<p>Nice job on your SATs, but your ECs and GPA are kind of against you with Rice. BU is a slight reach in my opinion if you milk everything you have. Try to beef up your interviews I guess, otherwise good luck!</p>
<p>With that SAT score you're a lock at BU and NU.</p>
<p>Easiest school would be Univ Mass Amherst, toughest probably Penn State or Boston Univ. although you are a Safe Match to Match with your SATs scores </p>
<p>Note: Penn State is known for concentrating on the GPA--and has an average admit GPA of 3.56--so keep up your grades if you want to get in there. If you do keep your GPA high, you might be able to get a scholarship at some schools with those SAT scores.</p>
<p>Rice's average admit is a 3.7 to 3.8 GPA with better ECs than you--but I'd give it a shot with those SAT scores. They are really quite exceptional. Just have a good essay to go with them.</p>
<p>I think you still have a shot at Rice. If I were on the admissions committee and looked at your background, I would ask whether it was worth taking a risk on you. At this point you could try to spin your extracurriculars a little bit, however that would do nothing to answer the whole "risk" question. I think that has to come out in your essay and especially in your interview. I actually used to do alumni interviews for Rice. I was always surprised how closely my assesment of an applicant (in the absence of grades and scores) matched their acceptance or rejection. One case in particular reminds me of your situation. A young woman came out and volunteered her grade decifencies--some Cs or probably Ds, I don't remember. But she was so enthusiastic and down to earth that I wrote in her evaluation that in spite of her weaknesses, the admissions committee should take a risk and accept her. She was indeed accepted.</p>
<p>So don't spend too much effort trying to convince them you're the "ideal" candidate. You're not, and a lot of people will really respect you for being honest about your weaknesses as well as strengths. Be bold--without it seeming fake or forced. Oh, and get a good interviewer if you can. Good luck.</p>
<p>Update:
I'm doing Spring Track, for what it's worth..</p>
<p>Obviously, I won't be winning any awards, but I'm enjoying it and coping with it alright..</p>
<p>I'm curious, what do you think my chances are at Brandeis (and similar colleges like Tufts)?</p>
<p>I'd say Rice is a reach/high reach.</p>
<p>i wish i had your grading scale... a 3.5 with a D? jeez</p>
<p>Schools like Tufts and Rice are big, big reaches with constant C's and a D. Brandeis is a moderate reach.</p>
<p>Well, U.S. News & World Report ranks Tufts and Brandeis just about the same..</p>
<p>I'm becoming more and more fond of the "crapshoot" theory. A friend at another school who's comparable in grades, etc. to me (but drastically worse SAT scores, though longer time doing track and founder of anime club plus member of low-rank math team) got into Cornell, which is supposed to be heck of a lot harder to get into than Brandeis..</p>
<p>And someone else I know got into Columbia with a 3.5-ish unweighed GPA and no real extracirriculars. Their parents are convinced that it was because of their perfect MCAS score and thus were saying that I'm not valuing that enough.. though I'm quite skeptical about an MCAS score's importance in a New York college, not to mention an elite one like Columbia where perfect SAT scorerers apply regularly (with the SAT being a much harder test than the MCAS.. although, amusingly, I've heard from more and more top-10 students in our graduated grades that they simply winged the MCAS and did just the minimal to pass because it's not a big deal like the SATs..)</p>
<p>=P</p>
<p>thebigticket-this is kind of off topic but did you say that having more than 1c will kill you, because freshman year i got 2 C's and sophomore year straight A's hopefully the same junior year...sry for being off topic</p>
<p>Well, I think it's worth pointing out that the teacher whose class I got Ds in is remarkably well-known (as being the teacher of one of the most hardcore courses around). Massachusetts speaks for itself, but even the admissions office of.. the University of South Carolina, I think it was, had heard of him..</p>
<p>I don't know how well-disposed he'll be towards writing a recommendation for me, but if it's on the positive side (as in, Student has improved dramatically over past few years, possesses these useful qualities:...), I think it could go a long way towards making my choice, to be a less than stellar student in his class rather than a largely A student in another Honors-level class (that's the way it works here, you drop "down" to another honors level class, not to a college level), valid.</p>
<p>Why don't you just transfer to rice or tufts or UCLA</p>
<p>Your score on the SAT, 2300, is in the range for Rice University.</p>
<p>However, with your 3.5 GPA and the majority of your grades not in the A range, the high SAT score actually hurts you because it shows that you have potential to obtain good grades. Bad recommendations from your teachers will further decrease your chances. A perfect score on the MCAS will count for very little, if anything, because the SAT test covers the material on the MCAS plus additional harder topics. All said, Rice University is a big reach for you, and I do not recommend applying to it.</p>
<p>You will have better chances at the other colleges you listed because the criteria for acceptance is not as rigorous.</p>
<p>I would say most of the schools are slight reaches for you, with the exception of Stonehill University and UMass Amherst.</p>
<p>Applying is still a luck game, so you could be accepted to any of the universities you listed.</p>
<p>Well, if by "slight reach" you mean that I'm not guaranteed admission, I agree.</p>
<p>However, I think that BU, Rutgers, and perhaps Penn State are in the same category as UMass Amherst.</p>
<p>I would say no, because my sister got a 35 ACT, 2150 SAT and mostly A's at a good private school and didn't get into Rice</p>
<p>May I ask what my chances at UC San Diego and UC Irvine are? I'm from Massachusetts, BTW, hardly in-state.</p>