NJKski

I'm a Junior and I have yet to take the SAT or the ACT. I just finished taking the SAT II World History today which I'm canceling. Will colleges care that I take all three in the fall of senior year?

Also, I'm wondering if I can get an evaluation...

I attend a very competitive high school listed in the top 100 in the United States

GPA UW: 3.5

SAT:?
ACT?
SAT II's:?

Junior Course load:
AP English
AP Macroeconomics
AP Microeconomics
AP Chemistry
AP Spanish
AP World History
Pre-Calculus (yea i know)

My GPA is average and I'm hoping my extracurriculars will overshadow this:

- I Run a financial website on alternative energy investment. My work has been published on several sites and newspapers such as Yahoo! Finance, Seeking Alpha, the Vancouver Sun (lol) etc.... I have over 150,000 visitors and have interviewed several professors, billionaires, and venture capitalist.
I'm hoping to become a hedge fund manager as I invest myself.

- I Intern at a private company in the college admissions sector, hoping to simplify the process through the use of internet. Its called Zandigo.

- I Interned this past summer at another private company, called Connotate, as a database programmer.

Those are the three main things I want to highlight, mainly my site

My other ec's are:
-50 hours of community service organizing cystic fibrosis walks and volunteering for Special Olympics
-Piano. I have played in several competitions in New York City
-2 years on my high school basketball team
-Model UN
-Business Club
-Big Brother (Peer leading)

I go to school in New Jersey and I'm interested in:

USC
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Stanford
Duke
Georgetown
Upenn
NYU
Carnegie Melon
Cornell
Columbia (mom is a professor there)

I speak both Polish and English

Thanks A lot

OniLawliet

USC match
UCLA match
UCB match
Stanford reach
Duke reach
Georgetown reach
UPenn reach
NYU match
Carnegie Mellon high match
Cornell low reach
Columbia match, given the fact ur mom is a proffessor there.

Calcruzer

As far as the test scores, each college is different--but they all list the last test date they will accept.

As far as your chances, well, it's pretty tough to judge without the SAT/ACT scores, but--

USC--slight reach (average uw GPA around a 3.65)
UCLA--reach--(average uw GPA is around a 3.8 and you are also OOS)
UC Berkeley--reach (average uw GPA is around a 3.85 and you are also OOS)
Stanford--reach--tougher than UC Berkeley OOS--that says it all
Duke--reach--in the Stanford range
Georgetown--slight reach--
Upenn--slight reach to reach
NYU--match to slight reach--if SATs are good (average uw GPA is around 3.6)
Carnegie Mellon--match to slight reach
Cornell--slight reach
Columbia (mom is a professor there)--match to slight reach (only because of your mom's status)

My suggestion is to try colleges not ranked in the top 35 and you will have better chances. Every college listed here is ranked in the top 35. A 3.5 uw GPA doesn't qualify for top 35 unless the SATs exceed 2150--and even then it's a tough go. You should be looking at schools more like from 35 to 65--so look at Texas, Wisconsin, Penn State, University of Rochester, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, Syracuse, Illinois, etc. Then just pick one or two from the above--and hope also that maybe Columbia will let you in since your mom teaches there.

Best of luck.

NJKski

I heard that all UC schools don't include freshmen year GPA, which would be great.

Regardless, Schools want kids who are unique. I think thats established in my application and will overshadow my GPA as a .1 different from the "average" won't make a difference. I hope so.

Calcruzer

It is true that the UCs don't count the freshman year.

They use a special method for computing a "UC GPA", which involves using a weighted GPA that only includes 4 year-long honors/AP/IB courses in the computation,and that only counts the sophomore and junior year grades. To get into the top colleges (UC Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD) requires a UC GPA above 4.05

snooker1

Penn is gonna be tough since you're in the tri-state are (NY, PA, NJ)--almost as tough as Stanford, and def. tougher than Duke.