<p>I am interested in applying to the Medill School of Journalism. I know Northwestern as a whole is a reach, but I am wondering if I hold up as a good applicant for Medill.</p>
<p>GPA:
3.78 (Unweighted)
4.06 (Weighted)</p>
<p>SAT:
1940
710 in writing
690 in math
540 in reading</p>
<p>ACT:
29</p>
<p>I have a good story and am a published author at Huffington Post, but I don't expect that this will write the application for me.</p>
<p>Please let me know where I stand</p>
<p>You’re below or at the 25th percentile for Northwestern. Typically, anyone below the 25th percentile at a competitive university like Northwestern has some sort of hook that helps them get in, I’m not sure how hard it is to get published in the Huffington Post, so maybe that is your hook to give you a chance (a chance, not acceptance).</p>
<p>That said, if you want to apply to Northwestern, I’m not going to tell you not to, just make sure that you understand it’s a massive reach and you have a balanced list of schools to apply to.</p>
<p>That 540 CR score will likely be your undoing, but as MrDoctor said, just be realistic and have an appropriate list of schools.</p>
<p>What if I use my ACT score instead? Will that increase my chances, even if by a bit</p>
<p>29 is slightly better than 1940, but not by a ton.</p>
<p>Definitely apply to northwestern and make it ED if you are completely sold on the idea of attending.</p>
<p>But there are other schools with highly regarded J schools in that area, like Missouri and Wisconsin. Missouri would be a low match for you OOS and UW would be a match or high match OOS.</p>
<p>SAT score too low, especially in CR. Take again. Huffington Post authorship is definitely a good thing to have on the application.</p>
<p>OP – talk to your GC, I suspect the advice may be to send in ACT but not SAT. Even though your total SAT is 1940, many schools value the writing less than Math and CR (some don’t count writing at all). I don’t remember NU’s position on this. As others have said, even a 29 is on the low side for NU, but still if you have a good list with solid ‘matches’ and ‘safeties’ it can’t hurt to apply to NU.</p>