Demographics
Male
US Citizen
New Jersey
Public high school
First generation
Gpa rose over the years ( was 3.92 uw junior year)
Cost Constraints / Budget
No budget (family supporting)
Intended Major(s)
Environmental science/sustainability GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
3.75 uw gpa
4.2 weighted out of 5
Decile 2 (no class rank)
1360 sat (will submit if it helps)
List your HS coursework
English: Honors English 1,2,3 and AP Literature
Math: Honors Geometry, Algebra 2 (over the summer) , Honors Pre Calculus, AP Calculus AB,AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics
Science: *Honors Biology, Honors Chem, AP environmental science, AP physics
History and social studies:Honors world history, advanced US history 1, APUSH, AP Government and politics
Other academic courses: AP computer science A, AP Psychology, AP Micro, AP Macro
Awards
AP Scholar with distinction
National rural and small town recognition program
National first generation recognition program
NHS
Duke environmental certificate
Extracurriculars
-environmental summer program
-Rutgers agriculture program
AP tutor
Math League (2+ years)
Volunteer at fair (taught about agriculture to younger children)
Volunteer at Soul Kitchen (200 hours)
Member of Society of Science (2+ years)
-Make a Wish Club
-ESL Tutor
Schools
Rutgers
NYU
All UC’s
University of Washington st louis
UVA
Emory
CMU
UMich
Vanderbilt
Cornell
IMO all of the schools on your list other than Rutgers should be considered a reach or a high reach. Rutgers is probably a target. I suggest you re-work your list with a better mix of reach, target, and safety schools.
Agree with happy1 that these schools are all reaches, although first generation will help. Assume for Cornell you would apply to CALS? All UCs don’t consider test scores, but will be very expensive for OOS. OOS is also a real reach for UVA and UMich. You haven’t noted what your preferences are re: size of the school, geographic location. A few you might look at:
UMass-Amherst
University of New Hampshire
University of Pittsburgh
SUNY EFS (Environmental Science and Forestry)
Good luck.
I agree your list is very reach heavy. I think you’ll likely get in to Rutgers - you are in state, have stats in their mid range, and they accept about 2/3 of applicants overall. Plus you have first gen, good rigor and ECs. I would almost classify it as likely but you’d still benefit from a true safety and more targets. Maybe…UW, Minnesota,
Foreign language? I think you will get an acceptance from Rutgers. I think you need more targets, and a safety if you do not want to go to Rutgers. If in state how about TCNJ? My high stats daughter loved UDel, my son had pretty much the same gpa and test scores you have, UDel offered him $10,000 a year a few years ago (but he chose Rutgers).
Is there a reason you are planning on applying to all of the UCs? Do you have family in California? You can apply to all using the same application, but at $80 a campus, it will cost you $720.
I would spend a little time researching the different campuses and decide if you really want to send your application to all nine of them.
The UCs calculate GPA differently. They only use courses from 10th and 11th grade. For OOS students, the UCs only give an honors GPA bump to AP and/or IB courses. To more accurately chance you, please calculate your three UC GPAs using this calculator. GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub
Below are my guesses as to what your chances for admission might be at the schools on your list:
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
Likely (60-79%)
Rutgers
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
NYU
Washington U. (St. Louis)
UVA
Emory
CMU
UMich
Vanderbilt
Cornell
I left off the UCs because they’re their own special beast. Schools like UCLA and UCB would fall in the low probability category, but a school like UC-Merced would probably be a likely or extremely likely admit. If you’re still interested in applying to the UCs then you need to calculate your UC GPAs (unweighted, weighted, and weighted capped) using this calculator and then someone more knowledgeable about UC admissions might be able to chance you.
UMich and the UCs are going to be very expensive out-of-state. You’re probably looking at $70k+ for those schools vs. about $32k for Rutgers. $40k/year ($160k+ total) is a lot extra to pay for an out-of-state public, particularly when you have such a great in-state option.
It doesn’t sound as though you’d be very happy to attend Rutgers, and with your current list it’s very possible that it could be your only admission. The most important school(s) on your list are those that you’re extremely likely to be admitted to, that are affordable for your family, and that you would be enroll in and attend for four years. It doesn’t sound like Rutgers meets that criteria for you.
