1910 sat... what are my chances...

Chance Me / Match Me
1

<p>So here’s some background info:</p>

<p>My school’s average sat score is 1150 out of 2400. (450 math, 380 writing, 320 cr)
Only about 4 student/year pass apush, 4 pass calc, 4 pass gov, last time someone passed chem was 10 years ago, last time someone passed physics b was 16 years ago…</p>

<p>I am rank 1/688 (4.0 unweighted). sat scores: 650 math, 650 cr, 610 writing… (650 math level 2, 640 physics)</p>

<p>i am a captain and founding member of the school’s debate club (we’ve won a few
tournaments against other schools) (2nd in city)</p>

<p>i am also the founder of my school’s chess club…</p>

<p>i am the webmaster and programmer of mesa and robotics (5th/60th place in city)</p>

<p>i have 350 hours of community service hours tutoring kids at my old middle school </p>

<p>I have good recommendation letters and a good personal statement.</p>

<p>I have passed the apush exam and am currently taking ap calc, ap english lit, ap chemistry, and ap physics b…</p>

<p>i’ve applied to the following:</p>

<ol>
<li>mit</li>
<li>caltech</li>
<li>stanford</li>
<li>usc</li>
<li>ucla</li>
<li>uc berkeley</li>
<li>uc irvine</li>
<li>uc davis</li>
<li>csu la</li>
</ol>

<p>Generally, USC and UCLA take students that have 1650+ and a 3.5+ from our school. But what are my chances with the others I’ve applied to?</p>

2

<p>I don’t know much about this, but your school seems to have weak academics. At my school 95% of kids passed APUSH last year, and 17 kids out of 26 got a 4 or 5 (I consider this strong). It seems to me that you are doing the best you are able with what you have been given. Hopefully a college will look at you rank and your performance on national exams and judge you as a qualified applicant.</p>

3

<p>Your GPA and rank mean less because of the abysmal quality of the average student at your school. Thus, the admissions officers will turn to more objective measures, such as standardized tests. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, your scores are significantly below average for MIT, Caltech, and Stanford. You didn’t share your race, so I’ll assume that you’re omitting that section of the application. Without a hook, those three most selective schools are very high reaches (<1% chance). (Caltech is, for practical purposes, impossible. They care a lot about scores. Your robotics interest will help you there; but your scores just will not cut it.)</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>If you look at the common data sets for MIT and Caltech, you’ll see that it doesn’t matter where you come from, those scores make those schools highly unlikely. </p>

<p>At may other colleges, however, if you are first generation, low income, a URM, have had few academic opportunities because of school/background, your rank and score could get you into a top school.</p>

5

<p>Also, would colleges care if the are that the school resides in is impoverished? I mean just by dropout rates (50%) and drug scene, students who wish to succeed are severely bogged down. Even so, many students are just trying to make ends meet. So, it would be very difficult to do well in school just by environmental factors. Also, the surrounding area is very “gang-like”.</p>

6

<p>If your essays can convey the difficulty you have had and how hard you worked to be a good student despite your situation, then that COULD improve your chances, as of now, however, this is my guess of your chances:</p>

<p>mit- very high reach
caltech- very high reach
stanford- very high reach
usc- match
ucla- match
uc berkeley-low reach
uc irvine- low match
uc davis- low match
csu la- safety/in</p>

7

<p>I hate to sound like the devils advocate but…</p>

<p>While MIT would be considered a high reach, they DO have wickedly unpredicatable admissions. One of my friends was deferred and he had what could be considered “perfect” stats.
If you also look in their admissions blogs, I think someone was admitted with an 1800 SAT…</p>

<p>Just apply and see what happens</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>Not that unpredictable.</p>