<p>Hey can some give me some feedback about my chances at admission to NU...</p>
<p>Male from SoCal
Public high school- sends a lot of students to top tiers schools, so pretty competitive</p>
<p>Academics:</p>
<p>GPA - Unweighted: 3.8
GPA - Weighted: 4.0
Class Rank: 60/520</p>
<p>ACT: 30
SAT 2: 640 USH, 650 Math 2c, 680 Physics</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:</p>
<p>Academic:</p>
<p>National Honor Society
CSF (an academic "honor" thing)</p>
<p>President, Republican Club- pretty active
Captain, Robotics Team- enter competitions etc.
Band Leader, Jazz Band- wins top place at competitions
Indep. jazz band- private group formed by close friends that jam at local events
Vice President, Red Cross Club- very very active</p>
<p>Internship with engineering company over summer.</p>
<p>Have taken pretty hard courses, but not as hard as I could have :(</p>
<p>Took some college classes in calculus and engineering.</p>
<p>So what are my chances for Northwestern? Should I even bother applying....?</p>
<p>Yours seems to be an interesting case. Your unweighted GPA is very impressive, however your class rank puts you outside of the top 10%, which will hurt. Furthermore, your ACT score is decent and I believe within NU's range (possibly, I need to check) but your subject test scores are a bit low and might hurt since none of them are over 700. </p>
<p>I'd say NU would be an uber-reach for you and I wouldn't get my hopes up (but you still have a chance, seeing as though around 15% of admitted students weren't in the top 10% of their class and maybe around 25% had lower test scores.)</p>
<p>Yeah my school has really bad grade inflation, so like 50 people have a 4.0 (yeah it's ridiculous). </p>
<p>So do you think if I get my act up to 32 and get subject tests up I have a good shot at regular admission? How big of a deal is class rank?</p>
<p>Ok, so I just checked and NU's range middle 50% range is from 30-34 on the ACT. If you can get it to a 32, you'd be right in the middle which will help you. </p>
<p>Your class rank is still an issue but its severity will depend on how your rank is determined. Is it based on unweighted or weighted GPA? Because if it's unweighted GPA, then people can take really easy classes, get a 4.0 and wind up valedictorian, but if it's based on weighted GPA then only those who challenged themselves and done well will get a good rank. If the former is the case, and you have taken challenging classes while those ranked above you have not, then you're fine. However, if it's based on your weighted GPA, and others have taken more APs and whatnot then you, then it will hurt (unless the people ranked above you took easy APs like environmental science and calc AB, while you were taking Calc BC and AP Physics C, etc)</p>
<p>Lastly, definitely get your subject test scores up. NU doesn't require them, but recommends them strongly so you want at least 700s in two of them, ideally over 750 on two of them.</p>
<p>Oh yeah that was my unweighted class rank. My weighted class rank is 40/520, which is top 10%.</p>
<p>Yeah a lot of people at my school take the easy AP classes and get easy A's, while I took the more rigorous AP classes (calc bc, bio, etc.) and got some B's which severely set back my gpa. </p>
<p>And yeah I really have to get my subject scores up. November is my last chance!</p>
<p>^Your weighted rank puts you back in the game, and NU will really like it that you challenged yourself with hard APs (so they'll put your rank into perspective) so congrats on that. </p>
<p>And also, if you're applying RD, then the December test date is also available for you. Oh, and one last thing that will help you is that if you apply RD, your first semester senior year grades will be taken into consideration, so if you can pwn your classes, your chances of getting in will definitely go up.</p>
<p>not if u fix ur grammar</p>
<p>Hey thanks hippo724 for all your help. I appreciate it :D</p>