<p>I am a white female from Georgia at a Public school and a Junior</p>
<p>GPA 3.7 (unweighted) possibly a 3.8 by the end of this year
SAT: verbal 610 math 510 writing 620 (just retook the SAT and my scores are supposed to go up to about a 1300-1350)
ECS:
-tutor at the local public primary school- volunteer- 1 hour a week
-work at restuarant 12-18 hours a week
-co president of young republicans at school been involved for 3 years, host local meetings on the fair tax, raise funds and donated the funds to operation christmas child to pay for the shipping of the boxes to foriegn countries.
-sponser local neighborhood cancer drives to raise money for cancer research; usually do these once or twice a month
-run the scoreboard at home soccer games - volunteer-
-danced for 3 years at freedom of movement 2-4 days a week, member of the apprentice dance company
-2nd place - showbiz dance compition - regional
-Apprentice Company Dancer of the Year Award
-Honor Roll Freshman-junior year
-National Honors Society
-included in Whose Who in High School 3 years in a row
-traveling with people to people two years in a row,
- a people to people international peace forum conference,
-the presidential classroom summer program.
This summer i will travel abroad to a hispanic country to gain fluency in Spanish.</p>
<p>I am currently going for a full IB diploma and have taken all honors classes (the ones that aren't IB), so i am taking the hardest classes at my high school possible. I know my test scores are low, but besides improving them what else do you think I would need to do to improve my chances of getting into W&L? thanks so much!</p>
<p>The problem with admissions is: you just don't know what might catch the adcom's eye. do you have a shot? the gpa and ec's look good. what about your essays and recs? geographical location? essay? interview? indicated interest? SAT II? so many factors other than a 4 hour test. Remember they are building a community of scholars, so ask yourself: what can I contribute?</p>
<p>Looking just at the SAT stats, you'd have to say it's going to be tough competition. But your campaign to sell yourself should try and make your candidacy much larger than a SAT score. Some dolts test very well. Some genius kids do terribly. You literally don't know what the adcom is going to do.</p>
<p>So the best course of action is to apply, give it your best shot and have safety schools to back yourself up. If you like the locale, consider either Sweet Briar for female, Hampden-Sydney for male as safeties.</p>
<p>The next several years will be crazy in admissions. Very difficult for many, many kids.</p>
<p>thanks so much! That really made me feel better, but I am from a little town in rural georgia and i have yet to take the SAT IIs. So i dont know if they are looking for rural kids are not, but what is considered a decent SAT II score and are they admissions factors or do they just help rank you and make you look good if you do very well... I have been kind of curious about the purpose of them at w&l because all colleges seem to use them for different things.. thanks so much tho both to dima and musictoad!</p>
<p>Good grades and ECs, but unless you are a minority you NEED your SATs to be higher. "Decent" SATII scores I'd say are ones that are above the 75th percentile. I had 780 writing (95th percentile), 710 mathIC and 670 literature, both of which were around or above 90th percentiles. Oh wait, the SATIIs they SAW (second round scores didn't get to them until after they made their admissions decision) were 780 writing, 630 MathIC and 650 literature... not great, but good enough to get in last year. The thing is, I hear that this year we got over 4,500 applications so it may be more difficult to get in. In any case, good luck!</p>
<p>wow 4500 applications! and i heard that w&l was getting less competetive as far as the percentage they were letting in. But so as long as the SAT IIs are in the mid 600s then I'd be fine? i hope so because that seems do-able, i am taking them in may though so i have a little while.</p>
<p>less competitive? everything i have read suggests that w&l's acceptance percentage has gone down consistently for a few years now. i want to say the admission percentage last year was between 28-30%.</p>
<p>Yeah we had a 29% acceptance rate last year, the most competitive ever. If your SATIIs are in mid 600s, that should be OK, but MAKE SURE to dramatically improve your SATis like you are hoping to do. You don't want to be in that bottom 25% range.</p>
<p>How are you taking the SATIIs in May? They will have already made their admissions decision. Oh wait, are you a Junior? If that's the case, you have plenty of time.</p>
<p>yeah i am a junior so i have a good bit of time to go, but i am trying to start early so i am not all stressed and rushing around sr year. but i get my SAT I scores back monday so i am all good and nervous now lol but i do have a while to bring them up if there arent what i want them to be</p>
<p>Morgan is absolutely right, W&L has been getting more and more competitive every year and that should hold true this year as we received a record number of applications - over 4500 is correct to the extent of my knowledge, so it is definitely harder to get in this year than when Morgan, James (Skirby) and I applied and will likely be even more difficult when you apply Claire.</p>
<p>wow i guess what i was reading was completely wrong about the less competetive thing. do you think that this will raise the range of SAT scores drastically or will it just give me more people to compete against?</p>