In state vs. Out scores?

uncwife_amp_mom
Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:18:58 +0000

At the Carolina 101 that we attended 2 years ago an Adm. answered a similar question. He told us that they look at the whole applicant, if you excelled in everything else: took and made top grades in the most rigorous classes offered at your school; had good EC’s, leadership, etc. (AND had good essays + didn’t omit the “optional” essay-I’ve yet to hear of a kid accepted who didn’t write the “optional” essay) They don’t let your lower than average SAT scores hurt you. (I know of several kids in our area that this applied to)
-He also said that the opposite was true: if you had great SAT scores but your grades, EC’s, essays etc. were not up to par; your great SAT scores will not get you admitted.

As far as the NC region question, this was addressed as well.(although I sometimes question the truthfulness of the answer) They declare that they don’t have quotas/don’t have to accept some from each county, but knowing some kids in large counties such as Wake and Mecklenburg who have been denied, and hearing of others in small counties who’ve been admitted, I can’t believe that this is totally true. I know of kids in both Wake and Meck. who were #s 1, 2, and 3 in their classes, good stats, great ECs that were defered, and then denied or waitlisted, while others from smaller counties have been admitted with much less.
last thoughts- My D was told by her H.S. guidance , that she would never win a merit scholarship at Carolina w/ less than a 1500 SAT. D felt that she had done as good as she was going to do, so she wouldn’t take SAT again. Someone told us to try the ACT, so she took it and scored a 33. (which we were told was equal to 1500 on SAT.) She ended up getting scholarship + honors. (I don’t know if ACT was reason, or if guidance was just wrong) D said the ACT was totally different than SAT; her problem was math and ACT has less math. Carolina takes both ACT and SAT and says they have no preference between the two. Maybe the ACT would be a good thing for your D to take? Also, I know of a kid who just got Morehead scholarship, they had taken SAT prep classes for over a year and brought up their scores right about 100 points on CR/M part; also added 70 points to writing score. (in their case, that was time and money well spent!)