I am only a junior in high school, but Michigan is my dream school. I would really like to get into Ross with preferred admission, but I still want to go if I don’t. At the moment, I have a 1480 raw score on the SAT (1490 super score) and about a 3.9 GPA (my school does grades out of 100). Although my grades are decent, the rest of my resume is nothing special. This is partially due to the fact that I switched schools this year from a school that offered very few opportunities to get involved in the community and school to one that encourages it. I have played JV basketball for three years, JV baseball for two, varsity baseball for one, and worked this past summer and the one before that. I also am on the debate team and have gone to tournaments at multiple high schools and colleges and I am planning on joining the fencing team for my senior year. I also umpire for my local little league. By the end of high school, I will have taken 5 or 6 AP classes, getting above an 88 in all of them. What are my chances?
Like you said, your grades and SAT are above their average, but the problem does lie in your EC’s.
What concerns me most is that you have shown little dedication to a single thing. The sports might look good since you’ve played baseball for all of your years, are playing varsity, and were an umpire, but I don’t know how much this helps – you aren’t going to be recruited, but at least it shows you did something you enjoyed. What I think would be most important is if you could really go into why you worked the past two summers. If you had to help support your family, if you matured from the experience, if you learned something about yourself, etc., then you really need to express this in your application. Also, the debate experience should be something that you stress as this will look good.
In addition, I wouldn’t suggest joining the fencing team if your goal is to add to your app (unless you actually enjoy fencing or want to try it out). This might look like a filler. Instead, I would spend time doing something you actually enjoy. Maybe create a club related to baseball or something you like – this will show leadership if it turns into a legit club. Or, maybe do some service related to baseball, like organizing a community game to support research for a certain disease. All I know is that right now it looks like your only passion is baseball, so if you can expand on that passion to do other things, I think that would look great as opposed to doing a bunch of random stuff that you don’t really care about.
Overall, I think your chances right now are hard to say. They might be 50-50, but you still have plenty of time to do things to improve them. My advice has been to focus on one thing that you love and do more with that love, but this is just my suggestion. I would recommend looking at other schools too – find other options that you would be happy with if Michigan doesn’t work out (although I think it will if you spend your time wisely). Good luck, and I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look at my most recent chance me!
Ross is a tough admit, get standardized score up to 1530+
IMO, your ECs are pretty good. Sports take up a huge amount of time. Some business related EC’s - e.g. investment club, entrepreneurs club, etc. would be good additions to your resume. You don’t state where you worked over the summer but you could tie it into your essays. You are going to be a little below average on the SAT, (assuming that the Ross average falls in the same range as Michigan engineering), but pretty close to the median. Are you in-state or OOS. For in-state I’d say very good, for OOS hard to tell.
you are average so your chances are decent. hopefully you are in-state
Thanks to everyone for replying. I am OOS unfortunately. The inconsistency in my ECs mainly lies with my old school. My new school very much encourages activities and has enabled me to take part in so many new things, so hopefully colleges recognize this. Also, with my school work, I have very little time to do anything else as sports and debate each take up an enormous amount of time along with my courseload. I am not sure that I will get into Ross, but there is always a chance. Very few things that I do are just resumé fillers. I am not truly passionate about one thing, but the only two things that come close are baseball and debate, and debate just became available to me this year. I will be sure to mention the effects of changing schools in my application.