Hi,
I am an out of state applicant, incoming high school senior. USC is my dream school and I have done visits as well as contacted admissions counselors. My ACT is a 35 but my GPA, unfortunately, has suffered this year from mental health issues along with not getting on meds for my ADHD until this school year ended. I had a good mix of A’s and B’s my freshman and sophomore year (all honors and AP classes) but junior year (due to my personal stuff but with 3 AP classes) dropped to mostly B’s and C’s. Will be a 3.5 weighted and 2.9 unweighted, not accounting for senior year which I hope they will at least see an upward trend then. Taking mostly AP/honors senior year and hoping to get straight A’s. I will explain my issues with GPA in my application.
Ideally, I want to do something in pediatrics but undecided for my major as of right now.
ECs:
10-week internship at children’s hospital this summer
Special Needs Athletic Program (club)
Medical Science Club (I started a big fundraiser for the children’s hospital as a part of it)
Long term job
Leader for three different programs for freshmen in my school, as well as a leadership role in our school’s pre-K program all four years of high school
I also am planning on retaking my two classes which I got the lowest grades in online this summer.
With a good essay and recommendations, is there a shot for me?
EDIT: If USC is a no-go, what would be my chances for U of I, IU, ASU, SDSU, Clemson, UCLA, Miami Ohio, Syracuse? Thanks!
USC is a private university, so everyone pays the same amount. Your competition would be rough, but you can explain the dip in your grades with the essay for USC.
For UCLA and SDSU, you need to calculate your UC/CSU GPA which uses only 10-11th grades in the a-g course requirements. As on OOS applicant only AP/IB and UC transferable college courses get the extra honors points in the calculation.
Here is the Calculator and please post your UC Capped weighted= CSU Capped weighted along with the fully weighted UC GPA. The UC capped weighted needs to be 3.4 or higher to even apply to any California UC. For UCLA, a target UC capped weighted is 4.23.
SDSU admits by eligibility index and major. So a target EI is 4300 for the SAT. With your ACT and converting into an SAT score, you would want a CSU/UC capped weighted GPA of 3.4 for a solid chance at SDSU.
ASU looks like a solid option.
UC’s and CSU’s do not consider Senior year grades in the admissions review but will consider your HS course rigor.
In terms of getting “Chanced” for USC, it is virtually impossible for others to predict what may or may not occur in your specific case. With an admit rate now below 13% and falling, and with 4K+ applicants with 4.0 unweighted GPAs and test scores in the 99th percentile among those not gaining admission, your success will instead likely depend on too many potential factors for anyone to correctly evaluate… making predicting admission nearly impossible.
Instead… it will likely come down to a composite and holistic analysis of your stats coupled with writing ability / essays, ECs, potential leadership roles, potential other unique qualifiers (URM, First Gen, geography, demographics, etc.), your Why USC? explanation/reasoning, etc.
I suggest possibly reading an excellent thread on the topic from the beginning…