Ohio State admissions for a subpar student?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm a senior from Texas and planning on applying to Ohio State. It's my top choice school, although I feel pretty doubtful about getting in. My GPA and class rank on my transcript are a lot lower than what I was told by my counselor about two months ago. I think the main reason for this is because of my super lousy sophomore year where I ended up failing Pre-AP English 2 (resulting in me taking the regular level class my junior year that I ended up getting an A in) and failing the second semester of chemistry that I will be retaking next semester. Nevertheless, I think by the end of this semester (January 14th) I will have raised my GPA to hopefully a 3.0 or 3.1 unweighted. On my transcript right now it says I have about a 3.15 weighted GPA. I'm taking an AP class this year so hopefully that'll raise it a little? I took the SAT last year and scored a 1780 combined (M- 580 CR- 570 W-630 with 9 on the essay). I retook it last Saturday and I'm getting the results in a couple weeks. What should my SAT scores be around to somewhat make up for my not so good GPA?</p>

<p>Also, do I have any chance at all at be admitted? Here is some stuff about me:
-Marching band for two years (freshman and sophomore), yearbook for one year (junior), and HOSA and "Quidditch club" for one year my senior year.
-White/Hispanic
-Out of state?
-$80,000 income
-Psychology/biology major
-Some job experience (1 month bahaha.)
-Took almost all pre-ap (lol) classes my freshman and sophomore years.
-3 years of Spanish (pre-ap)
-4 years of all core classes and 2 years of fine arts.</p>

<p>I'm also a pretty good writer and I think my essay was written pretty good although I hate the length requirement so I could only focus on one topic. I basically wrote my essay about how I am an independent person who wants to prove she can make it on her own by moving away from her small Texas town where she grew up her whole life, away from her family and alll her friends, across the country. I included how a lot of my family lives up there so Ohio has basically been my second home. I also praised their medical program since I want to be a psychiatrist. Is that a good essay topic or should I write about something else? I could write about how my grades were affected by my super dysfunctional family and depression (their admission site says something about how they'll consider you if your grades were largely affected by physical, mental, or environmental factors) but I don't want to sound like the typical cry baby student who blames everyone else for her misfortunes.. you know? Please help :/ If you have any other suggestions for me to increase my chances, that would be great.</p>

2

<p>One thing I’m curious about is how your family will afford $40K/year for school on an $80K income?</p>

<p>Beyond that, the items weighted most in admission are rigor, GPA, class rank and scores. Your rigor doesn’t sound like it’s very competitive (one AP this year). It sounds like your class rank is not very high and your CR and M scores are near the 25%ile. <a href=“http://oaa.osu.edu/irp/publisher_surveys/2010ColumbusCDS.pdf[/url]”>http://oaa.osu.edu/irp/publisher_surveys/2010ColumbusCDS.pdf&lt;/a&gt; I’m afraid it’s a real long shot.</p>

<p>That’s probably a blessing. You should look for more affordable options, probably in-state.</p>

3

<p>Eh I thought it was like $30k… well not like that’s much better haha. Well financial aid but yeah. I know it’ll be more realistic for in-state, which I am still applying to, but I’d rather not be in Texas.</p>

4

<p>Ohio State doesn’t give financial aid to out of state students to help pay for their high OOS costs. Most OOS publics can’t help non-residents. </p>

<p>Unless your family is going to pay all costs, it’s not going to be affordable.</p>

5

<p>Ohio State’s OOS COA</p>

<p>Out-of-state tuition and fees: $23,604<br>
Room and board:… $9,180 </p>

<h2>Books and supplies: …$1,440 </h2>

<p>Approx cost…$35,000 plus transportation and personal expenses</p>

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<p>So you’re trying to say that the FAFSA doesn’t help out at all unless you attend an in-state school?</p>

7

<p>FAFSA does not give you anything. It is a way for the schools and the gov’t to collect information on your finances so the gov’t and school can decide whether to offer financial aid. Public Us are supported by the taxes from state residents. Most aid from public Us is focused on in-state students, otherwise the taxpayers would be unhappy. Federal Pell grants (for low income families) are about $5.5K and you can borrow another $5.5K as a freshman through Stafford loans. That won’t put much of a dent in your COA. Go to the financial aid forum and read the sticky at the top.</p>