<p>What are my chances to get into the Chicago Economics program?</p>
<p>School: Public, hardly ever sends students to elite schools
GPA: 3.98 (We don’t have any AP classes and only a few honors, but I have taken the most rigorous schedule possible, including college courses.)
ACT: 33
ECs:
Student Council (President)
Class President (Soph, Jr)
Quiz Bowl (Captain, 2 yrs)
Track (4 yrs)
Cross Country (4 yrs)
Debate (4 yrs- 4th, 3rd in State)
History Day National Qualifier
Lifesmarts (2 yrs)
A TON of Academic Competitions</p>
<p>Your chances seem good, but do keep in mind that statistics and extracurriculars are not the sole factor when determining chances for admission. Also, People are not admitted into seprate programs. In fact, students don’t have to declare their major until their third year IIRC.</p>
<p>Keep up the good work, and give yourself plenty of time to write your essays. I think you should try to apply EA (if you don’t have an ED school that precludes it) as your grades are excellent and you have no reason to wait for your senior grades to give yourself a boost.</p>
<p>Make sure that you apply to a variety of schools, as Chicago was difficult to predit this year. This is especially important if you anticipate needing financial aid. If you look on nearly all the college threads and the Parents forum, there is rather a large amount of whining going on (some justified, some not) about financial aid. One parent was even complaining about the lack of aid at Harvard for people in the 200+ income bracket. Anyway, it is important to have several options, because one school more be more generous for your family’s particular situation than another. If you have not had a talk about finances with your folk yet, you should do soon.</p>
<p>Take some time to get to know about the Core curriculum. Like Bowler Hat said, it’s not as if the economics program is a stand-alone program from the rest of the university, and any student can take or major in economics (including me, who would be the worst econ major of all time, because “common sense” and “money” don’t really register in my brain).</p>
<p>The U of C is “known” for its econ, sure, but it’s also “known” for its rigorous liberal arts education, so make sure you want to sign up for that too.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that your school isn’t rigorous, but I think your ACT score and your academically-oriented EC’s will help make you a strong candidate at Chicago and other top schools. The rest of your package will then come into play-- what you say about you, what your teachers say about you, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks. I got my scores in the mail and I only got an 8 on the writing section, although I consider myself a good writer. The Chicago website said that you don’t need to take the writing section, but will they still look at the score? If so, how heavily do they weight it?</p>
<p>If you can prove yourself a good writer through your essays, I don’t think you have to worry about your writing score all that much. I say that as somebody whose SAT writing score wasn’t what it should have been.</p>
<p>Currently the SAT writing score is suppressed; the admission counselors do not see it. I would assume that is done for the ACT as well. The essays are of considerable importance, however.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I have one last question. Do the colleges I sent my scores to see the major I indicated? My mom registered for the ACT for me, so she put down Business Management instead of Economics. Do the colleges see this and think that I wouldn’t be a good fit for their college, or am I just worrying about nothing?</p>
<p>I doubt that any college pays any serious attention to the major on an ACT form. People frequently have no real understanding of a major in HS and change even well into their college years.</p>