help???

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>i never know if i'm too good or not good enough for schools on my list, so i need help!</p>

<p>BC
BU
william and mary
villanova
pitt
UNC (reach??)
JMU
UM-CP (i live in MD-safety)</p>

<p>a little background: upper middle class rising senior, white, ranked 23 out of 356, 3.8 GPA not so great SAT's and II's but we'll get to that later, SO many ec's so i hope that helps a lot, pretty good academically</p>

<p>freshman year:
G/T everything- all A's one B final grade in G/T geometry</p>

<p>sophomore year:
G/T everything- all A's one B final grade in G/T chemistry</p>

<p>junior year:
four AP classes, G/T everything else- all A's one B final grade in AP calculus AB</p>

<p>senior year will be taking:
AP: econ, spanish, english, calculus BC, environmental science
orchestra, teachers aid</p>

<p>also: four years of spanish, four years of orchestra... if that helps out any</p>

<p>*YIKES! now on to SAT's....
650 math
610 critical reading
650 writing</p>

<p>*SAT II's... i'm already embarrassed so i basically know i have to re-take them
610 math two
580 literature</p>

<p>*ec's (i'm not really thinking so i'm going to forget some, oh well)
-church youth group all of high school involving: soup kitchens, plays, mission trips to honduras to build hospitals, rebuilding remington in downtown baltimore city, canned food drives, etc (your typical churchy things); steering committee member for three years
-task force committee member for youth ministries at my church for 9th-10th
-sunday school teacher (volunteer): 10th-12th
-fitness camp counselor during the summer (paid): each high school summer
-lifeguard at pool during the summer (paid): each high school summer
-NHS member and secretary
-SNHS member
-Tri-M music honor society member
-young democrats member
-SAFE/SADD member
-200+ hours of community service
-summer swim team member at pool where i work: each high school summer
-national merit scholarship semi-finalist (i think that's right?)
-swim and run-a-thon participants for cystic fibrosis and lupus research
-babysitter (do they care about babysitters?)</p>

<p>should be good teacher recommendations (from my calculus teacher and english teacher), and good essay (typically strong in english)</p>

<p>THANKS!</p>

2

<p>I think your stats are just fine for Pitt, JMU, UMD, and NOVA, even if you do not increase your SAT scores-Just my opinion. The others are tougher to get into, so just try your best and apply. Might want to add one more safety, just to absolutely feel comfortable with your choices, and not regret it later.</p>

3

<p>Boston College-average UW GPA 3.7 with average SAT scores 650/667
Boston Univ-average UW GPA 3.5 with average SAT scores 643/656
william and mary-average UW GPA 3.65 with average SAT scores 674/661
villanova-average UW GPA 3.25 with average SAT scores 605/633
pitt-average UW GPA 3.3 with average SAT scores 610/621
UNC-Chapel Hill-average UW GPA 3.85 with average SAT scores 638/649
James Madison-average UW GPA 3.27 with average SAT scores 579/583
Maryland (CP)-average UW GPA 3.85 with average SAT scores 615/645</p>

<p>Your stats--UW GPA 3.8, with weighted GPA 4.02 with SAT I scores of 610/650, your ECs are okay--you participate in a lot, but you have no leadership shown. You do a lot of volunteer work, and have worked regular jobs.</p>

<p>So I rate your chances at:
Boston College-match to slight reach (they will like the volunteer work--so more likely a match)
Boston Univ-match
William and Mary-slight reach
Villanova--safety
Pitt-match
UNC-CH-(out-of-state)--definite reach
James Madison-safe match
Maryland-match</p>

4

<p>Calcruzer, I agree with UMD being a match rather than a safety school. Why do you think JMU is a safe/match and Villanova is a safety? Thanks.</p>

5

<p>Thinking further, you have a nice list, but I would add to real safety schools to the list.</p>

6

<p>thanks so much! it's nice to get feedback</p>

<p>bump</p>

7

<p>OH and i have run track two seasons a year for all of high school so far</p>

8

<p>Good luck! BTW, in my last post, I meant to say that I would add another "two" safety schools.</p>

<p>The track ec is very good too!</p>

9

<p>what would you suggest? i'm so bad at researching schools to know what would be a good safety</p>

10

<p>Are you retaking the SATs? If you did well enough on the PSAT to be a national merit scholarship semi-finalist, then maybe you just had a bad day when you took the SAT. Wasn't Maryland's cutoff in the 220+ range to be a semi-finalist?</p>

11

<p>Well, I was ultra conservative where my own son was concerned when it came to safeties (definitely overdoing it, but no regrets). I would recommend that you have a couple of safeties that you would be content going to if it just turned out that way, even if you were not initially invited into their honors program. I really doubt that scenerio will play out, but just assume this were the situation. Now choose. What about Towson, and UMDBC as safeties since they would be instate tuition too? I would think that they would have additional possibilities of merit $$ too. I liked Towson, perhaps it does not sound that great coming from instate, but there is a town and it is so close to Baltimore. They would also let you take classes at other surrounding schools. You might check out Goucher too. The nice thing about Towson is that they have rolling admission. My S applied as an oos student last fall. He had his admission decision within 2.5 weeks and then he was content to wait for the other decisions to be mailed out. He had an acceptance in his hand by the first week of October! He is not going, b/c they did not offer merit money to him, but if they had, he would have strongly considered attending. He will be going to JMU.</p>

12

<p>thanks for your help! the only problem with towson is that i live a block away... so i think that'd be a problem for me</p>

<p>i didn't list schools such as UMBC, towson, goucher, etc because i forgot about them becasue they're so close but i most likely will apply to two or so of them</p>

13

<p>That is close! Wherever you apply, make sure it is an academic and financial safety for you. Also, make sure that you would be happy attending. For example, if you think that your parents are going to ask that you live at home and commute if you went to Towson, you might be unhappy applying there as a safety. You might be unhappy attending a school that is virtually in your backyard, so think about it before you apply to Towson as a safety school.</p>