<p>I am a white female with a 3.2 gpa and a 1600 sat score. I know these sound really low but my high school is harder than most colleges. I have been involved in FIRST robotics since I was in 6th grade and I want to study mechanical engineering. I was the Vice President of my internationally recognized robotics team for 2 years. I would love to go to Virginia Tech and I am trying to figure out A) what are my chances? and B) is there any thing I can do in the next month to raise my chances before my application is due? I have backup schools that I would be happy at as well but I am starting to panic that my robotics and difficult high school might not be enough to get me into VT. Advice is very much needed. </p>
<p>First, IS or OOS? It makes a huge difference when applying to the big 3 Virginia public schools.</p>
<p>Second, they will see a profile for your school to put your GPA in context. But the relative difficulty of your school basically has no effect on your SAT scores. (Since you say it is “really low,” I’m presuming it’s 1600/2400 and not a perfect M+CR 1600.) You should really retake or take the ACT if you can get a better percentile score on that test, and really prep for the highest Math score you can possibly get. For Engineering, a 750+ Math score might persuade them to accept a <600 CR, but they just cannot ignore a <600 M score.</p>
<p>The bad news is that there are very few who even apply to VT with numbers like yours. Most are denied. </p>
<p>The good news is that some are admitted. You’re not necessarily dead in the water. And applying binding ED (deadline: Nov. 1) should give your chances a much needed boost.</p>
<p>But my best guess is that you’d need to either be IS or recruited football player to have any chance at all. And even then, that’s only for admission to the university, but you are unlikely to be admitted directly into Engineering - you’d probably have to change majors after getting qualifying grades in prerequisite courses for a year.</p>