University of Virginia, UMich, UPenn etc. - chances for hard, crapshoot schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a rising senior at a top public inner city high school in my state. I am interested in several top tier schools and their architecture programs or product design, but in general wondering what my chances are to get into the schools in general (not their arch/design programs because I don’t want to post any portfolio information here for privacy reasons).

  • GPA: 4.0 Unweighted, 4.3-4.4 Weighted (Yet to be updated after this past semester) - Note that I am in the 99 percentile unweighted, but for weighted only in the 94th.
  • Took 6.5 IB Credits Jr Year, 2 sophomore year, likely 5.5 senior year
  • Taking several art classes all four years
  • New SAT: 1380 (want to retake this, only taken it once) - Charts say it's roughly equivalent to somewhere in the 1900's on the old SAT
  • ACT - 31 (35 Reading, High 20's/Low 30s on other sections)
  • SAT II: No scores back but I took Biology E, Math II, and Spanish
  • Took IB Exams for Biology and Calculus, scores pending at this moment
  • Extracurriculars: 2 JV Sports at my school, accomplished regional ski racing, member to 4 clubs, president of 1 club for a local charity, piano since 1st grade, hopefully a summer job, photography blog, member of Synagogue
  • Other: National Honor Society, Spanish Immersion, IB Diploma Candidate
  • Essays: I am a decent writer, taking a writing class next year at my school because I like the teacher and syllabus- should be able to work on it in there Not sure if important at all, but I am a white Jewish female with no real diversity offerings, and neither of my parents went to the schools I'm interested in.

Schools I’m Looking at: (not in state for any of them)
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia
Tulane
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Cornell
Rice
Northwestern
University of Washington
—If I can get my SAT/ACT up, then possibly Stanford

2

I would say that with your SAT/ACT scores UPenn, UVA, Stanford, and Cornell would definitely be reaches. Still, you have a good GPA and nice ECs.

3

Look into WashU for architecture. A friend of mine is going to study it there. But for nearly all of your schools, your test scores take you out of the running to be admitted. You really need better test scores if you want to have a chance at any of these.

4

Your have decent chances at Berkeley, LA, UW, U Michigan, and Tulane. For the rest of those schools get your ACT up atleast a point or two. For Stanford atleast 2 or 3.