I have a 1510 SAT but a 4/6/4 essay score.
My safe colleges are Fordham, Rutgers and Lehigh.
My target colleges include NYU, Boston College, Villanova, University of Michigan, and Northeastern.
My reach colleges: Cornell, UPenn, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame.
My school does not count GPA for freshman year, so my GPA only reflects my sophomore and junior year performance. I have a 3.5 out of 4 with a 3.679 weighted GPA. My school is one of the top 500 in the US according to the US News and World Report (I don’t mean to brag)
P.S. If you know of Naviance, when you search up a certain college there is a meter that shows your chances of getting in with your SAT and GPA. Is the meter that measures your chances to enter a certain college accurate or misleading?
Also: Is a 1510 considered bad when considering the fact that other students applying to top schools have at least a 1550? Or is my “fact” misleading?
Do not count on Naviance. It doesn’t take into account differences in admission by major, if you are in/outstate, hooked applicants, etc… The best way to see how to build your list is to look at each school’s common data set, see where your stats fall, and then further dig for acceptance stats for your major.
I can tell you off the bat that you have no safeties listed and some of your targets should be in the reach category. Your GPA is very low for some of these schools.
As to your question about retaking the SAT, most schools no longer require or consider the essay. If you are above 1500 with balanced sections, I wouldn’t retake.
Which of my targets should be in my reach category? Can you be specific?
Do your targets even require the essay portion? You’ve got to see what they say. You’ll need to understand what they look for, to make your own best presentation.
And they look at the transcript, see courses and grades, regardless of whether your high school includes those in GPA.
What’s your definition of “balanced”? Does a 740 English and 770 Math count?
Yes, I would consider that a balanced SAT score.
Unless you are a Michigan resident, I would put U Mich firmly in the reach category.
NYU, BC, Nova, Northeastern, and Lehigh all have between a 26 - 31% acceptance rate. Based on acceptance rates your lower GPA, I would put all of those schools as low reaches.
740 is under the bar for Cornell and Penn.
Most colleges (exception UC system schools) WILL count your freshman year grades and re-calculate your transcript GPA…what is your cumulative unweighted GPA, core courses only, at the end of junior year?
Agree with the above, all of your targets are reaches. Lehigh is also a reach with the 3.5 uw GPA.
I don’t think Penn, Cornell and Vandy are realistic reaches, unless you have a hook that we don’t know about…URM, recruited athlete, legacy, etc.
Several of the schools on your list take demonstrated interest into account, so make sure you are connecting with those schools in meaningful ways.