I think I posted this in the wrong category the first time so I’m putting it here. I’m a junior right now and I think I have a pretty good list of colleges, I’m just not sure where most of them fall as far as reach/match/safety goes.
Here are my stats:
SAT I (breakdown): 1370 (M: 700 R: 670)
ACT (breakdown): 28 (yeah… it’s bad. This was with no prep and I was sick. I’ll probably focus on the SAT though)
SAT II (place score in parentheses): Will take Bio M, Spanish, and maybe Math II
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9 (probably going down a little; junior year is really beating me up)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10%
All honors and AP classes
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses):
Theater (Lead Tech; Assistant Technical Director; Directed short plays)
Academic Team (Captain)
Robotics Team (Business Team Captain)
Science Olympiad
NHS
Orientation Leader for Freshmen
Volunteer/Community Service:
Vacation Bible School (Crew Leader)
Sunday School at my Church
Summer Activities:
VBS (mentioned above)
Summer Work Study Program at my school (required of financial aid students; done during the summer to free up space in schedule during the year)
Looking at a summer job this year
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes; must have
Intended Major: Biochemistry
State (if domestic applicant): GA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Private Catholic
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: <50,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Low income family? Single mom?
Colleges I’m Planning on Applying:
Duke (reach)
Notre Dame (reach)
Vanderbilt (reach)
USC Honors College (?)
UAB Honors College (likely)
Georgia Tech (?)
UGA Honors College (?)
Auburn Honors College (likely)
Yeah I know Duke, ND, and Vandy are reaches for anyone and that they’re going to be really hard with my current test scores but they were first tries with no prep. I’m pretty confident I can make some major improvements with prep. I was more curious about the other 5 schools on my list. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and offer any suggestions!
USC Honors College - Probably a reach w/ your current scores, but you can make it a match if your scores get better (which you mention is very probable!)
UAB Honors College - Safety!
Georgia Tech - Reach for most people, most definitely a reach for you?
UGA Honors College - Match for the school. But I’m not sure about the Honors College, with your current test scores.
Auburn Honors College - Safety!
vanderbilt is very stat driven, so SAT score is paramount, shoot for 1500+
With your SAT and ACT, Duke, Vandy, USC and GA tech are high reaches/out of reach
So since my scores are so bad for those schools… what would be considered a good score? I’m retaking the SAT in June and I’m hoping to do well enough on that that I won’t have to worry about retaking the ACT in the fall.
UPDATES (and a couple minor things I forgot in the OP):
SAT: 1410 (CR: 720 M: 690); Superscored: 1420 (CR: 720 M: 700)
SAT Subject Test: Bio M (760), registered for Math 2 in August
UW GPA: ~3.8ish (school doesn’t automatically calculate this for you so that’s my best estimate based on an online calculator)
Also I dropped to the top 20% even though I have a 97.67 overall average (including weight). My average didn’t drop much after second semester so I’m probably right on the cusp. I asked my GC about it and she said if it changed after first semester senior year she would email my RD schools (Duke and Notre Dame)
APs: Human Geography (4), World History (4), US History (4), English Lang (4), Bio (5)
Senior Schedule: AP Calc BC, AP Physics C: Mech, AP Comp Gov, AP Micro, AP Stats, British Literature (dropped from AP Lit because AP Lang made me absolutely miserable)
I guess it’s also worth noting that I only have 2 years of foreign language (Spanish 1 & 2). This is why I was originally going to take the Spanish Subject Test. I had resources and prep materials but it just fell through so I figured it wasn’t worth paying for the test if I’m not going to get a good score. I know this might be detrimental to my Duke chances (aside from the average test scores) since they recommend 3 years. I should have just sucked it up and taken a third and fourth year but I was miserable in Spanish at my school. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 right? 
As it stands this is my college list:
Georgia Tech
Notre Dame
Harvey Mudd*
Duke
College of Charleston
USC Honors College
Elon
Berry
*Mudd has caught my attention recently but I probably won’t have the chance to tour since I live in GA. I’ve contacted my admissions rep to get as much info as I can without touring and I think I like it a lot. They’re affordable (meet 100% of need) so that’s not a problem. I’m wondering if it’s worth applying because of my scores and they require a humanities teacher rec (I’m not particularly close with any of my junior English and Social Studies teachers)
So yeah that SAT is not as good as I wanted it to be and I really don’t want to retake but I might in October. Thoughts?
Thanks so much for any comments/advice!
Guys, he’s instate for G-tech, that puts him in the match section there.
Georgia Tech–Match (high match, but still a match)
Notre Dame–reach
Harvey Mudd—reach/out of reach (If you don’t get the material needed, it won’t end well)
Duke–high reach
College of Charleston–Safety
USC Honors College—reach/high reach (out of state sucks!)
Elon–low match/high safety
Berry–safety
I don’t know how much that helped, but I hope it did!
@ConcernedRabbit thank you! It’s nice for someone to tell me GT is a match because it currently my #1 choice. Are we talking about the same USC? I’m talking about South Carolina, not Southern California (sorry for the confusion). I didn’t think it would be that extreme because plenty of people from my school go there every year
@backstagenerd Ahh! Sorry, you’re right, I mix up with Southern California! My bad. Oh, so then you are fine, high safety is how I would put it.
And I don’t think people realized you are instate for G-tech, I know I missed that the first time I read through, but saw it before I posted. That’s why I said match.
@ConcernedRabbit Again, thank you so much! This definitely calms the nerves a little bit!
So I guess the important question is… should I retake the SAT? I’m kind of banking on essays and recs for ND, and I knew Duke was a long shot when I began this process