<p>Look at the Common Data Set for each school. It will give you information, apples-to-apples what they look at, in order of importance, along with median GPA, SAT, ACT, etc. That will give you a good starting point. UVa is not an Ivy, however as an example, of the 7 things they consider ‘highly important’, 3 are legacy, race, & gender. These you can not change. Forget about those and move on. Deal with things you can.
Do not get hung up on the URM debate. As potential students, all the discussion isn’t going to matter. You CAN control your grades, scores, EC’s, etc. Focus on that.</p>