I am a black sophomore going on a junior year. I go to a very challenging and well known Private school currently. I hold a 3.45 Cum GPA with 3 honors so far and will have an AP and another honors next year. I am in the debate club, run track, and will be the president of the investment club next year. I have also ran a successful business where I made 5 thousand dollars in about 6 months while being self employed. I will also be interning at a Bank this year as well. What more can I do? Will my challenging HS be enough? What are my chances if I get a strong SAT and ACT score of getting into a top Undergraduate business school such as NYU, UVA, William and Mary, Columbia, etc.
A GPA of 3.45 is low for highly-selective schools, but you have a year to improve that a little. Combined with a high test score, you could be competitive at most of the schools you’ve mentioned. Keep up with your other activities. Many of them are oriented toward your academic and career goals, and thus will have some impact on application. Good luck.
So it doesn’t matter that the gpa is affected by my challenging HS?
It matters. The question is how much. Is a 3.45 the top of your class? If so, then that will go well for you. Is it more like the top 10% or top quartile? Then that’s far less impressive.
To give you a little bit of an idea, the average high school GPA of incoming freshmen at Harvard is over 3.9, and roughly half of admits have a perfect 4.0 during high school. These are often kids who have gone to top schools, and have taken the roughest, most rigorous schedules. My own sons graduated high school with a 3.9 and a 3.8 respectively, and took only honors and AP courses, other than the required standard college prep courses.
Except for Columbia, the schools you’re mentioning aren’t quite as selective. But they’re still competitive schools, and will require high grades and good test scores.
But it’s entirely possible that you go to a school where grading is much, much tighter. Will you be valedictorian? How close will you be to the top of your class?
Most likely top 20%. Its rated the second hardest/best school in the state if that helps.
It depends. Is the 3.45 weighted or unweighted? What state are you from? Certain colleges will be more familiar with applicants from certain high schools than others. For instance, given that you are applying to both UVa and the College of William and Mary, I’d imagine they’d be familiar with your high school if it was in Virginia.
Its Gonzaga College High School in DC. It has a good relationship with UVA in particular. And 3.45 weighted I believe: the 3.45 includes honors and ap bumps if that’s what youre referring to
Top 20%? That’s not bad. But it’s not spectacular. For some context, 80% of incoming William & Mary freshman are in the top 10% of their high school class. That means that overall, you’re not very competitive on GPA with W&M admits. At UVA, 92% of incoming freshman are in the top 10% of their class.
From the description of your extracurriculars, it sounds like you have a lot on the ball. You have the interest and appear to have some aptitude for business. You’re doing the right things outside of the classroom. But that’s only one side of your application. The other two sides are test scores and grades. Do the test you can on your ACT or SAT. Perhaps your extracurriculars will be perceived as being strong enough to overcome relatively-low grades. But perhaps not. You need to dig deeper for your junior and senior years, especially your junior year, as it will be the last full year before you apply to college. Be as excellent in the classroom as you appear to be outside of it.
Gonzaga? LOL. My family (me, my brothers, my sons) are all alums of a brother Catholic school in the archdiocese.
Thanks for the help!
You should check with your school to see how it matches up with past applicants, particularly with the program called Naviance if your school uses it. It will help give you an idea of what range of students are accepted. I agree that your ECs are impressive and are definitely better than the average student’s, but a 3.45 unweighted GPA is still pretty low if it includes all the weighting. You still have one and a half more years to bump it up, but definitely work on that, standardized test scores, and your essay. Since schools primarily admit for academics (they want to make sure you can handle the workload), you don’t want that ending up being your crutch.
Interesting ECs! Study for the PSAT which will come up in October. Now is a good time to talk to your parents about how much they can afford to pay and to run the NPCs for the schools you listed. if you are in-state for VA, the the VA states are both easier to get into and to afford. You sound like you have a lot of drive and commitment.