So it all began with a journey, I took the Sat’s and received a terrible 1580. I know it was kind of bad at least for the schools I’m interested in. Therefore, instead of beating my head against the wall and taking the SAT (Old) again I pooled all efforts to studying for the ACT and set a 200-250 point improvement goal for myself. 5 months of studying and I scored a 27 on the ACT ( 25 E, 28 M, 29 R, 27 S). I was so relieved to reach my goal, however, I couldn’t help but notice how close I was to being 90th% and having better chances at admission. My question is do I “need” to retake the ACT’s or do you think I’m fine for the schools I’m interested in?
Objective:
School Type: Large (1300-1500 students) HS- competitive and public (ranked silver on US rankings)
GPA: 3.76 UW 4.26 W
Rank: 43/340–> hopefully will be 34-39 after this year
AP courses: Will have 5 AP classes completed by the end of junior year and 11 total by senior year.
Ec’s: Decent
Home state: Virginia
These are the schools i’m interested in:
Virginia Tech
James Madison University
William & Mary
University of Richmond
Temple University
George Washington University (1st choice)
SUNY Binghamton
New York University
Also, I would be applying without financial aid to every instate (VA) public school. My parents income is (80k-100k)
Thank you in advance for any guidance you guys can offer me I truly appreciate it!
Your ACT score puts you near the bottom 1/3 for W&M and bottom 1/4 for UR – two schools with which I am familiar. So no, I don’t think you are done unless you want to pull those two schools off your list. I did not check stats for any of your other schools but you need to look up the Class Profiles or Common Data Sets to see how your stats match up. You want to be at least in the top 50% but top 25% is better. A 90th Percentile on ACT might not help much when the top half of W&M’s entering class is at the 95th Percentile or higher. BigFuture.com is a helpful aggregator of CDS info but there are many others.
I think you’re done… and disagree with the other other poster. Congrats on improving so much!
To do a quick check on how your statistics match a college, google the name of the college together with “collegedata” to see the Collegedata website info for that college. I often pull up Collegedata Overview pages for several colleges at a time and do a comparison.
Your list has a lot of reaches- even with your new ACT score. In addition, NYU , GWU, Univ of Richmond are also very expensive schools for someone with a parental income of 80-100K. The OOS publics are also expensive, although you may get some merit at Temple. It has become popular of late and so they may raise the bar for merit in the next cycle.
Your GPA/number of AP’s are not concordant with your SAT or even ACT scores, so you may benefit from serious test prep to get the ACT scores up to par.
Add George Mason Univ. and VCU to your list as safeties (although they are more like matches with your current ACT score)
I second the suggestion to look at collegedata.com to see the mid 50% of the test scores for the schools you listed, and come to your own conclusions .
You should plan to retake and try to inch your ACT score up. Every point you gain will help for the VERY competitive schools you’re aiming for.
Do you live in the western part of the state or attend a lower-performing school (either urban or rural)?
Or do you live in NOVA?
You will qualify for financial aid at instate schools, so you should definitely apply for FA there.
Don’t bother with NYU: it won’t be affordable. If you’re really into NYC, apply to Fordham and schools within easy distance, such as Montclair State (not a good college but likely a safety), Stevens, Manhattanville, Marist, Drew.
GWU is unlikely to be affordable - it’s one of the most expensive in the country and they don’t meet need. Look into American University for better odds.
SUNY Binghamton = ??? WHY???
URichmond meets need and would be relatively inexpensive for a family tha tmake 80-100K.
Apply to Christopher Newport’s Leadership Academy and Honors program.
Have you tried the new SAT practice test? After studying for the time sensitive ACT, you may do better on the new SAT. Take a practice test under testing conditions (STRICTLY TIMED).
@MYOS1634 Thank you for your excellent reply! I live around 10 minutes from Richmond, so I guess you could say I’m from central VA. The reason for many of my New York school list is because that is where all my family is besides my parents! I do also appreciate you informing me about Gwu’s lack of need based aid, that’s definitely unfortunate. I guess I’m going to need to retake. @mathprof63 Also, thank you for such a detailed reply. I definitely understand your comments about the financial aspect of some of my schools on my list, I guess I have to do a little more research. Thank you everyone for your excellent insights!
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