Do I Have a Chance at NYU Stern?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello to all who read this.
I was wondering if I could get into NYU with these scores and activities.

Sat Score: 2010 (that was in june, I’ve been studying every day for it since, and I am sure I can get above a 2300 on my next one. My latest practice test was 2290)

AP Scores: 4 on Statistics, 3 on World History, taking ap calculus and ap physchology senior year

GPA: 3.1 including a failed music class freshman year. I never retook it due to transferring out of that school beginning of sophomore year (upward trend)

Regents: 95 plus on all of them except biology 78,physics:90 and geometry 88

SAT Subject Tests: Haven’t taken them but assuming I get these scores. Math 2:750, World History: 740, US History:750

Extracurricular: editor-in-chief of school magazine/newspaper, Drama Club, Global Awareness Club, (a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t really serious like speech and debate for half of freshman year, table tennis club, and architecture club. I also play basketball but am not good enough for the team. I don’t suck though;not sure if that counts)

Work/Volunteer: Volunteered occasionally at some non-profit organizations, probably around 10 hours in total. I hope to find more time to volunteer in other places. My school is offering to give me volunteer hours if I help teach middle school kids during class, but I am not sure if I can count that as volunteering because I think I read somewhere that class aid does not count as volunteer. I help my dad at his work( a grocery store) sometimes, but I am also not sure if that counts as volunteering or work experience.

Also senior year I am taking math classes such as ap calc, and economics. Does that help?

Please, if anyone knows what kind of chances I have, let me know. I am getting really worried about whether I should keep studying for my Sat, sat subject tests, and precalc over the rest of the summer,(if I do have decent chances) or if I should just focus on other things because if I dont have any chance of getting into NYU, I am just going to go to baruch, and hope I can transfer to Stern after two years there.
What I am really worried about is my gpa. I did not take freshman year seriously at all. Im hoping the high sat and sat subject test scores could make up for it.

Thanks in advance.
ps
if im missing any info, let me know

2

I reckon NYU Stern would be a reach for you, as they seem to care quite a bit about the numbers (GPA, SAT scores etc.). For example, for Stern you should get at least a 2250+ and a 3.8+ to be numerically competitive, and I don’t think the other aspects of your application are strong enough to get you in. I think maybe you should study harder and try getting into CAS Econ then transfer internally to Stern? (not sure if this is a viable way because I have no idea on the difficulty of internal transfers in NYU)

3

Okay, that sounds like a really good idea. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of internal transfer earlier.
Thanks for the advice.

4

Before you’re all set on doing an internal transfer, just know that going from the College of Arts and Sciences at NYU to Stern is incredibly challenging and selective. In fact, I would say it might be harder than getting to into Stern normally. I would highly encourage you to not think about doing an internal transfer because you actually have a chance to make it in the first place. I’m going to leave comments here and then I am going to chance you for both CAS and Stern. Here goes. Your current SAT scores are quite low (I recognize that you are planning to raise them) for NYU and general. I would say to be competitive at CAS you should aim for at least a 2100+ and for Stern 2200+. By the way, I think it’s a huge mistake to say that you know you can get 2300+ based on practice tests. They are incomparable to the real thing (I got a 2400 on a practice test and ended up with a 2220 on the SAT). Going in overconfident is rarely a good thing in my opinion. Try and aim a little lower, like 2200 - 2250, which may be a bit more realistic. Your GPA is quite low for NYU CAS and very low for Stern; the upward trend is good, but try and do really well senior year so that you have a shot. It is very risky of you again to assume you’ll get certain SAT subject test scores, but if you insist that you will, then by all means know that those scores are good for CAS and adequate (maybe even a little weak) (particularly Math II) for Stern. Your course load in my opinion (based solely off AP exams) is rather weak, but then again I don’t know how difficult your school is. Your AP scores will not help you. As for your extracurriculars, being editor-in-chief is fantastic, but everything else is fluff and looks non-committal. Also, you have no business related activities and you want Stern to believe that you belong in the business school?!?! That’s going to be hard to sell. 10 Hours of Volunteering is not even worth mentioning in my opinion. That is not close to enough to be included. AP Calc (which one by the way?) and AP Economics will not strengthen your application much for Stern as they are expected out of the majority of applicants. It’s going to be hard to make up for the GPA (which is the most important aspect of a college application) with test scores (and your predicted subject test scores aren’t really that high anyways). To be completely honest, I think NYU (CAS) is a reach for you (if you get your predicted scores), and I think in your current state it’s a high reach. Stern in my opinion is not really a viable option, but I don’t want to deter you from your dream.

5

To the OP, if you’re consistently getting 2300+ on the mock exams released by the COLLEGEBOARD (e.g. blue book, question and answer service) then I’d suggest that your real exam score would be in a similar range. This would obviously not apply if you are using other sources for practice exams like the Princeton Review, Barron’s etc. The month before my SAT, I was getting 2300+ scores and the week before, I scored a 2400 on a practice exam in the blue book. My real score turned out to be 2400 with exactly the same number of questions wrong and predicted essay score (I estimated my practice exam essay score). I do agree that Stern seems hard for you considering your stats, but in any event internal transfer with a high GPA should be able to beat external transfers with a similar GPA (provided you don’t go to an Ivy etc. but this doesn’t apply in your case anyway). In addition, you may be able to turn Stern classes with a CAS Econ major so get to know the professors and use this to our advantage.