Hi! I’m a girl from NJ looking for colleges in the New York (preferably by the city) area, as well as in Southern California. I have extended family members in both areas, and by recommendations I have NYU, Fordham, the New School, Pepperdine, Occidental, Loyola Marymount, and Santa Clara on my list. I’ve looked on Naviance and my school’s scatterplots look good for most of the schools I’ve named-excluding NYU, which is a reach-but some of the California ones don’t have a lot data for my school.
The thing is I have a bit of a GPA issue. I have a strong upwards trend in my gpa and have taken many honors and AP courses (which, in hindsight, I maybe should have waited on a few times), but my gpa is around a 3.4 weighted. This is mostly due to my freshman/sophomore year grades in math and science related classes being poor and then the rest being mediocre B’s. (I think I can’t apply to a UC because of this.) My school doesn’t do ranks or deciles so I’m also not sure what mine is, but for context its public NJ high school thats ranked pretty well (or so I see on the website, lol).
My SAT is a 1480 and I took 1 AP exam (4) in sophomore year and 3 junior year with all 5’s, and am expecting to take 5 more at the end of this year. Junior year and this year I’ve been doing well in school with many more A grades and the same/increasing rigor.
As for extracurriculars: I take classes at the local community college (U.S. politics and economics this semester), hold numerous leadership positions in debate/current events related clubs, have won awards in said clubs, participated in local political campaigns, held a job for two years which I just left for an internship, and accumulated around 250 volunteer hours. This being done pretty consistently with these activities stretching back to my freshman year. And I’m still editing my essay but it goes for the leadership angle and addresses building confidence throughout my high school career.
I’m really interested in journalism, business, and political science and to reiterate I’d like a location by NYC/Southern Cali but am willing to look near a big city. I’m worried my GPA will hold me back from schools I really like, so I’d really like guidance. Thanks!
Look at this first as there are good tips in how to deal with this:
Your SAT is good, an upward trend along with a good explanation (the above article can help…) of what happened to your GPA can be very helpful. That your school does not ranks is also very good. Nevertheless you (everyone really…) need to add some safeties to your list there. Best of luck.
I’m a NJ female, and I had a 3.3 GPA. I wanted to go to California, but it wasn’t affordable. I attended La Salle University my first year, but I attend a community college now.
I’d recommend Montclair as well, I was accepted there and loved the tour I went on.
I also applied to Providence, Temple & Catholic U of America. Not in NYC, but near other large cities.