<p>"CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa The number of Iowa students enrolled at the state's three regent universities has slowly declined in the past decade, while the number of students from other states has increased substantially."</p>
<p>U of I currently at 40% OOS, which must be the highest in the Big Ten!</p>
<p>Iowa</a> schools see increase in out-of-state students - chicagotribune.com</p>
<p>40% may be for the overall student body. I know the last two years incoming freshmen class out of state population was around 49-51%.</p>
<p>The largest percentage of out of state students is from Illinois. Illinois is having major troubles with their state budget and threatened up to a 15% increase in tuition. They are notorious for low merit scholarship offers. Difference of what Iowa offered my son: $88,500 versus $2,000 for university of illinois. Really a no-brainer.</p>
<p>I think even for the more mainstream IL award-recipients the Iowa universities are cheaper than Illinois’. On every visit we made to either Iowa or Iowa State we encountered an IL resident who said that it’s cheaper for him/her in Iowa than at home.</p>
<p>Illinois system is on its way to becoming the next California.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Well,not a total coincidence that I went to UIUC, we live in California, and our D chose to attend Iowa.</p>
<p>That says quite a lot, funyet!</p>
<p>Hello, I was wondering what my chances were for getting into Iowa. Here are my stats: </p>
<p>Male
OOS
ACT:21(composite), 24(math), 22(science), 15, (reading)<br>
GPA; 3.3-3.4
School does not do class rank
Extracurriculars: Intermural basketball(freshman year), HS Gymnastics team(fresh, soph, junior), Camp Counselor (Junior), 8 Hours of community service (soph&junior year)</p>
<p>4 years of math
4 years of english
4 years of History
4 years of science
2 years of spanish</p>
<p>what are my chances</p>
<p>To be fair, I should add to my comments about UC’s/CSU’s and UIUC that I do respect both quite a bit, and that nothing negative was intended about either. In fact, UIUC had budget challenges 25 years ago as well. Both systems will do fine. My comment was really more intended to reflect how impressed I am by what I have seen at Iowa - -the campus, the academics, the spirit, and the people. </p>
<p>I do still bleed orange and blue, but I will also be cheering on the Hawkeyes when they are not playing the Fighting Illini!</p>
<p>BigMDig, I am not a UI admissions expert, but I did quite a bit of analysis this past year to assist my D in her application planning. I believe Iowa would be a reach (assuming Liberal Arts)?..based on the RAI calculator, if your rank were 50%, then I believe your RAI is 250, which is a little on the low side. I believe your ACT score is the key issue. To be a target school, I’d guess you would want to get your ACT closer to 26 or even higher, which to me is a very big jump. If your high school is a highly ranked school, that could help. </p>
<p>I suggest re-taking the ACT, and definitely take the SAT. If you can afford it, I’d very seriously consider hiring a strong and reputable private test tutor and really working hard on practicing ACT/SAT test taking this summer. Then take both tests in the fall. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>I think i will take the ACT again. The question is if I can get it higher up. My high school is pretty well ranked and is one of the best public schools in Illinois. I dont know if that helps though. Im not 100% sure on the class rank since my school doesnt do one. Thanks for the advice, its really helpful.</p>
<p>I have no idea how heavily Iowa weighs difficulty of school, but I imagine they know the suburban schools very well and take this into account, since so many Iowa students come from those schools. They probably can (and quite possible do) normalize your GPA. So I’d guess this might help, especially if that was unweighted GPA. Good that you plan to take the ACT again. I can tell you that my D scored very differently on the ACT vs SAT, so she is glad she took both. Good luck!</p>
<p>The RAI number is THE means by which admissions decisions are made. It’s really black and white, plug and chug your numbers and see what comes out. They do NOT look at your high school, or your ECs or your grade trends or any of that stuff.</p>
<p>That said, there are a couple silver linings here. One, they will use a weighted GPA if your school reports them. Does your school weight? If not, that’s unfortunate. And Admissions will not weight for you by looking at your Honors classes and giving you additional credit for them. </p>
