HELP Chances of getting into Northeastern University

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northeastern University
1

<p>Hi. I'm a junior from New Jersey and my dream school is Northeastern. I really am interested and want to get into the pharmacy program.
My Grades: (I'll update this to exact grades once I find past report cards)
Freshman Year-
Financial Literacy half of the year and Theater the second half
Spanish Natives I
Algebra I
Biology I
English I
World History I</p>

<p>I got all A's in my classes, most of them being high A's. I think my final grade in Algebra was a 98. At this point I wasn't in any honors classes but my class rank was 39/400.</p>

<p>Sophomore Year-
US History Honors I
Geometry
Spanish Natives AP
English II
Chemistry Honors
Algebra II </p>

<p>I got all A's except for in US History Honors and Chemistry Honors. For those two classes I got high B's. I forget the exact grade but it was 86 or higher. Because of my honors classes (which are grades on a higher GPA in my school) my GPA was somewhere around 4.25. I don't know what that would be on a normal scale, but I'm assuming it would still be on the higher side. I think my class rank also improved.</p>

<p>Junior Year- What I'm currently taking
AP Chemistry
Pre-Calculus Honors
US History II Honors
Physics I Honors
Computer Programming
English III</p>

<p>I'm really going to put a lot of work and hopefully get all A's this year.</p>

<p>Extra Curricular Activities-
Freshman Year: JV Field Hockey, ERASE Club, JV Lacrosse, GSA Club, Interact Club, Literary Club</p>

<p>Sophomore Year: JV Field Hockey, Varsity Lacrosse, Literary Club, Spanish Club, ERASE Club, Future Doctors of America Club, Science League, Interact Club Officer, GSA Club, Academic Team, Web Design, Amnesty International. </p>

<p>I was also admitted into the World Language Honors Society. For Junior year (it hasn't started yet) but I was reelected as an Interact Club officer (Publicist) and was elected as Treasurer for the Web Design Club. </p>

<p>Volunteer Work-
Habitat for Humanity: 4 hours
Church Classroom Assistant: 27 hours and 45 minutes
Lacrosse Coach: 30 hours and 30 minutes (I've been involved with the beginning of the Lacrosse program.) </p>

<p>I was also wondering if I quit sports Senior year and got a job if that would really affect my application. I really need to get a job but if it would really harm my application I would just have to fit both sports and a job and AP classes in somehow. I also was contemplating not taking a History class senior year. It's not something I'm really interested in but then again if it is a crucial part to my application I'll take the class. Also, what does everyone think about me taking the SAT's in November without taking a class and then the next two times taking a class and seeing if my scores improve. Two of them would definitely be during my junior year and one may be during junior year or during the beginning of senior year. ( I would love to apply EA.) </p>

<p>PSAT Scores: (They're not that good because I did not prepare)
Critical Reading:56
Mathematics: 51
Writing Skills: 50 </p>

<p>AP Spanish Score: 4 </p>

<p>If it matters, I'm also Hispanic </p>

<p>Please respond and help me!</p>

2

<p>You’d probably get in - colleges tend to favor minorities. You’d probably get into an even better school. Aim higher?</p>

3

<p>I’m going to have to disagree with aznrobot9. Obviously what you ultimately get on the SAT or ACT is going to be important, but your PSAT scores really are troubling - in most cases, PSAT and SAT scores are pretty closely correlated. Preparation will probably help some, but it probably won’t turn bad scores into good scores - maybe bad scores to middling scores, or middling scores to good scores, and the reality is that Northeastern gets enough applicants that they don’t need to consider students with bad scores, even if they’re emphasizing diversity when picking from the applicant pool.</p>

4

<p>My son’s SAT scores, and especially ACT scores, were significantly better than his PSAT scores. They say they are parallel, but I think it’s a scam to get you to pay for improvement classes after you get your PSAT scores and before you take the SAT. We didn’t do that, and his SAT scores were better anyway.</p>

<p>But that is the weak part of your particular record, so you need to take both the SAT (reasoning) and ACT (what you know). Chances are your ACT scores will be better than your SAT scores given your PSAT scores.</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, test scores are so much more important than ECs. You should consider refocusing on tests. ECs are the icing, but test scores and grades are the cake. Cake wins.</p>

5

<p>@baronbvp thank you so much for your help, you’re right. I know I really need to work on my scores. If its worth anything I took the PSATs after signing up like a week before and had no preparation and then I didn’t try on them, so a bad score was very much expected, but now I’m going to re take them in October and I’ve been practicing and working very hard. The same thing goes for SATs, I’ve really been working hard and practicing and I’m going to get my scores up. Thank you for your help, it really means a lot. I’ll update this when I get my newer scores.</p>

6

<p>@WiseGuy57 I really appreciate the time you took to read and reply to my post, really thank you, but I’m going to have to disagree with you. You are 100% right about my scores, there is no doubt that they are horrible, but when I took them I’d signed up the week before and had no preparation nor knowledge of what their premise was. I was expecting to get back an absolutely horrible score simply because I didn’t really try. However this year I’ve been practicing and working hard and really preparing myself. I don’t agree with you that my scores won’t get better because I know for a fact that I can get them high enough to get in. I had a friend who had low SAT scores and he wanted to get into NYU and all he did was dedicate his time to an SAT book and followed verbatim, each and every word, lesson, and rule that the book said. His guidance counselor said he wouldn’t be able to do it, but he got an outstanding score that got him into NYU. I truly believe that my hard work and working with the book and later on taking classes will significantly help my score. A big lesson I learned in life is to never let people set your standards and tell you how far you’ll get. I can promise you that when I update my score you’ll be surprised. Now, I hope you don’t take this as me getting mad at you or anything because I am not. You took time out of your day to tell me what you know and were trying to help me, but if I may suggest something to you I’d say to not live by what usually happens, but to prove people and statistics wrong. Just because something usually happens, it doesn’t mean you can’t surpass it. Never settle for giving good effort when you can go way beyond that and do things 250%. You can obviously see from my PSAT scores that giving okay effort did absolutely nothing for me and I only suggest this because you give advice based on yourself and pass it on to others. I truly wish you luck and thank you. Please don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do, I cannot stress enough how many times I’ve proved people wrong who thought I wouldn’t be able to achieve my goals.</p>

7

<p>You’ve got a pretty good GPA, but the admission’s officers also want their prospective students to be taking difficult core classes. However, Freshman and Sophomore year are easy. Go hardcore for Junior and senior year- junior year is the most important, and make sure your letters of rec are from teachers who really, really, like you, and who also know how talented you are.</p>

<p>Your PSAT scores are kind of troubling, too. I think I got an 180 composite, but ended up with a 2000 on the SAT without any studying. (I didn’t do too hot on the ACTs, though.) You might get around a 1600~1800, is my guess. The IQR for accepted applicants is generally around 1990~2200. You’d better study your buns off, dude.</p>

<p>I’m also aiming for NEU (although I’m applying this year), so best of luck to both of us.</p>

8

<p>@StupidQurl thank you so much! Yeah I know all my time is going to have to go to studying, crossing my fingers that it all works out. I wish you luck on applying this year! I really hope you get in!</p>

9

<p>@StoopidQurl thank you so much! Yeah I know all my time is going to have to go to studying, crossing my fingers that it all works out. I wish you luck on applying this year! I really hope you get in!</p>