I am applying as a nursing major to 10 schools: University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, Temple, Scranton, Marywood, Bloomsburg, Moravian, ESU, Desales, and Drexel. My stats are ACT 27, GPA 4.3. I have taken all honors classes in high school along with 3 APs. Do I have a chance to get into Pitt or Penn State (my top choices)?? What can I do to make myself a more competitive applicant?
I see you are asking 2 questions:
Will I get into any of my top schools? I suspect you are a PA resident based on your list. If you limit your top schools to Pitt and PSU, then I’d say maybe based on just the two(three) things I see. GPA is good, ACT ok, strength of course resume ok. I will say that if you are applying to those 10 schools you will get into a lot of them. You are more likely to be accepted to a non College Park campus of Penn State if you are ok with that. I know that a lot of students are accepted at college park, only if they agree to do two years at one of the regional campuses.
What can I do to make myself a more competitive applicant? Do a online test prep course and raise your ACT and take the SAT. Your ACT is 1 pt below the middle 50% accepted at Penn State (I did a quick google search on Penn State Acceptance stats). With a little studying on test prep, you very likely could raise your score. Many students perform much better on one of the two tests, so if you haven’t taken the SAT, try it. Just getting into that Mid 50% is obviously no guarantee of acceptance, nor is not being in the bottom 25% a sure rejection. But your individual probability increases as your score does.
I’m pretty sure Penn Sate and Pitt are not as “Holistic Review” as some of the more elites, but make sure if you are on the lower end of that 50%, the rest of your application is near to the top of the applicants. Make sure your essays are clean and talk about you in ways that the rest of your application doesn’t (there are tons of good youtube videos on this topic, search “college acceptance essays” in youtube and you’ll find them). Make sure your recommendations are solid and not form letters.
Finally, if any of these schools practice “rolling admissions,” applying earlier increases your chances of acceptance, and I’ve heard financial aid.
Hope that helps.