i am a senior and i have no idea where i can get in with my stats. here they are:
-about 1320 on the sat (2010 on new one)
-captain of varsity sport for couple years
-involved in 2 varsity sports all 4 years
-200 miscellaneous volunteer hours
-top 20% at competitive private school
-founder and president of minority awareness club (though i am upper-middle class, non-URM)
-latin club
-several athletic meets with OK placement
i am looking at wake forest, cornell, tufts, BC, emory, amherst, nyu, BU, and UTaustin
<p>cornell, tufts, emory, and amherst are definitely going to be ridiculous reaches, sorry!</p>
<p>I don't know about the rest, but your SAT score, while solid and competitive for many colleges in the US, are in the lower 25% for schools like amherst.</p>
<p>Also, your top 20% class rank is not too appealing, as top school would like to see top 10% at the very least.</p>
<p>You should look more at schools that match your profile, and a few safeties.</p>
<p>I'll agree the SAT scores are an issue, but few here seems to understand that if it's a truly competitive private, top 20% may be fine for top schools.</p>
<p>The closest thing to a true indicator are the 50% SAT ranges that are available from the colleges, and are found in the college guides such as Princeton Review's Top 357 Colleges and Fiske's Guide to Colleges. SAT scores are not the most important thing in the application, but they are the best way to identify safeties, matches, and reaches.</p>
<p>If you an unhooked candidate, then you need to be around the 75% mark for a college to be a match, and around the 50% mark for the college to be a reach. If the range is 1300-1500, then 1500 for a match and 1400 for a reach.</p>
<p>I shudder whenever I think of people looking at the 50% range of a school and thinking that they have a 50% chance of getting into a college because they are in the range somewhere. There are so many things wrong with that. </p>
<p>If you retake the SAT over again in the Fall and pull it up to the high 1300's, then Emory could be a reach college for you, especially if you showed a lot of interest in the school (visit, presentations, ordered DVD, mentioned specific programs at Emory in the app). Don't take the SAT more than three times or they will probably average the subscores instead of picking the best ones out.</p>
<p>Wake Forest is going to be a bit of a reach as well. The average SAT score was 1380 this year. Elon's a similar school nearby that you possibly might want to consider. Boston University is a good match for you. </p>
<p>What attracts you to these schools? There's not much similarity between NYU and Wake, for example.</p>