<p>The other silver lining is that you can appeal. The RAI metric is quite new and the head of admissions ackowledged in the NY Times Education blog that it’s a work in progress. So my advice is, if you’re within 15-20 points of the RAI minimum, APPEAL! At THAT point they’ll look at your school and your trending. Most of your stats look to me to be very solid UI material.</p>
<p>I do agree 100% with funyet that your ACT is a bit of a liability, either at Iowa or elsewhere, and you should re-take it after some prep. If the tutor thing is not an option do take a prep course. And at the very very least, buy the Princeton prep book and use one of the free online prep services. My son did and really liked it (the online thing) because it gave immediate feedback and he could see his progress as he took the quizzes. Like it or not, if you don’t know HOW to take the test, you will suffer no matter how bright you are.</p>
<p>Beastman provides excellent insights and suggestions here. </p>
<p>I’d add that in your case, the RAI is only a guidepost, since your high school does not rank. As it indicates on the UI websire, UI admissions reviews each application manually in cases where your HS does not rank and an RAI cannot be calculated, so that applies in your case. </p>
<p>The other thing that could help you is that Iowa allows you to submit your application for “individual review” initially. This involves 2 letters of recommendation, and a personal statement. With your current ACT score, I believe you would want to go down that path. I would verify this with your HS counselor. In this case, they are more likely to review the difficulty of your high school, etc. </p>
<p>Hope this helps…please keep us posted, and good luck!</p>
<p>My son, also OOS, had stats similar to yours - though his reading score was higher, his composite was also 21. He did not get in initially, but appealed as stated above. It worked, and he was in within a couple of weeks of submitting everything. He’s headed into his senior year, and has had the time of his life at Iowa. We will be sad to see him leave there.</p>
<p>I am new at this. What is involved in the appeal process. What do you need to do and what do you send in?</p>
<p>From the Admissions website:</p>
<p>[Individual</a> Review for CLAS Applicants - Requirements and Deadlines - Undergraduate Admissions - The University of Iowa](<a href=“http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/undergrad/requirements/fy-clas-ind-rev.html]Individual”>http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/undergrad/requirements/fy-clas-ind-rev.html)</p>
<p>Basically, you submit a personal statement and 2 letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>What jckazoo posted is not the appeal process, but the individual review process. </p>
<p>Individual review is something you request proactively when you apply, because you expect you may have an application that requires additional supporting material. </p>
<p>There may also be a process to appeal in case you are not accepted, but I am not sure how that would be handled. </p>
<p>Some people may use the terms “appeal” and “individual review” interchangeably, but I do not think this is how Iowa would view these definitions. </p>
<p>I hope this makes sense.</p>
<p>When my son applied (4 years ago), he got a letter telling him he had not met the minimum requirements, and suggesting individual review if he wanted to pursue admission. I don’t recall it being an option on the application, but it may have been. He was very borderline - a point or so too low (once his final transcript was in after senior year, he went well above the minimum.) So it could very well still be that they give you that option for review after you’ve been turned down. If you still are turned down after individual review, I don’t know of an appeals process.</p>
<p>jckazoo – thanks for clarifying. So while the individual review is something you can request proactively (Section G, of the current application), based on your comments, it sounds like Iowa lets at least some students know that they can request an individual review as a form of appeal, if they are not initially accepted. </p>
<p>My impression is that it is best to be proactive if one believe he or she is borderline or below, starting with an individual review in the initial application, or at least apply very early so you have enough runway to send in an individual review later if needed. I believe one’s chances are generally better if he/she applies early and addresses any weaknesses through a personal statement. Ideally, the letters of recommendation should address the same key points as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. Since my D high school does not rank the students, i think she should apply for individual review as her ACT was 23 and GPA at a high school college prep school was 3.2. Do you all agree?</p>