Troteck

Hey guys I was wondering what chances do I stand at UVA for civil engineering.

I go to a very competitive private high school in New Jersey. Widowed parent my mom passed away in april because of cancer, income around 40k ish, first generation college student.


white male (double damn)

SAT I: 2020 690 CR, 630 Math, 700 Writing
SAT II: Haven't taken any yet but plan on doing math 1 (is math 2 basically required?), chem, and maybe lit/history (any preference for a third?)

I only have the october testing date for the sat 2s since the next one is after the ed date.

GPA: 3.8 something UW I did incredibly poor freshmen year and had to work instensely hard to get my grades up. I don't know if they'll see that but the self-improvement was immense

Rank: top 10

Junior year coursework: Honors English, Honors Chem, Honors Alg2/Trig, Ap US History, Honors Spanish 3, Religion (required)

four quarter grades and then year grade

Honors English- 97 97 99 98 98
Alg2 Trig Honors 95 94 96 95 95
AP USH- 99 99 99 99 99
Chemistry Honors 99 99 98 99 98
Spanish 3 Honors 96 97 97 96 95
Religion- 99 99 99 99 99

Senior year: AP Eng, Honors Physics, Ap Art History, Ap US History, Honors Precalc

My school only offers ap classes in English, Art History, US History, and Calc BC, so I'm taking all I am qualified for. I tried starting a US Gov AP and Euro Hist AP but the head of the department turned me down.

Taken 2 courses at a local community college, intro to philosophy (freshmen year- A-), sociology (sophomore year A), looking into another one now.

Extracurriculars:

Academic Team- Captain

Robotics Team-builder and participant when we won the 2005 and 2006 state championships for FIRST (possible hook? Idk..)

New Jersey Regional Science Fair-participant

Spanish Honor Society- helped fundraise and tutored students

Model United Nations

NJ American Legion Boys State representative

Intermural Basketball League assistant coach/player

Chess team

Intermural Ultimate Frisbee League- Co-Founder, captain of a team, and player

American Cancer Society Relay for Life-helped organize and set up event, three years

Worked at Afterhours Formalwear

Awards:

· The Elmira College Key Award, 2006
· Excellence in Spanish 2 CP, 2004-2005
· Excellence in English 2 CP, 2004-2005
· Honorable Mention in Eastern Civilization CP, 2004-2005
· Excellence in English 3 Honors, 2005-2006
· Excellence in United History 1 Advanced Placement, 2005-2006
· Honorable Mention in Spanish 3 Honors, 2005-2006
· New Jersey Regional Science Fair Rutgers Student Award, 2005
· National Spanish Examination Certificate of Achievement and Merit¸ 2004-2005 and 2005-2006


Thanks for any help guys I really appreciate this, college planning is driving me crazy since I have to do everything on my own.

UVAMalex09

Your ECs are phenomenal. I say use the two-time state championship in FIRST as your hook. Take either SAT II Math you like and pick whatever you're strongest in for your third subject test.

Entering OOS is difficult. Your SAT I is not that great for OOS. If you could raise it to a high 2100 or low 2200, then you would be better off. Do you know if your rank is higher than top 10%. OSSers are usually in the top 5%, but I doubt you could dramatically change your rank by October so we'll let that one slide. Since you are going into the E-School, the applicant pool is smaller than the College so you can have a better chance to get in.

The best plan of action is to take the SAT II and apply early decision. The applicant pool is much smaller in early decision by still has the same acceptance rate.

Good Luck

Troteck

Thanks for the advice. One point of clarification is I'm #10 in my class, not 10%. So that's actually around 6% or something.

sv3a

They also do like to see self improvement- that upward shift will be very favorable.

UVAMalex09

Oh, the NUMBER 10. That's even better. Still carry on with what I said.

Troteck

Thanks for the encouragement. I just took a practice act test and got a composite of 29, if I score similar on an actual act test, meaning 28-30 would that be better for my chances than my current sat scores, or would it be comparable.

Also the ACT can be taken at the end of october unlike the sat sicne I need to do sat2s on the october date(can my scores get there in time for ed?)

UVAMalex09

Your ACT score would be about the same as your SAT if you got a 30. If you take the SAT IIs and ACT in Oct, they will make it for ED.

Troteck

Thanks for the reply. Good to know everythign will get in by ed date.

I took the act practice test without any prep on the spur of the moment, so hopefully if I do some prep I can get in the 33 range. I found it drastically easier than the sat, which may have made me think I was doing better than I was and led me to slack off.....maybe that's why I didn't do as good as I thought I was doing.

But overall I feel like it's going to be a lot easire to get my act score up higher than my sat. When i started taking practice tests my sat was around 1800...so maybe I can get my act up proportionally.