What are my chances at these schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>-The schools: Florida State U, James Madison U, Miami U (Ohio), NC State U, Ohio State U, Ohio U, Purdue, Texas A&M, U of Cincinnati, U of Kentucky, U of Louisville, U of Maryland: College Park, U of Tennessee, U of Texas Austin, and finally, Virginia Tech. </p>

<p>I apologize, I know that's quite a few. I just did a college matchmaker search on collegeboard and all these schools looked at least somewhat interesting. However, it's not just a random list. I have family in TX and VA; I currently live in KY; Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, N. Carolina, and Tennessee are close to places I can call home; and uhm.. I received a letter from Florida State once?</p>

<p>-Unweighted GPA: 3.30</p>

<p>-ACT Composite: 30</p>

<p>-ECs: Probably my weakest point. To be entirely honest I don't think there's much to mention. </p>

<p>-I took several honors classes Sophomore and Junior years, and I'm signed up for AP English and AP US Government & Politics next year. </p>

<p>A couple questions I have:
-One of my parents is in the military so we move quite a bit. We consider ourselves to be from Virginia since that's where most of our family lives, but I've only lived there once and it was for 9 months when I was really young. Is there some way I could get in-state tuition in Virginia? My situation in Texas is similar.
-What other schools (if any) would you suggest that I should consider? I have no problem going out of state as long it's affordable.
-I haven't taken the SAT yet, should I?</p>

<p>Thanks ahead of time for any responses.</p>

2

<p>i think if you apply to all of those schools you will find your way into at least 4 or 5. I can’t tell you exactly which ones you have the best shot at since I dont know much about them but you seem like you would be competitive for all of em.</p>

<p>That said I do know that FSU is a high reach as is U of M college park. And Texas you can pretty much count out if you are OOS. </p>

<p>ACT score is solid i dont see any reason to take the SAT, but it cant hurt.</p>

3

<p>Bump for extreme importance.</p>

4

<p>Most likely acceptance at every aforementioned institution.</p>

<p>“I haven’t taken the SAT yet, should I?” No, there’s no need to.</p>

<p>You also might want to apply to Rice or Emory as a reach school.</p>

5

<p>Hmm. I hadn’t considered either one of those schools. </p>

<p>Would you say that W&M and UVA would be similar reaches? I would really like to attend either one of them, I just thought they might be a little too high of a reach</p>

6

<p>“Would you say that W&M and UVA would be similar reaches?”</p>

<p>It will be slightly easier to get into one of those two than getting into Rice or Emory, for instance.</p>

<p>“I just thought they might be a little too high of a reach”</p>

<p>You never know with current college admissions; it’s an unpredictable game.
Just apply to schools that you would like to attend, regardless of low acceptance rates, with some safeties, of course.</p>

7

<p>I disagree with post #4. While I’m not familiar with a lot of these schools, your unweighted GPA is low for UMD and Virginia Tech, and probably for UT Austin and Ohio State (although maybe not Virginia Tech or UT Austin if you were in-state). If I read your post right, you haven’t taken any AP classes yet either, so you don’t really have a weighted GPA unless your school(s) weighted honors courses. On the other hand, your ACT is right about where it should be for all of those schools, or even on the high side. If your parents’ travelling for work was bouncing you between schools and that’s what caused your low GPA, and you can make that clear in your essay, you’ll have a better chance.</p>

<p>On the other hand, a lot of those schools are going to be matches. So, if you were to apply to all of the schools here, you’d probably get into between 4 and 7, at the least.</p>

<p>About taking the SAT: you don’t have much time left to do it. The only reason it might help you would be if any of these schools preferred the SAT to the ACT and tended to admit people with it more (which, if the whole give-the-East-Coast-the-SAT-and-the-West-the-ACT thing is still valid, may be true for some of these). If you think you might like to take it to ensure your chances, you should take the free online SAT practice test that the College Board lets everybody with an account take. (If you don’t already have an account, they’re free too.) Since it’s from the College Board, it can give you a reasonable idea of what you might score, give or take 50-80 points in either direction. If it looks like it might hurt you, you probably shouldn’t do it- you may not have enough time to fix a low score.</p>

<p>Some other schools you may be interested in, based on the ones you have here (large-ish schools in/near urban areas in non-bitterly-cold climates of the East/eastern Midwest/Texas), are: University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Temple University; Rutgers; University of Iowa; and maybe UNC-Wilmington or Greensboro. If you’re willing to look farther west, some of the UCs may fit your bill.</p>

<p>Rice and Emory are reaching pretty high, but then, who isn’t reaching pretty high these days? W&M and UVA are both a lot more likely to admit you, though they’re still reaches. If you’d like to go to them, go ahead and apply, esp. if you can get a VA residency.</p>

<p>Other than that, you NEED to come up with something as an extracurricular, even if it’s kind of minor. Colleges really, really don’t like admitting students without any. Not having one will send your chances doooooown.</p>

8

<p>I’ve got no problem going out west as long as it’s not extremely expensive. </p>

<p>As far as ECs, I’m sure I’ll be able to think of something. Can’t you put down anything you do in your spare time? Aside from things like showering and watching TV, of course.</p>

9

<p>In that case, you might want to look at UC Riverside or Santa Cruz.</p>

<p>Well, I guess you can, although something like reading books isn’t going to get you far. It should be something at least kind of social, since that’s kind of what colleges are looking for. (Unless you do something really cool in your spare time.) What were you thinking of?</p>

10

<p>Not really sure, I freestyle rap with my friends all the time. Maybe that could be considered as some sort of poetry group? Haha.</p>

<p>I’ll probably be getting a part-time job soon as well. I haven’t really participated in school clubs or events or anything like that, but I’ll have the opportunity to join several this year. Would that really be worth it, or would colleges just see that as me joining a bunch of clubs just to have stuff on my application?</p>

11

<p>You could film yourself and put it on YouTube? Hahaha, I don’t know. It would be best if it was in some kind of organized group…</p>

<p>I don’t really know about the extracurriculars issue. I joined almost all of my extracurriculars late, but not the senior-year kind of late. It might be worth it to join one or two, at least… especially if you can produce some kind of tangible dedication or results or something before you apply everywhere. The job is a good thing to have.</p>

12

<p>Yeah, it’s more of a hobby than anything, but I did write a rap for an English project once and I did really well on it. </p>

<p>I’m not really sure what I would join. Probably German club, since I’m taking German again this year. It’s depressing to see all these people on here with like 3 years of varsity in every possible sport while holding an important position in these major, nationally recognized clubs and still managing to find time to put in 150 volunteer hours while interning for a senator or something. I wish I had known to be more involved back in 9th grade. Haha.</p>