<p>I'm currently a rising senior and I have my basic college list planned out but I was really hoping to get more opinions whether I should apply or my chances of getting in! Also for my reaches, which schools have a greater early decision rate?</p>
<p>Asian American Female - Class of 2015
9th grade- International School in Asia
10, 11, 12 grade- Public Californian School
GPA: 3.7/8 weighted (not officially sure) Honor Roll every semester
ACT: I'm taking it in the fall but my first time practice test was a 29; preparing for it now
Subject Test: USH- currently waiting for score, preparing to take two more in the fall
Sports: JV & Varsity Soccer
Clubs: Amnesty International, Model United Nations (Logistics coordinator), French Club (going to be president my sr yr)
Awards: Ranked 2nd in National French Contest (10th gr), Received Outstanding French award (11t gr), Honorary Mention at MUN Conference (11th gr), Athletic Award (10, 11 gr), Presidential Community Service Award
Courseload: IGCSE (9th gr), French Honors (10th gr), AP Lang & USH (11th gr), AP gov, french, lit (going to take as a senior) - Currently waiting for AP scores from jr year
Extra Curricular: Peer Tutor (11th gr), Private Volunteer Tutor for elementary kids (10th&11th gr), Interning at French Culture center (currently) </p>
<p>Reaches:
Emory
Notre Dame
Tufts
Washinton U
Wesleyan
UC Berkeley
Georgetown
Boston College
(I'm not applying to all of these, please help simplify!:)</p>
<p>Match:
Boston U
NYU
George Washington U
American U
Bryn Mawr
UCSB
UC Davis</p>
<p>Safeties:
Rutgers U
SMC (community college)
UC Irvine, Riverside </p>
<p>Please tell me what you think. It would mean SO much to me. Thank you ! </p>
<p>Close your eyes. Having the unweighted GPA would be a help, but given what you’ve told us I think you’re over-reaching in general. For matches, toss out everything but American, Rutgers, and Riverside. You can make your reaches whatever you want, but you won’t get into the schools you’ve listed. You also have to be concerned about money, so run the net price calculators to see if your family can afford what the school says they will pay. </p>
<p>I looked on my online transcripts and unweighted: 3.7 weighted: 3.9 but thanks for your input. </p>
<p>I’m not familiar with IGSCE, but 5 APs should make you reasonably competitive, and a 3.7 UW is respectable. You need higher test scores though for your matches and reaches. Aim for 31+, and maybe give the SAT a shot if you have time. Your internship and national French competition are interesting, but nothing else EC-wise really stands out to me.
You don’t need to apply to your CC, and is there any particular reason you are applying to Rutgers? It will be rather expensive as it is out of state for you. I think UC Berkeley is out of reach for you, along with WashU, Emory and maybe Georgetown. What majors are you considering?
The financials of this are also important, can you afford these schools if you were to get accepted? This may very well narrow your list down for you. Run some NPCs with your parents and ask if they can afford to pay what the NPC projects you will have to pay. If the answer is no, then you need to start looking into merit scholarships. </p>
<p>Notre Dame, Georgetown, and UC Berkeley are out of reach for you.</p>
<p>ahhh, that explains some things: most of the time, having a 3.7 out of 4.0 unweighted is a whole lot different from a 3.7 wtd. The next question the school will ask, so I might as well ask it, is why the wtd score is 3.9. How was the wtd score computed? How many plus courses (honors and/or AP, for example) have you taken, and how many has your school made it possible for you to take by this point in your high school career? Schools would like to see rigor in your course load, so if you’ve been avoiding it they will hold it against you.</p>
<p>Can you answer the above questions, please?</p>
<p>Now you need to bring that ACT up or try the SAT. Fortunately, you have a summer to do that, so get started now. </p>
<p>Jkeli911 - I’ve taken 1 honor class and including next year 5 AP classes. I was sort of at a disadvantage because the move from Asia to America was so sudden and I was enrolled in the school a couple of days after the first day of school so the counselors were so busy with schedules. The woman who made my schedule put me in standard classes because of the lack of time. It’s not an excuse but just an explanation. But definitely my courseload isn’t as strong as I’d like it to be 
Well I’m not exactly sure how my school calculates their GPAs? The GPA online from my school might be a bit different from the standard calculation of GPAs. Yes I am doing ACT prep currently so hopefully I can get my score at least above a 32. </p>
<p>General Question: Are Boston College and Emory University out of reach as well?
I knew that G-town, Berkeley, Notre Dame and Tufts were reaally far reaches.
I’m not so sure about Washington U and Wesleyan mostly because I haven’t researched much about the schools but I met some of the reps at a college fair and was interested. </p>
<p>I think you can trust me when I say that WashU and Tufts probably are far reaches, as you put it. Unless you have a really good story to tell about your life, so too probably are Notre Dame, Emory, Berkeley, and Gtown. I don’t know Wesleyan enough to say one way or the other. BC might be a possibility. It might come down to how much reading the AOs at Wesleyan and BC want to do. When we look at the numbers alone, 3.7/3.9 and 29, you’re out of luck. Taking 5 AP classes your senior year isn’t going to do much for you, except perhaps kill your unwtd GPA. I would suggest you consider working towards a 4.0 with 2 AP classes, and relying on your essay and bio to “explain” the GPA. A 4.0 first semester could really help the GPA and impress the AOs. After first semester, the AOs don’t see your grades until after they’ve made their minds up. Having a good relp with your guidance counselor so that s/he writes a strong letter could also help, but it’s not something you can count on. It’s a known unknown, in Rumsfeld parlance.</p>
<p>The other issue is financial. You’ve got to run those npcs or all this is worrying over nothing. It’s time to explain to your parents that you need to know for certain where you can afford to enroll. Many parents will tell you not to worry about it, but you be the adult this time and use all your powers of persuasion to convince them to help you to fill out the npcs. They perhaps will tell you that they don’t want to share that info with you (or anyone else), but they have no choice really. Colleges and the state and federal governments which fund the financial aid are going to insist that they know your family’s approximate ability to pay for college before they give your family any money. Makes sense, right? Now you have to make your parents see sense. If they tell you to wait until the aid packages come in in April, tell them that is too late to discover you cannot go to any of the schools you’ve chosen. I speak from experience when I say that most parents are clueless what college costs today and how little money colleges will offer them. You yourself can borrow no more than $5500 the first year, so where will the other $20-60K/yr come from? It is as important a part of your qualifications as your ACT is.</p>
<p>I meant I took 2 APs junior year and I’m going to take 3 my senior year which is a total of 5. But yeah definitely I’ll talk to my parents about the financial aid situation. I’m just really hoping for AT LEAST Boston College. I knew that the competitiveness for college was crazy but seriously it feels impossible! Thank you so much for your advice!! 
</p>
<p>@jkeil911 gives some really good advice. the second paragraph I believe that all students and parent should read actually because my parents were the exact same way when applying to schools. I would agree on limiting your reaches, especially if you haven’t done that much research into them yet (from what I know Wesleyan is quite competitive as well as a top 15 lac) If you have a first choice it might help to apply Ed to one of them, but otherwise the other schools are very competitive and it will help you in the long run if you develop a realistic consolidated list early on</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr is the odd one out.</p>