How Much Does Being African American Help You?

<p>Hey I'm a black sophomore in highschool, is there any big tips to getting into the highly competitive schools? Heres my stats so far:</p>

<p>-I'm taking my SAT for the first time in May. Based on practice tests i'm projected to score around a 2200-2300.</p>

<p>-I'm currently ranked in the top 5% of my class (17/365) and am going up in rank every semester. </p>

<p>-4.2 weighted GPA (4.5 scale) probably around a 3.7 unweighted.</p>

<p>-I'm taking 4 APs next year and 4APs senior year.</p>

<p>-My dream school would be to go to Stanford, but i'm also interested in competitive schools like Notre Dame, Northwestern, Duke, Cal Berkley.
What do you think my chances are of getting in, how can i improve them, and what effect will being black have on my admissions? (I am middle class but am technically also a first generation American).</p>

<p>You would be better able to assess you chances once you had actual scores. I have seen many students predict what they expected to get on the SATs and have seen the actual scores come back as something vastly different.</p>

<p>Since you have not be going to college for another 2 years no one can accurately assess your chances because at schools like Northwestern, Duke and ND the admissions departments build classes based on the institutional need and who can predict what the school will be looking for 2 years from now? As far as Cal, you know it is going to be pretty straight forward by the numbers. You can look at the UC website and get a good assessment as to where you stand and what you would need to do to get from point A to point B (in addition they don't factor race into the admissions process).</p>

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I am middle class but am technically also a first generation American

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<p>Also keep in mind that recent immigrants, the children of recent immigrants or first generation children from Africa or the Carribean are "overrepresented" as far as African Americans are concerned so African Americans with multi-generational roots in the U.S. epulf make you more "underrepresented."</p>

<p>good luck</p>