Ohhh myyy!!

Applying to College
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<p>I am currently a junior at one of the best schools in the nation (top 40 according to us news). Trust me its nothing to brag about, we're all getting our rear ends kicked hard. But I just wanted to mention that so that you guys would get an idea for why my GPA is so low. Talking about GPA, here are my stats: </p>

<p>GPA: 3.4 UW (yea heckka low)
SAT I: 2360 (M: 800 CR:800 W:760) Superscore: 2400 (took it like twice)
ACT: 34 (M: 36 S: 35 R: 33 W:33)
SAT II: Math 2: 800; Lit: 770; Bio:800; Chem:780
AP: Comp Sci (5) {Last year}
Bio; Chem; Lit; Lang; Stats {This year}
Class Schedule Junior Year:</p>

<p>AP Stats
AP Bio
AP Chem
Honors English
Honors Pre-Calc
AP US - not takin the test its useless for what I want to do; just did it for weighted GPA</p>

<p>My schedule may seem easy to you guys but I'm taking this at one of the best math and science high schools in the country. (Again not trying to brag but to explain the relation between low GPA and classes)</p>

<p>ECs:
Sports:
2 years of basketball
1 year of track (so far.. probably going to continue)</p>

<p>Clubs:
President of Bio Medical Research Club
DECA
Alternative Energy Secretary</p>

<p>I was a Bio Olympiad Semi Finalist last year
I am going to take Chem Olympiad this year.(Probably not going to do too well, but its worth a try.)</p>

<p>Did a Projects Abroad Program to Tanzania last summer where I had the opportunity to work as an intern in a hospital in rural Tanzania. I pretty much shadowed a doctor for about 2 weeks along with learning about how hospitals are in a foreign country. Along with this we went on a 5 day trip through villages and provided clinical care and helped the people there set up a local clinic available to them 24/7. Really fun!!!!!!</p>

<p>I also shadowed a nephrologist for around 30-40 hours last summer.</p>

<p>Founder of a non-profit organization in which we learn about finance and the stock market while at the same time donating our profits to the local charity. (A little more complex than this but don't really want to get into the details of it just yet (sorry). But in terms of importance and significance, I believe this is by far my best EC. And also I've gotten professors from Haas and Standard GSB to come give a lecture/seminar)</p>

<p>210 Hours of Volunteer Hours (Mostly at the hospital) (Probably going to stop volunteering now, I think its enough)</p>

<p>Also this summer I'm traveling to rural India to plan + build an electrical wiring system that will supply electricity to 5-10 villages. I'm doing this with a non-profit international company.</p>

<p>Applied for Medical Research Program over the summer.
Applied to LBW in Upenn for the summer.</p>

<p>And I don't think there are going to be much changes to my application in the following year except for maybe/hopefully medical research paper published and LBW at Penn and maybe a few volunteer positions.</p>

<p>So there it is!!! Please chance for the following schools:</p>

<p>University of Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis
Johns Hopkins University
NYU STERN
University of Michigan-Ross
Cornell
Duke
UC Berkley
UCLA
Boston University BS/MD
USC- Marshall</p>

<p>Thanks a lot guys!!!!</p>

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<p>No shot at any of them.</p>

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<p>*NYU STERN
University of Michigan-Ross
Boston University BS/MD
USC- Marshall</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Do you want B-school or med school???</p>

<p>UCLA and Berkeley are expensive for OOS students; will your parents pay for those 2 schools? </p>

<p>What is your ranking at your school? Is your school public or private?</p>

<p>What is your weighted GPA?</p>

<p>Are you a likely NMSF? If so, then USC gives merit for that.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the honesty cbumpas!! LOL!! And mom2collegekids, I live in cali so UCB and UCLA tuitions are fine. My school is public and it doesn’t rank nor does it weight GPA. And yea I am probably a NMSF. And about the choice between business or medicine, I’m still not sure yet. As you can see from my Ecs, I have an interest in both. But my top choice is NYU Stern. But I added BU bs/md just to find out how I would fare if I chose to go in the medical route. Thanks again for the info guys, really appreciate it</p>

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<p>What’s your class rank? You have exceptional standardized testing scores! and I can’t tell if your GPA is so low compared to them due to the rigor of your school or the fact that you might be a tad lazy! haha. Personally, I think class rank speaks volumes more than GPA.</p>

