I’m an out of state applicant applying to UW and it’s most definitely my top school.
My academic profile is fairly average:
GPA (weighted): 3.7
ACT: 30
EC:
-President of a Mock Trial club junior and senior and participant all 4 years of high school
-culturally involved: president of south asian culture show and participant for 4 years(put on a show to raise money for charities in south asia)
-vp of women’s leadership club at school
-internship with attorney king law firm
-internship with scott peters congressional campaign
-volunteer work with hospice patients living in nursing homes
-volunteer at lgbtq community runs
-volunteer at alzheimer’s walk
-work experience as a server, barista, babysitter, and event coordinator assistant
-i’ve played piano since 2nd grade
-participation in numerous leadership programs and clubs on my school campus
Any advice or opinions on my chances helps! Thank you!
Your academics and ECs seem pretty good, I’d just make sure to emphasize the ECs in the subject area that you’re passionate about or want to pursue, rather than them seeming scattered. If you’re interested in law, focus primarily on your internships, mock trial, etc. The other ECs are good to have, but make show colleges that you know what you want to pursue, and that you’ve actively involved yourself in it.
I agree with @sfrig01 about your ECs, which are great and could help you in UW’s holistic review of your application.
Your ACT is about average for enrolled students from California (27-32) in 2015. However, your GPA is below average (estimating that your unweighted GPA is around 3.4-3.5). Therefore, I would call it a high match/low reach. For reference, UW’s Common Data Set reports the unweighted GPA of enrolled freshmen in 2015 as follows:
3.75 to 4.00: 64.24%
3.50 to 3.74: 27.16%
3.25 to 3.49: 6.52%
3.00 to 3.24: 1.52%
Under 3.00: 0.56%
In case you were wondering what #3 was getting at, a small number of majors at Washington have a “direct admission” pathway (business administration, music and other audition based majors and some engineering majors), and a small number of students enter these majors directly as freshmen. Typically, these are applicants with the most outstanding records. Most students enter their majors (including the above majors) after completing prerequisites during their freshman or sophomore year.