<p>The RAI number is THE means by which admissions decisions are made. It’s really black and white, plug and chug your numbers and see what comes out. They do NOT look at your high school, or your ECs or your grade trends or any of that stuff.</p>
<p>That said, there are a couple silver linings here. One, they will use a weighted GPA if your school reports them. Does your school weight? If not, that’s unfortunate. And Admissions will not weight for you by looking at your Honors classes and giving you additional credit for them. </p>
<p>The other silver lining is that you can appeal. The RAI metric is quite new and the head of admissions ackowledged in the NY Times Education blog that it’s a work in progress. So my advice is, if you’re within 15-20 points of the RAI minimum, APPEAL! At THAT point they’ll look at your school and your trending. Most of your stats look to me to be very solid UI material.</p>
<p>I do agree 100% with funyet that your ACT is a bit of a liability, either at Iowa or elsewhere, and you should re-take it after some prep. If the tutor thing is not an option do take a prep course. And at the very very least, buy the Princeton prep book and use one of the free online prep services. My son did and really liked it (the online thing) because it gave immediate feedback and he could see his progress as he took the quizzes. Like it or not, if you don’t know HOW to take the test, you will suffer no matter how bright you are.</p>