So i am a rising senior and here are my stats
ACT: 28(am retaking it in September and aiming for 32)
GPA: 4.36
Rank: 15/380
Extracurricular (Leaderships)(we have elections the year before for the next year so)
President of Key Club(sophomore year)
President of Piano Club (Junior and Senior Year)
Vice President of Model United Nations(Senior year)
Vice President of DECA (Senior Year)
DECA Board of Directors(Junior Year)
Regular Extracurricular
Member of NHHS, NHS, NEHS, BETA Club, Spanish Club
I will be doing an internship at a financial corporation(most likely Sun trust banks or something) for a month over the summer.
Income is less than 60k
Indian Female
I am planning on majoring in either International Relations or Economics(depends on the school)
Any advice would be great! Would love tips on how to improve but i only have 4 months till applications are due so i will have probably write really good essays at this point!
Honestly, the most likely option will be Northwestern. Your ACT is low, and what is your unweighted GPA? You have leadership, but not anything extraordinary. I don’t mean to be harsh. There are lots of other great schools out there!
@MaryGJ@HopefulHoya1103 by the end of my senior year i will have taken 10 APs and I am planning on taking the ACT again and study over the summer. I do have safeties and these are like my reach schools. And i wanted to know what would be considered extraordinary like what activities or recognition?
Aim for 34+. Indian female is one of the worst demographics for college applications and a 28 will not get you in any of your schools unless you have a giant hook or are URM.
Your ACT score is not competitive and you have somewhat ordinary EC’s so something else has to shine, or your scores have to go up to at least a 32 plus an ED application to one of them to give you a decent shot.
Your GPA is definitely competitive for the schools you have listed, but in order to have a semi-decent chance at most of these schools, I would suggest you aim for a 34+ on the ACT when you retake it. Getting a 34 is usually within the 50% to 75% range for admits at these schools, while 32 is a bit risky since it is usually in the lower 25%. Also, be sure to take some SAT II subject tests in your area of interest; so for economics that might include math 2 and history. Besides your internship which hopefully will help your chances, your ECs look fairly generic; that is to say, most applicants to these schools share the same ECs as you so they won’t necessarily help you stand out. I recommend in addition to interning (which you should ideally do for longer than a month), try to find other unique extracurricular activities in international relations and/or economics that applicants wouldn’t normally do. I think your demographic (asian female) may dampen your chances at the schools you have listed above, but that may be taken care of by your household income. Also, if you are a 1st gen student, you should indicate that on your app as well because that will definitely help you. Good luck! I would really appreciate it if you could chance me back here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1995754-chance-me-low-gpa-rank-cornell-rice-wash-u-ucla-etc-p1.html
Heads up to @HopefulHoya1103 that Northwestern, Penn, and Brown have roughly the same admit rate. By the numbers alone, Cornell is the most likely of the OP’s schools to admit any given student (and that difference is really slim–Cornell admits ~5% more applicants than those three). Penn and Northwestern also have average ACT scores slightly higher than Brown and Cornell (31/34 vs 30/34 25th/75th percentiles).
To OP, you’ve got everything on track; get the ACT a couple points higher and you’ll be a competitive applicant at these four schools.
