I’m a high school student with a 3.7 (91) unweighted gpa and a 1570 on the SAT (780 English, 790 Math). My transcript has kind of been all over the place and my grades fluctuate 1-2 points from my overall gpa every semester. I know that a 3.7 isn’t bad, but it’s still a little below average in my school.
Freshman year 1st Sem: 91
Freshman year 2nd Sem: 89
Sophomore year 1st Sem: 93
Sophomore year 2nd Sem: 91
Junior year 1st Sem: 90
I tried to explain to my guidance counselor why my grades are so inconsistent, but I gave a pretty bad excuse so I’m not sure if colleges will accept it. The other parts of my application are honestly pretty weak. My ECs aren’t outstanding, I didn’t have any leadership positions/awards. I don’t think my recs will be great either since I’m still stressing over who I can ask. Basically the only strong part of my app will be my standardized test scores.
I know my chances aren’t great, but I was still wondering if I could be able to get into a school like NYU? Would it be too much of a reach?
So…I’m going to make some assumptions, and you can decide how accurate (or not) they are.
- You have set your heart on NYU
- You don’t have a great excuse for why your grades aren’t what you think they should be so you tried to sell your GC on a story that they would tell the admissions committees, to make it look better than it is
- The students who get in to NYU from your school tend to have notably higher GPAs than you do and/or you haven’t done much homework on NYU yet
What I can’t even hazard a guess about from your post is whether a) you are being hard on yourself, b/c at your school you don’t feel you measure up and/or you are 17 and insecurity is blinding you to reality, or b) it is objectively true that the only “strong” part of your application is your SAT score.
For the sake of argument, I’m going with a), because that seems more plausible.
In which case: you need to step back and remember that the college application process is a lot about sales: each student is selling the best version of themselves to the college admissions teams. For an example of how not to do it, go watch Great British Bakeoff 2018 (on Netflix) and watch Ruby. All doom and gloom, she sees all the worst bits of her own bakes and all the best bits of everybody else’s bakes. It takes a long time for her to stop pointing out her weaknesses to the judges.
The thing is, in college admissions you don’t get that time. The first read of your college application will probably be given less than 10 minutes * for the whole thing*- transcripts, essays, ECs, LoRs, everything. You don’t get a season, you get minutes. So you have to go back and look at yourself: what are your good bits? why are you a good addition to the college community? what doors does that college community open for you? What do you want to be different about college compared to HS?
Most of all, start with what is truest to you and build out from there. Your best bet for getting what you want from college starts by figuring that part out.
ps, as it happens, the typical GPA of 1st years at NYU is 3.7 (info easily found on their website, under ‘NYU facts’).
More often that not, the biggest tragedy with dream schools isn’t getting rejected, it’s getting accepted. Students will commit to the school without question, then find out later that it’s a poor fit or unaffordable. Shop around and find an affordable school that fits your goals and interests. Also, consider scholarships. Those are a far superior deal. You already qualify for scholarships at Univ of Alabama, Miss State, Texas State, that I can name off the top of my head.