT2s in LIT, US, and LATIN and make around 700 on each... maybe less)
UW GPA: 4.0
AP: EURO, US, LIT, LANG, GOV, CALC (all other classes honors)(I also have 4 years of latin)
RANK: school doesn't rank.... I guess Im in the top 15%/10% or so..idk
EC: 2 years of baseball, sing in: Chorus, Boys Quartet, and First Presbyterian Youth Ensemble, play guitar, piano, harmonica, started and lead a band that does the worship service in chapel once a week for 300 students and faculty, NHS, lead the activities committee of environmental club, on the leadership team at my youth group very involved with church, scattered volunteering including tutoring, nursing home visits, and manual labor, summer job for three years, probably going to either Boston College or Emory to take classes this summer, and probably going to boys state.</p>
<p>So i know my test scores are weak, but what are the odds if I apply to all these schools, write amazing essays, and bring my board scores into the 2000-2100 range that I might get lucky with one or two?</p>
<p>Boston College
Cornell
NYU
Vandy
Emory
Duke
Columbia
Tufts
Georgetown
UNC
UVA
William and Mary
Notre Dame
U Chicago
Wake Forest
Tulane</p>
<p>Sorry the list is so long I just gotta know.....</p>
<p>BC is high match
Cornell reach
NYu match
Duke high reach
Columbia high reach, probably impossible
Tufts reach
Georgetown match
UNC no chance out of state
UVA match
Notre Dame very high match or low reach
Chicago reach
Wake match I think
Tulane you’re in</p>
<p>I’m applying to a lot of the same colleges, but I don’t think I would be able to chance you properly for any of them other than UNC.
I’m from North Carolina, and A LOT of kids that are significantly less qualified than you are accepted solely because they are in state students. However, I have a friend who lives in South Carolina, who got in with an 1800 and D’s and C’s on her record (however, she did live in NC for 9th through 11th grade and took some IB’s and APs). I attended a summer program at UNC Chapel Hill called Project Uplift, and we went through EXTREMELY lengthy admissions sessions about how to get into their school. One thing Chapel Hill really likes is a rigorous curriculum. The want to see that you have exhausted your schools courses. They also like involvement in a particular/a select few ECs, rather than being involved in a hundred thousand extra curriculars. Leadership in these extra-currics is an important factor for them as well!
They also told us that they spend only SIX MINUTES reading each application. Make sure your introduction to your essay is something that will grab the readers attention. You don’t want to lose them, because they admitted that if they get bored in the first paragraph, that they will put down the essay and move on to the applicant’s statistics.
Also, don’t go crazy with recommendations. UNC says two is fine. They said they once received an application with 75+ recommendations and the student didn’t even get in.
Good luck!</p>
<p>I am not sure how you can think your class rank would be anything less than top 5% if you have never gotten anything less than an A (4.0 UW is what you said). So that mystifies me a bit. Otherwise, it is true that while in the big picture your SAT score is very good, for the schools you want it is hurting you. I tend to agree with the assessment already given by neilpharris, except for Georgetown. You are at the lower end of their 25-75% SAT range, although you are within it. I would call it more of a small reach, but doesn’t really matter what we call it. Just so you know where you are in their general range. ALso, I am not sure how much being OOS matters for UVA. I know UNC has to take like 82% instate, just don’t know about UVA.</p>