Hello! I’m currently a senior in highschool with an unweighted GPA of 3.6 and a weighted GPA of 4.1. I got a 33 on the ACT. I have done some extracurricular activities but they aren’t that great. I know these aren’t very good stats but I still wanted to take a shot at going to USC(my dream school) so I went on Cappex to take a look at my chances. It says that my chances of going into USC are higher than going into UC Santa Barbara. I have filled out all the information but tbh, UCSB is a much easier school to get into compared to USC and it doesn’t make sense. In addition, it says that I have a much higher chance of getting into Carnegie Mellon than USC. I really don’t think this is accurate. I’ve also tried Parchment and the results make a lot more sense but I was just wondering if that too was accurate. Parchment says I’ve got about a 50% chance of going in while Cappex says about 30%. (I would probably trust Cappex if I didn’t see that UCSB percentage.)
Please let me know ASAP so I can begin finalizing my college list.
Thank you!
The best source for chances is looking at the common dataset for each school. It will show average GPA (unweighted) along with % enrolled students in each GPA range, the 25 and 75th percentiles for SAT and ACT scores, what is considered very important, important or not important on a students application. You can figure out your own chances using this information. EC’s and essays will be subjective so this is the missing piece (s) that any website like Cappex cannot consider.
So for UCSB:
Average unweighted GPA: 3.98 Only 12.58% of enrolled students had a GPA between 3.5-3.74
25th ACT percentile: 24
75th ACT percentile: 30
30.67% of enrolled students had an ACT score of 30-36
Highly important: GPA, test scores, HS course rigor and essays
http://bap.ucsb.edu/IR/Common_Data_Set/CDS_2014-2015.pdf
Here is the link for USC:
http://ipr.sc.edu/cds/cds2014/
I meant University of Southern California. also, I’m pretty sure UCSB has a lot lower standards than that, not that it’s a bad school. I don’t know, I know a lot of people with lower grades than me that got in. There are different numbers on the UCSB website, if you type in “University of Cal. Santa Barbara stats”. I’m also aware about the common data set but I want to aim higher and see if I still have a chance. I’m asking about Cappex/Parchment and if the results are because of an error or because it’s not accurate.
What is your UC GPA? That alone might account for the difference.
Cappex stats are by nature backward looking, and admission standards have tightened compared to a few years ago at the top rated colleges. What Cappex does capture is the relative importance of each aspect of your profile vs average attendees.
We don’t know what will happen this year because of economic uncertainty in China and India, relative state funding levels of their college systems, and what mix of schools students will apply to (and how much debt they are willing to accept). A few years ago their was a flight to state schools from full pay private ones. The CDS captures what is important to the specific colleges. Unfortunately USC doesn’t seem to publish a CDS so you are going on speculation (wrong link in #1). For UCSB, go to:
Go to section C. First Time, First Year Freshman admission
C5 lists basic HS classes you should have taken
C7 Lists how the colleges makes admission decisions
UCSB lists Rigor, GPA (the UC GPA) , Test Scores and Essays as very important.
I found the same disparities between Naviance, Cappex, and Parchment. According to them, my son has the same chances of being admitted to Stanford, Michigan, Princeton (medium), a different (higher) chance for Rice and Penn, and a low chance for Harvard and Yale. This doesn’t agree perfectly with his school’s admission history at all and seems a bit ridiculous at the macro level. Parchment showed low for Harvard, Yale and Princeton, medium for Rice, Penn, and Stanford, and high for Michigan. When I looked at his Naviance report for his school in his GPA/ACT band, it was low for all of the Ivy’s and Stanford, but 100% for Rice and Michigan.
Part of the issue is that self reporting sites are not random in their sampling.
I would just ignore the chances sites and apply where you think you are in the ball park and would love to go.
Ok for USC
Average unweighted GPA: 3.82
Average ACT: 31-34
Highly important: GPA, test scores and HS course rigor
Important: Essays, LOR’s
Based on your academics, you have a good chance at an acceptance for USC. Unweighted GPA is slight lower than average but your ACT is on target. If you have good essays and LOR’s, you should be good.
Lol Cappex. It said that I have a 90 something % chance of getting into Stanford. Not buying it haha.