<p>I'm a sophomore (I'm supposed to be a freshman, but I skipped a grade), and a Hispanic female. Virginia is also my state of residency. I haven't taken my SAT's yet, but what kind of scores do I need to almost guarantee my admittance to UVa? I have a 3.7 grade point average, and I know I'm not reaching my full potential (I'm doing half of my classes online, so teaching yourself is a little harder!). If I went full-time at my local high school, I would easily have a 3.9 or 4.0 (I'm going full-time next year). Will me being an underrepresented ethnicity help my chances of getting in at all? I plan on applying to Vanderbilt, Duke, Cornell, and University of Chicago. Would playing a sport help me at all? I plan on taking tennis lessons and joining my high school's varsity team. I want to either major in biomedical engineering or just pre-med. Can you have double-majors? (If I could I would choose biomedical or pre-med and Spanish) I plan on attending medical school.</p>
<p>There is nothing you can do to almost guarantee admission to UVA because there is no quantifiable standard. Just live your life to the fullest, do the very best you can in all endeavors, write a good essay on your application, and see what happens.</p>
<p>But make sure you apply to a couple of super soft safeties, because UVA isn’t one.</p>
<p>Gosh, starting to think about colleges makes me nervous! I feel so compelled to prove myself, and if I can’t…I don’t know what I’ll do. All I’ve ever been to my parents is grades, and hopefully I can prove to them I can do it. Thank you for your post, VADAD1.</p>
<p>hopefulhispanic, I can’t tell you what your chances will be at UVA, but I can tell you that whether you get accepted or not at that school is in no way a measure of you as a student or a person. </p>
<p>I only gave you that precautionary tone because my daughter was just wait listed with 790CR, 780MTH, 770WR, 760Chem, 750LIT, and 730Math II. She was also top 2% in her class.</p>
<p>UVA just didn’t like her for some reason. When UVA wait listed her, it in no way changed how proud of her I am for the person she is.</p>
<p>Just do your best. I bet your parents will feel the same way regardless of what happens with UVA.</p>
<p>Thank you. You honestly will never know just how much that post meant to me. Honestly, I just started crying… I guess I just never hear that. I’m always ‘the smart one’, and when I can’t live up to that claim I feel worthless. My parents sort of except it from me, I guess. Thank you, thank you, thank you!</p>
<p>VADAD1, UVa certainly liked your daughter well enough to waitlist her ,rather than outright reject her. She still has a slight chance at acceptance. With over 28,000 applications this year, there may have been about 15,000 kids who were actually rejected (just a guess at that figure) and have no shot at acceptance this year. UVa may very well have “liked” many of those kids too. There are just not enough spaces in the class for everyone. hopefulhispanic,VADAD1 has given you some very good advice to put some safeties on your list.Good luck! You sound like a great kid!</p>
<p>Thank you so much, sevmom! I will find some safeties. (:</p>
<p>I pushed my daughter pretty hard at the start of high school, and she might have felt the same way about me for a while, that the only thing I cared about were her grades.</p>
<p>I promise you…that’s not true. If your parents push you hard, it’s probably because they want you to set yourself up for a good life. Maybe the methods aren’t always effective. Mine weren’t, my daughter had a bad Sophomore year and I told her, “Ok, I am not going to push you anymore, you are own your own”, and she has had a 5.0 GPA since that time.</p>
<p>But my intentions were good, even if my methods weren’t.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for your parents, but I am guessing if they push you hard they just want you to give yourself the best opportunities for success after high school.</p>
<p>See, to me, VADAD1, this is a telling post. What do you mean by a “bad Sophomore year”? I was under the impression that your daughter had almost perfect grades to match her almost perfect SAT scores . . . .</p>
<p>That it probited her from being ranked in the top 2% of her class.</p>
<p>She got a C in IB World History and a couple of Bs in IB classes too.</p>
<p>Yeah, that might be part of it. Thank you for the reassurance though! You must be very proud of your daughter! Top 2% is a wonderful achievement!</p>
<p>My son graduated from HS a couple of years ago. SATs high (800 CR, 740 Math, 710 W) and 800 spanish and 760 Math II. His high school counselor told him that his 3.8 (weighted) gpa (a number of Bs and his ONE and only C in 10th grade English) pretty much would mean he was an unlikely candidate for UVA. Never mind he is hispanic. She encouraged him to apply but to keep his expectations low; she pointed out that even with those decent grades he was not in the top 20% of his class despite full IB/AP load. He didn’t apply to UVA preferring VCUArts, but as results come in for this year, it does seem that his counselor is right…that grades are trumping SAT scores. But we are not talking poor performing students…these are top kids in full IB or full AP programs. My D is shocked, truly shocked at who is getting rejected (not waitlisted) by UVA. </p>
<p>Generally, the scores/grades go together…top scorers have weighted GPAs above 4.0 and they have been accepted into UVA. There are enough kids who have both the exceptional grades and test scores to fill up UVA so it doesn’t surprise me to see this. I am shocked, however, at how competitive it is and my junior D, despite full IB and only 1 B on her transcript, is now convinced that getting into UVA is a reach because she is unlikely to be a super high test scorer. We are going to visit UVA this break and I hope she likes it, but I know she will be careful not to put all her hopes and dreams into UVA or WandM. I think all in state students need to be prepared for rejection from UVA and welcome the opportunity to attend VCU, Tech or Univ of Mary Washington or any of our other fine universities. We are certainly lucky to have so many good choices and any motivated kid can get an exceptional education at any of them.</p>
<p>Oh…also…hopefulhispanic…my kids are hispanic and my son qualified as a national hispanic scholar on the PSAT but ethnicity is not a hook for top schools unless you are first to college or have other barriers to education. It seems to be a helpful quality when you apply for midrange public universities looking to improve their graduation rates for minorities–they are looking for minorities who can be successful at their university–but the very selective schools get enough well qualified minority applicants so t hat this is not a factor in their decisionmaking. The hispanic student forum is an excellent source of objective information for hispanic students.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s surprising. I definitely check on the National Hispanic Scholar thing. I have a lot of research ahead it seems! Oh, and thanks, I’ll be sure to look at that forum.</p>
<p>If you are a junior and you scored over a certain amount (usually around 200 in VA) you should already have been nominated for this. If your GC did not do this for you, do not despair you can go to teh College Board website and check for the qualifying score in VA and then, if you qualify, you can ask your GC to contact the college board to get your designation. There is no money tied to it but you get to notify a couple of schools for free that you are a NHS and a number of schools tie merit aid to the designation (none, however, in VA) but there is a list available on the hispanic students forum.</p>