<p>Starting my senior year in HS and I'm wondering if there's any chance of getting into U of I with these stats.
- gpa 4.184/5.0 (3.344/4.0)
- ACT - 24 (plan to take it again in fall, 2013)
- cheerleader (4 years, varsity Soph-Senior)
- student assistant / special ed class (Soph-Senior)
- dance production (Jr/Sr)
- lots of volunteer experience (homeless shelter, mission trips to Mexico, ESL tutoring with 4th/5th graders, junior cheer coach for park district)
- work experience minimal (farrier assistant, babysitting, hairstylist assistant)
- planned AP class Senior year
- biggest accomplishment is creating, developing, initiating and coaching a special ed cheer squad for my high school.</p>
<p>I think it's a long shot, but maybe someone out there can give me hope?</p>
<p>GPA and ACT scores will likely take you out of the running. The ACT score is definitely not in the mid 50%ile, and your GPA is low. But to be fair, I’m not an admissions officer. If your HS has Naviance, I would check to see how you compare with students at your HS who have been accepted at UIUC.</p>
<p>Well, hold on, which college do you want to apply to? And where are you from? The division of general studies ACT middle 50% is 25-30 ([U</a> of I Admissions: Freshman Admission Requirements](<a href=“http://admissions.illinois.edu/apply/requirements_freshman.html]U”>Page Not Found, Illinois Undergraduate Admissions)), so if you retook it and did a little better then you would at least be in the middle 50%. Also, you could apply EA, which would boost your chances, in fact I would say you should almost definitely do that if you really want to go. The GPA is also a little low (the average is supposedly about a 3.6) but that average is really because of the engineering and business schools, which has a lot of good students applying, so the average for the “lesser” schools is probably lower, if I was to speculate, I would say its probably closer to a 3.4, but I can’t know for sure. Really, the Engineering and Business schools are the most selective, the other colleges accept students with far lower GPAs (if you look at the results thread for the class of 2007 on the UIUC college confidential page, you see people with 3.2-3.3 GPAs getting in, though their ACT scores are a little higher than yours). And finally, Naviance is bull. It doesn’t take into account life stories or ECs, so if it says that the lowest admission from your school was a person with a 2.9 GPA, that person could also have the most tragic story and the greatest ECs ever. Its hard to get a good read off of them. Uhhhhhh, I think that’s about it. Oh, basically summing up what I said before “While reading an application, admissions and college professionals carefully consider the wide range of information provided by the applicant. Applicants should understand that every word of the application is considered in making an admissions decision. Readers consider all evidence provided by the applicant, the context of the personal and academic circumstances, and the strength of the applicant pool in each college and to the University of Illinois overall. The weight of each criterion in the admissions decision depends on the combination of qualities presented by the applicant. There is no set formula of weighting criteria. Final decisions are made on the evaluation of a variety of criteria and not by a single point system or formula.” That was taken off of the previous link, I suggest giving that page a good read. Overall, if you want to try to get into a somewhat lesser school, or one that isn’t as well ranked as the engineering or business ones, you probably have a pretty decent shot. Honestly, I have no idea, but if you don’t apply then you definitely won’t get in.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m from Illinois, and I want to be a special ed teacher. Maybe the fact that I persevered enough to get a special ed cheerleading squad started at my high school will give me a little something different in the consideration department. I appreciate all the comments, and will work hard toward improving my ACT score and my gpa. I’m not sure if I can do it in the year I have left, but I’m going to try. I’ve already been accepted to the University of Kansas, which also has a good education program, so at least I have something to fall back on.<br>
Thanks everyone!</p>