I go to a private school and my GC told me (and my parents) that I should aim for lower/easier schools. I have around a 3.7 - 3.8 GPA unweighted. I take honors classes. And I am in involved in around 4-5 ECs where I have a leadership type spot. I also dance as another EC. Though my SAT scores are kinda low 1500-1600.
What do guidance counselors even know what a college admission officer is thinking anyway??
Is there any chance you retake the sat scores?
Take the ACT on June 13.
im retaking the SAT next week
You can look up the score (and sometimes the GPA) ranges of admitted students on collegedata.com.
Example:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=943
You also can find this information in each school’s Common Data Set.
http://www.ir.fsu.edu/surveys.cfm?ID=common_data
An experienced GC should understand approximately what it takes to be admitted to colleges that are popular among students at your HS. If your HS has Naviance, you can look up how your stats compare to admitted/rejected applicants to those colleges from your HS.
GCs can know a lot about various college admissions, particularly those instate, because of Naviance and because of what they’ve seen.
They don’t need to know what goes on in an admission’s person’s head. At state schools, the admissions process if often formula driven…and your test scores are a problem.
Some people score substantially higher on the ACT. I would register for it and try it out, You can also take it next fall and have the summer to prepare.
Are you in-state for Florida? If so, and you can get the SAT up to like 1700-1800 or an ACT around like 26-27 composite+, I think you might have a better shot. Google the schools you’re interested in and look at their average GPA/SAT/ACT range for students.
As the others have said, improve your SAT score and both schools are very possible.
The middle 50% SAT range of admitted students, last year at UF was 1810-2060, for FSU it was 1760-1960. Get into that range, and you’re a “match” to both schools.
However, UF (and to a lesser extent FSU) use holistic admissions. It can seem fairly random, so being a match is no guarantee of being admitted. Follow your GC’s advise and apply to a few other in-state (or even out-of-state) options as safeties/matches.
Also, each year UF/FSU likely only select a % of students out of your school. If your GC thinks your ranking is a bit low compare to your peers, that may also be applying to these two schools, it may raise a red flag for your GC. Hence the advise to pick other matches/safeties and don’t put all of your hopes on these two schools.