What do you mean by “anything better than Rutgers?” If you’re open to additional suggestions, what kind of college experience do you want? Some questions that might help prod your thinking include:
What size classes do you want?
How do you feel about Greek life (fraternities/sororities)?
How do you feel about significant enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports?
How do you feel about urban/suburban/college town/remote campuses?
Are there any climate preferences (including the amount of sunlight)?
Are there any areas of the country you prefer to avoid?
Will any other factors (such as politics or religion) affect your college decision?
I understand that but my school has a very high acceptance rate from Rutgers and I should easily get in. I get where your coming from though even of the off chance I get declined I won’t have any schools.
I will apply CALS for cornell and I probably should have said this but I actually plan to switch majors and like the higher ranked school(reach or high reach) if you can give me any help on school that I could apply that could give me a higher chance.
Rutgers is a very good university. I have known many Rutgers graduates in many ways (including three students in the same program when I was a graduate student at Stanford), and they have all made the university look very good. “Better than Rutgers” is a high bar to reach with a 3.75 GPA.
At some universities this could be as much as $400,000 for a bachelor’s degree by the time that you are done, and you are considering a major for which a master’s is at least possible (add perhaps another $200,000 for a two year master’s). Can you do this with no debt at all and no hardship to your family?
You would of course save a lot of this money if you were to stay in-state, at least for your bachelor’s degree.
This will help you in general, and also specifically at the UC’s which do not consider freshman year. However, I am dubious regarding whether most of the UC’s are worth the cost as an out of state student. As one sort of conspicuous example I do not understand why a student from NJ would fly all the way to attend UC Merced when Rutgers was an option at half the price. Strictly speaking your uptrend would also help in Canada, where universities also do not consider your freshman year. Toronto and McGill are for example both very good for environmental sciences. UBC is also but is a lot further from NJ. There are also a few small universities in Canada which are also very good for environmental sciences and which would be closer to Rutgers in terms of total cost of attendance.
Another option, almost as far north, would be the University of Vermont. It would be pretty close to a safety for admissions with your stats, and merit aid is at least possible. Again it is quite good for environmental sciences.
Other than Rutgers and maybe (or maybe not?) the lower UC’s, everything else on your list is a rather high reach.
I am not convinced that Rutgers is a safety, and I am pretty sure that nothing else on your list is even close to being a safety (although if you add UVM to your list it would probably be a safety as long as you are okay with being full pay – merit aid is likely but probably not certain).
I generally like to have at least two safeties on a student’s list, although I suppose that I broke this rule myself many years ago when I applied to universities with only one safety and one reach.
I really don’t see any other schools as worth it as Rutgers and don’t care for much other than the academics. I understand more safety’s from New Jersey but outside of that not really worth applying to them to me. I do understand that it could be my only admission because of my gpa and sat.Thank you for the help.
A Capped weighted UC GPA of 3.83 puts the majority of the UC’s in the Reach category.
All but UC Merced and UC Riverside have average admitted Capped weighted GPA’s of 4.0 or higher.
Below are overall admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific. Just realize the GPA is only one of many factors in UC selection criteria but Very important.
UC Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz would be the more likely campuses.
If Rutgers is your only admission then you will still be going to a great university in a bit less than a year (assuming that you just started your senior year of high school).
Please make sure you have a college you like and can afford…where you have a high chance of admission.
And please read the thread I’m going to link. The student in this thread was a tippy top student, class val, NMF, excellent LOR and ECs…and no one expected he would be rejected from every college he applied to his senior year…but that is what happened. He had schools that seemed like better bets, but really had NO sure things.
He did land well on his feet after a gap year, but the last semester of his senior year was awful with rejections, wait list work, and final rejections. You don’t want this to happen to you…and admissions have become way more competitive since this thread was written.
I still stand by no budget but understand what you are saying. I have added a few few safety’s after reading through the replies (for example Mommouth,NJIT if they are still too high tell me) but is their any chance I can get into any of these schools considering I want to ed1 NYU or Emory and ea the public schools. Thanks for the help.