<p>ACT: 31 Composite (33 english, 33 reading, 28 math, 28 science) {did MUCH better on this than SAT}
Highest Superscore SAT: 610 M, 680 CR, 690 W (1980 total)</p>
<p>GPA (at rigorous New England college prep school): ~3.4 unweighted.
5 AP's ("A-"s in all but one B+ fall term grade) total
5 on AP exam (only took 2 junior year so only two test scores back)</p>
<p>EC:
- Prefect
- Section Editor of Newspaper
- Junior Award Winner
- Essay came 3rd overall in a 5-school competition among other boarding schools
- Essay published in school journal of social sciences
- Yale Model UN "Honorable Mention Best Delegate"
- Art TA
- History Honors Club
etc. </p>
<p>Chances? My GPA and test scores are making me nervous. Plus, I'm a total art nerd, not an athlete.</p>
<p>I’m not going to chance, because I don’t have a good grasp of how colleges look at tough boarding schools, but I will comment on the athlete statement. The best piece of advice the lead counselor at my school gives to incoming freshman each year is “Colleges don’t want well-rounded students, they want well-rounded student bodies.” In other words, it is better to stick to one or two things that you love and show leadership in them, than to be a member of 20 different clubs and a varsity sport that you hate and have nothing to show for it, because colleges realize that a bunch of kids join every club possible just to look good.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to get at is that since you have shown leadership in other realms, don’t let the not being athletic worry you, as for your grades and test score, the scores are OK for an instate applicant, not the best, but not the worst, and since I’m assuming your school doesn’t use the insane scale NC does for calculating GPA, I don’t know how you stack up to other instate apps.</p>
<p>Right. I think with my EC’s and test scores, I’d probably be okay for an instate admission, but it’s just that boarding school GPA. {which actually kind of sucks because I feel like if they reject me, it will because they’ve penalized me for going to a better school than my local public school}</p>
<p>I think regardless of how they calculate it, it will most definitely not numerically compare to the other in-state applicants, largely because of how difficult my school is in comparison to NC public schools. Plus, while the weighting will help me a little, our school really doesn’t offer a many honors/AP classes until Junior or Senior year because the normal classes are already excellent, so it’s not as though I could’ve taken four years of straight honors classes that would’ve boosted my GPA, if that makes sense.</p>
<p>So I suppose UNC will either accept my GPA as acceptable in comparison to a public (or even private, for that matter), in-state kid or they won’t.</p>
<p>Admissions departments at most schools (UNC is not an exception) are fully aware of the academic rigor at the top private and prep schools across the US. They are usually provided with graphs and charts that illustrate the grade performance of all students in each class offered and will also see your grades in those classes for comparison. This is done in part because so many top private and prep schools no longer rank their students and also to provide a better snapshot of how grades are earned. If the grading scale is tough, it will come across so in the graphs and charts. They will be able to see how many APs are offered, when they are offered and how many students participate in them. </p>
<p>There is no need to worry about the fact that your current school is more rigorous than the public or private school you might have attended had you stayed home. They will recognize the difference and will not discriminate against you as a result; in fact, it could work to your favor. If the rest of your app is sound and fits the criteria for in state admission you will be viewed accordingly.</p>
<p>Wait, isn’t my ACT above-average for an instate admit? The website says that the middle 26-31, so doesn’t that put me just below the 75% marker, meaning that my scores are above-average?</p>
<p>^ Thanks, that’s making me panic less. I figured out my weighted GPA for fall term (~4.066 on the 5-point), so I think maybe that’ll help show that I’ve had an upward trend, too. {although I don’t know if they’ve seen it}</p>
<p>My recs were pretty good, I imagine. I submitted 3, one was okay (only because the teacher is really bad at writing recs, but she oversaw my TA and she spoke highly of me, albeit in a less than eloquent manner), one I haven’t seen from an AP teacher, and one made me cry (my english teacher wrote it).</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope that even if they don’t accept me, I’ll get deferred so I can send my winter grades. It’s my new pet project to get an A+ in one of my APs.</p>