<p>Ok, here's my issue. I'm a junior, male, Florida. My grades are good; 4.25 weighted/ 3.9 unweighted. 7 APs by graduation, 5 Dual enrolled, almost all others honors. Very good EC- selected for county leadership program, 4 years baseball, football, NHS, Collegiate studies class rep, ITS- performed at state level, 100+ hours community service. Problem is, I don't test well- 26 ACT, 1750 SAT. What are my chances? Visiting this spring.</p>
<p>I think your chances for admission are OK. While it is true you are at the lower end of the SAT/ACT range for accepted students, You are not out of the range completely, and the rest of your record looks pretty strong.</p>
<p>Have you considered one of those test prep classes? Generally I am not a fan, but in a case like yours it might make a significant difference. Otherwise just do as many practice tests as possible, concentrate on the areas that you get the most wrong, and try at least once more.</p>
<p>Also, make sure you don’t focus on the 100+ hours (although that is a nice achievement given your sports involvement) in your interview or essays, but instead focus on what kind of service you found most fulfilling. Some quantity is important, but if you have the quality, which in this case means strong interest, the quantity would have followed anyway.</p>
<p>The best part about getting those test scores up, besides making it far more likely to get in, is that with the rest of your record you could qualify for some merit scholarship money. But I think you need at least 200 points more , and 300 would definitely do it. I know that’s a lot, but sometimes if you find the key as to why you aren’t testing better, you can make that kind of improvement. Oh, and do you know your class rank?</p>
<p>I am #13/ 351. I have taken prep classes for both, but freeze when I get in the test room. Even the math part, which I know- I have taken Alg 2, honors geo, DE trig, DE calc- I still forget it all. The community service is almost all with kids, either vacation camps or at the children’s museum.</p>
<p>OK, so your GPA is legit, not inflated by your school. So obviously you don’t freeze on those tests. Well, this is just a “lay” opinion, since I am hardly a psychologist, but I wonder if maybe having 2 or 3 sessions with someone that teaches relaxation techniques might be useful. Might be a good investment anyway, since if you plan to go on to grad school, med school or law school you would have to take the GRE, MCAT, or LSAT respectively. Finding out now how to overcome this issue could make a big difference. But don’t get too hyper about it. Also, I know there are lists of schools that don’t require standardized tests as part of their admissions process, and some are very good. Given the rest of your record, that might be a list worth obtaining. Here is one I found quickly, and some of these schools are very highly thought of:</p>
<p>Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.* </p>
<p>Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine </p>
<p>Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y.* </p>
<p>Bates College, Lewiston, Maine </p>
<p>Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. </p>
<p>College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass. </p>
<p>Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, N.Y. </p>
<p>Connecticut College, New London, Conn.* </p>
<p>Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.* </p>
<p>Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. </p>
<p>Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. </p>
<p>Pitzer College, Claremont, Calif. </p>
<p>Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis. </p>
<p>Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. </p>
<p>Wheaton College, Norton, Mass. </p>
<p>Hobart and William Smith College, Geneva, N.Y. </p>
<p>Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa. </p>
<p>Drew University, Madison, N.J. </p>
<p>Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa. </p>
<p>Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minn. </p>
<p>Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. </p>
<p>Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Ore. </p>
<p>Bennington Collge, Bennington, Vt. </p>
<p>Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass. </p>
<p>Juniata Collge, Huntingdon, Pa. </p>
<p>Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pa. </p>
<p>Providence College, Providence, R.I. </p>
<p>*SAT/ACT not required if applicants submit SAT II series </p>
<p>This link has a huge list: [Optional</a> List | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]Optional”>ACT/SAT Optional List for Fall 2025 - Fairtest)</p>
<p>I cannot say if these are accurate, but again, worth looking at just in case. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks. Relaxation might be a good idea, I’ve even had teachers tell me I need to stop worrying and go with my first thought. I looked at Wake Forest, they don’t take test scores, but I wish I could just have a normal reaction.</p>
<p>Actually, I believe that Wake Forest takes test scores, they just no longer require them.</p>
<p>ok i really should butt out of this because fallenchemist has given you really good advice … you need to work on getting those standardized scores to match your gpa/hpa, but … are you sure your gpa/hpa are right? they sort of don’t make sense - given your AP and dual enrollment classes, your hpa should be much higher. maybe you should check with your school</p>
<p>bff - no reason to butt out, lol. You always have good advice also. I think though that the 7 AP’s and 5 dual enrollments were the anticipated number by the end of senior year. Since Lorey is only a junior (and first semester is probably not over yet) he wouldn’t have that many that would differentiate his GPA/HPA yet.</p>
<p>Yeah, 7 APs were by graduation. As of now, I have 4 AP, 3 DE, we are on a block schedule. The semester is over next week and my GPA should actually go up slightly.</p>
<p>How much does your school add to the grade for AP, DE and honors? Not all schools do it the same of course.</p>
<p>5.0 for AP and Dual enrolled classes, 4.5 for honors, 4.0 normal. When we visited UF they said they threw out everyone’s GPA and calculated them on the same scale, so we thought it was universal. Is that right?</p>
<p>what is hpa?</p>
<p>I took it to mean honors point average, or the same as weighted GPA. I had never seen the term either, I have always just seen weighted (W) and unweighted (UW) as the terminology.</p>
<p>Yes most schools, Tulane included, look at your UW GPA because schools don’t have the same point scales. My kids’ HS, for example, counted honors courses, AP and DE all the same way, adding a full point to the grade. Some schools use a 6 point scale. So they have to normalize everything to the same basis. Then they look at how many AP/DE classes you took to judge how much you challenged yourself, so a person with lots of APs that gets a 3.7 UW is a better candidate, probably, than a person with a 3.85 UW that took no APs.</p>