<p>Ethnicity: White
Location: NJ
School: Very Competitive Public (many students go to Ivies and top tier school every year)</p>
<p>I have good test scores but a pretty poor GPA</p>
<p>ACT: 36 <a href="36%20M,%2036%20S,%2036%20Grammar,%2034%20Reading%20Passages">12 essay</a>
SAT1: 2120 (760 M, 720 W (11 Essay), 640 CR)
SAT2:
Math2: 780
BioE: 710
Physics:800
US:800
Chem:800
APs:
CalcAB:5
CalcBC:5
Stat:5
Spanish:5
US:5
EC: Really Solid
I'm a pretty good writer</p>
<p>Here's where it goes bad</p>
<p>GPA: 6.2/7.0 (A=7, B=6...) (I take all honors/AP)
UW: (6.2*4)/7
Rank: Top 10% (barely)
Family Income: 200k+
Financial Aid: No
Sex: Male
I want to go to school on the east coast (the farthest west I could see myself going would be Illinois or Tennessee). The Farthest south I can see myself going would be North Carolina/Georgia</p>
<p>Here is a list of schools that I might want to be chanced on (as of now. I have to eliminate a lot of them)</p>
<p>Boston College
Brown
Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia
Duke
Emory
Georgia Tech
Georgetown
George Washington University
Johns Hopkins University (ED?)
Northwestern
Wesleyan
Yale
Chicago
Michigan Ann Arbor
Cornell</p>
<p>To give you a better idea on your chance for these schools, you should also list some ECs/Awards that you have done/won. Because with these stats alone, I don’t think you can get into Yale, Duke, Chicago…</p>
<p>what is your exact rank. You said barely, meaning that you know your exact rank. If the adcoms see the rank, it may hurt you. But you have stellar test scores and should be fine. Adcoms WILL make up excuses for you, especially the old ones. They believe that you are a smart student who is bored by the slow pace of class and thus slacks off just a bit. This is very favorable as compared to the alternative, High GPA but low SAT score.</p>
<p>The second scenario suggests hyper craze grade inflation and that the student is dull and dimwitted but “diligent,” like every other applicant.</p>
<p>So this may actually work to your advantage.</p>
<p>i’m 9% out of ~550. I don’t know exactly where I stand there though</p>
<p>EC: Hospital work, ran a food kitchen in 3rd world country (2 summers), Theater (Musical/Drama), Choir, Habitat for Humanity (president), Medical Club, Research this summer at Penn, freelance graphics designer, website developer (paid for doing it), tutoring an child with autism once a week in high level math, helped in 3 political campaigns, AIME qualifier (102 AMC)</p>
<p>They don;t like to see high test scores and low GPa, it shows (to them anyways) that you have intelligence but not drive (I’m not saying that, this may or may not be the case)</p>
Who is also very good at taking standardized tests.</p>
<p>This is a tough one, I think a lot will depend on your recommendations; you need a good explanation for the GPA/SAT discrepancy. I also think that 640CR is going to cause problems for a lot of the elites.</p>
<p>Here are my guesses:</p>
<p>Longshot
Brown
Columbia
Duke
Georgetown
Yale
Chicago
Cornell</p>
<p>Reach
CMU
Georgia Tech - OOS hurts
JHU - ED helps a lot
NU
Wesleyan
Michigan - OOS hurts</p>
<p>Reach/Probable
BC
Emory</p>
<p>Match/Safety
GW</p>
<p>All your schools have low admit rates and while your scores, (except CR), are great, the 3.54 gives them an excuse to reject you.</p>
<p>your rank isn’t bad at all… jeez why is everyone being so hard you are definately in at everywhere except vinceh’s longshots… where you still have a decent chance…</p>
<p>Does your school have Naviance scattergrams? Because that would tell you where kids with your stats from your school get in. It sounds like your school has really tough grading- you are in the top 10%! I would think that the letter from your Guidance Counselor would indicate that. Given your scores and rank, and your EC’s you look pretty good. </p>
<p>Talk to your GC, s/he might be able to give you some perspective. And if that’s not enough, call around to some Admissions offices of schools that have accepted a # of students from your school and ask them. Don’t say “would you accept me”, but ask if they are familiar with your school, and how they view transcripts from there. </p>
<p>Good luck, you sound like someone that schools should be happy to land.</p>
<p>First off, the longshot schools are longshots for anyone, even students with a “perfect” profile, (e.g. Brown has a 8-9% admit rate, if you find a 1 in 12 chance a good one, well more power to you. The other Ivies, Duke and Georgetown aren’t too much better).</p>
<p>As for Michigan, normally I’d agree that superjew’s stats would make it a match, but this year has seen a substantial jump in apps to Michigan and all state universities, primarily from in-state residents. I live in an Ann Arbor and rumors abound of fewer slots for out-of-state students and the 50th%-tile being around 3.7/2200. If he were in state, I’d say superjew was in, OOS makes it tougher.</p>
<p>Again, all of us are speculating. It wouldn’t shock me if sj got into all the longshots and the reaches; it also wouldn’t surprise me if he got shut out at all of them. His stats are good enough to get him into the pool, but his 3.5 is something that can’t be easily dismissed. IMHO.</p>
<p>I have a S with similar GPA/scores, etc. at a school that sends lots of kids to Ivies, etc. and my sense is that your list is a bit reachy. Certainly moreso than my S would be comfortable with. I can understand that you are hoping to aim high and see what hits, but you need to make sure you have LIKELIES that you would be happy attending.</p>
<p>What is the common link between these schools other than prestige and what seems to be a science bent? Why do you like them?</p>
<p>CMU selectivity varies widely among the different schools, depending on what you plan to study. UMich – apply early. At the schools I’m familiar with, JHU ED works very well for students in your range, but it is still reachy.</p>
<p>This is the lowest colleges accepted from my school:
(GPA out of 7 and SAT out of 2400)
Boston College: 5.62, 1850
Brown: [actually has some type of sanction in my school because one year ~7 people were admitted but not one decided to go] 6.28, 2110
Carnegie Mellon University: 5.94, 1940
Columbia: 6.05, 2100
Duke: 6.16, 2040
Emory: 5.94, 2000
Georgia Tech: 5.34, 1850
Georgetown: 6 (belonged to a URM), 1720
George Washington University: 5.23, 1630
Johns Hopkins University (ED?): 5.68, 1940
Northwestern: 5.94, 2080
Wesleyan: 5.2, 1850
Yale: 6.13, 2080
Chicago: 5.94, 2140
Michigan Ann Arbor: 5.62, 1710
Cornell: 5.94, 1940</p>