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<p>Assuming that your GPA is good for your school (eg. high rank), you’ll probably get into all of those.</p>

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<p>Not sure about the class rank, but the thing is that there are like 2 different kinds of students at my school. There are those who take maybe 1 or 2 APs and get 3.6 or 3.8 and there are those that take 5 or 6 APs and get 3.33 or 3.5. So its really hard to tell based on school rank.</p>

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<p>My school is public and it doesn’t rank nor does it weight GPA. And yea I am probably a NMSF. And about the choice between business or medicine, I’m still not sure yet. As you can see from my Ecs, I have an interest in both. But my top choice is NYU </p>

<p>=============</p>

<p>I didn’t know that any publics in Calif didn’t rank since ranking is important for some UC admissions/guarantees.</p>

<p>Congrats on being a likely NMSF.</p>

<p>So, NYU is your favorite? Are your parents OK with paying for NYU? NYU gives lousy aid.</p>

<p>You’ll likely get into many schools…however, the UCs are very GPA heavy for influence. That may hurt you for UCLA and Cal.</p>

<p>What schools are your financial safeties…schools that you LIKE, can get into, and can afford?</p>

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<p>Sterny:</p>

<p>You’re one of those cases that is very hard for those of us who are not admissions officers (meaning all of us) to evaluate.</p>

<p>Your GPA looks kind of low for most of these schools, but there is a certain elegance to a 2400 SAT which is sure to impress.</p>

<p>If your GPA is equivalent to that of other top students who take multiple SATs and your school is nationally ranked, then the Top colleges most likely factor this in. (I sort of doubt that a top high school would continue with a grading program if it worked to the detriment of many of its top students, but I’ve been surprised before …)</p>

<p>In any event, since you don’t fit into any of the common categories, I think your GC would be a better source than the CC community in determining your chances at these schools.</p>

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<p>A few questions: Does that GPA reflect an upward trend or is it pretty consistent (schools are forgiving of a poorer freshman year, especially for guys)? </p>

<p>Second, what’s your safety?</p>

<p>Third, if you are so keen on med school, and money is no constraint, you might want to look at a few LACs, where students tend to be less competitive with each other (because they aren’t anonymous in the classroom), you get to know profs personally (so more chances for good letters of rec), and you aren’t working for grad students in the lab when you do research.</p>

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<p>Yea it kinda is weird that we don’t weight or have rankings. But my school follows these really weird rules that were partially influenced by past students themselves. Parents and students believed that ranking only tells half the story and they believed that too many colleges were admitting students solely based on ranking (which I don’t really believe), so they worked with the district and school to take away ranking. This happened about 8-9 years ago. And as for the weighted GPA, I have no idea what’s going through the school administration’s mind. And zephyr15, I completely agree with you. My case does seem a little odd. Like because I go to a competitive school I was able to do well on the Nationally standard SAT, ACT, and SAT IIs. But at the same time the same competitiveness screwed up my GPA kinda bad. And I was wondering are my ECs any good?? And M’s Mom, yea my GPA is totally in a upward trend!!! And as for safeties I think UCD and UCSD would be my safeties!!! And again, thank you guys so much for the replies!!!</p>

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<p>bumpp 10charr!!!</p>

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<p>I know you’ve already applied to those schools, but I honestly feel like you should’ve thought over your choices more carefully. Many of the schools you listed seem really cutthroat, and if you had a hard time getting your GPA up to par in high school, these schools will likely be very unrelenting (esp. Stern, Chicago, UCB, Cornell, and JHU). </p>

<p>That said, I also really hope that you get into the school of your choice, because I’m in a similar situation (lowish GPA, better standardized tests). Unfortunately for people like us, our GPA’s matter most!</p>

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<p>You have a lottery ticket chance of getting in to most of the schools on your list…all of those schools are reaches for everyone.</p>

<p>What I do not see on your list are any true match or safety schools, where you have a much-better-than-lottery chance of getting in, and of even getting some merit money. Safeties for a student like you don’t need to be dregs of the earth variety, just schools with a better admissions ratio.</p>

<p>You might want to add a few more schools to your list just to protect yourself from disappointment.</p>

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<p>Closing, please post Chances threads on the What are my Chances? forum.</p>