I’m a US citizen living in Georgia
I go to a top high school
Male
Come from a high income family
Cost Constraints / Budget
No major cost constraints
Intended Major(s)
Political Science
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.70/4
Weighted HS GPA: 4.2/5
Class Rank: 80 percentile
ACT/SAT Scores: 1500 SAT
List your HS coursework
Freshman: 1 AP
Sophomore: 3 AP
Junior: 6 IB 1 Dual Enrollment
Senior: 5 IB 1 AP 1 Dual Enrollment
Awards
1st place as a school at local model UN
1st place as a school at local chess club
1st 2x local speech compition
Extracurriculars
Co President of a sending sunshine chapter that writes cards to elderly with 75 people and raised 3,000
President of Chess Club with 15 member and organized a local competition with 30 people
150 hours of volunteering
Internship in local government
Leader of youth music program at local temple organized practice and preformaces with 10 people
Worked front desk at a tennis center 15 hours a week for two years
Schools
I plan on applying to UGA and Augusta University. If I don’t get in I’ll likely transfer from AU. I was wondering my chances for UGA and what I can do my senior year to help my application. Also if there any other school in southeast with a strong Political Science program please share.
I know my gpa is low but I am hoping that SAT can kind of make up. Also throughout my 3 years I have had my best grades my junior year so I was wondering if colleges will take grade progression into account.
Apply EA. I predict you’ll be deferred → accepted (toss-up but I’m leaning towards they’ll let you in). UGA looks at GPA more than test scores from what I have personally seen, but you’re not out of range and yes they will like that upward trend in rigor. Good luck. As for other southern schools… if you want a political career in a southern state, you should attend that state’s flagship university. Your stats should get you some merit. @tsbna44 is a wealth of info about Bama and College of Charleston (not flagship but worth looking into)- his daughter is having a great experience at CofC and iirc interned at a think tank in DC?
Political science is a pretty bread and butter department at most universities that aren’t specialists in tech or arts. Are you interested in politics? If so, then I’d take a look at schools in state capitals. Think:
Florida A&M (HBCU)
Florida State (another school that’s a more challenging admit)
Louisiana State
North Carolina State (but can also be a pretty challenging admit since the state caps enrollment of out-of-state students at 18%)
Southern (LA, HBCU)
U. of South Carolina
Virginia Commonwealth
If you’re looking for other Georgia publics, take a look at Georgia State (state capital) and Georgia College & State U. You may also want to look at Oglethorpe in Atlanta or Clark Atlanta (HBCU) or Morehouse (HBCU men’s college).
What percentage of your high school applicants to UGA get in? If it is a top public school I would guess around 30%. Look at the Naviance scattergram to see where you stand. My guess is with 4.2 UGA weighted GPA and 1500SAT you get in.
I am going to mostly agree with @Strannik. The chances of admission to UGA are going to be high school dependant. While UGA doesn’t have quotas on the number of students they will accept from any given high school, the numbers remain fairly consistent year to year. If you have access to Scoir or Naviance scattergrams for your school, that data should be highly predicative. For our in state high school there is a clear line of demarcation. You should also talk to your school college counselor who should be able to give you a good idea of where you stand. The one thing I want to differentiate from Stranniks response above is the meaning of the the acceptance rate from your high school. For example,according to Scoir data our private high school’s admission rate at UGA is about 60 percent. That’s because students in the bottom half of the class generally know that they don’t have a chance and don’t apply. What you need to suss out is whether UGA routinely accepts students from your school who are in the 80th percentile or below. My guess is that you stand a good chance but without knowing your high school it’s impossible to know for sure.
You also may want to calculate your UGA gpa. They look at core classes only and add 1 point for AP and IB classes, no weight is added for honors or DE. Last year’s admitted students 25th/75th percentile range was 4.05 to 4.33.
Wishing you the best of luck
As far as other school suggestions, I would second the suggestions of Florida State, University of South Carolina, and College of Charleston. You may want to look at some of the Virginia schools. William and Mary would be a reach but has great Washington DC connections, George Mason would be an easier admit. Clemson would be another suggestion if you want to stay closer to home. Tulane might be possible if you apply early decision. Do you have preferences in terms of size of school, distance from home, setting (urban vs rural) or any budgetary restraints?
The University of Mississippi will give you an automatic merit scholarship of $28,440 per year based solely on your SAT score of 1450 or greater along with a GPA of 3.0 or greater.
No not Westminster. Hopefully my comment made sense. UGA is not admitting 60 percent of the senior class. They are accepting 60 percent of the kids who actually applied. Most of the admits would fall somewhere in the top 1/3 to top 1/4 of the class. Students who aren’t competitive generally don’t bother to submit an application. Our school doesn’t rank, but a kid with a B average, few APs and a 1200 SAT would know that they don’t stand a chance.
The 60% admission rate - of those who apply - is impressive. The top public schools in GA are around a 30-40% admit rate to UGA. Just interesting to compare admit stats for top private schools as well
I think you have to be really careful about drawing any conclusions from the UGA admit rates of private vs public schools . It’s not an apples to apples comparison. Aside from the fact that many of the private schools have selective admissions and may have an overall stronger student body than the publics that don’t have competitive admissions,it may just be simply explained by the access to knowledgeable college counselors at the private schools. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are just more kids who really aren’t viable candidates for UGA applying from the publics because they don’t understand how competitive it has become.
Dunno…pretty certain the kids from the top publics have the same understanding of the competitiveness of UGA as those from the private schools. Thank you though
As an aside, there are many different types of internship opportunities in organizations that may not be at all related to the sector/industry. A friend of my s’s interned at a very well known tech company, but their internship was in something completely unrelated to tech (it was marketing or HR or something- I forget).
I am an Emory alum so I am a little biased. Emory is a great school for poli sci and there are some amazing opportunities for students due to the affiliation with the Carter Center and the school’s location in Atlanta. It would be a reach school for you obviously. They take something like 60 percent of the class through ED, so that definitely would give you your best chance. Since ED is binding, make sure it is truly your first choice and your parents can afford the price tag. Hope scholarship will give you about 5 or 6k towards tuition but that hardly makes a dent.
Definitely choose teachers who know you well and can write a great recommendation. That’s for all colleges, not just Emory. It’s usually a good idea to make some sort of brag sheet or resume to make sure your teachers are aware of all of your accomplishments and what you do outside of school. Other than that, really take the time to research the school and write good essays. Lastly, and this should go without saying - keep your grades up. Your academics are pretty much baked in by now but schools may be asking for first quarter grades and definitely for first semester grades.
Another thing to be aware of with Emory is that they don’t consider your freshman grades. You mentioned an upward trend- so if 9th grade was dragging you down, it could work in your favor.
