I am trying to decide ED for a school and Northwestern Tufts and Dartmouth are all my top choices. I have a 32 ACT and a 3.79 unweighted GPA. What are my chances of getting into these schools? Also, what is like the life like at each of these
Without your extracurriculars, I can’t give you a definite answer but right now, looking at your gpa and stats your chanes are pretty low for all schools
Based solely on your stats I’d say you have a pretty good shot at Tufts. Keep in mind that I am not a student at any of these, but I can regurgitate information that I’ve heard from other threads on this website.
Northwestern and Tufts are both suburbs of major cities (Tufts is closer to Boston than Evanston is to Chicago, though), while Dartmouth is pretty rural, which can be both good and bad. I’ve lived in Boston and it’s a great city. I’ve heard that Greek life is prominent at Northwestern and Dartmouth, but they’re both unlike Greek Life at big state schools (i.e., they’re inclusive and easy-going). Not sure about Tufts. Dartmouth has the most LAC-type feel (emphasis on undergrads, easy to connect with professors, etc.). Northwestern is the biggest. These are generalizations, but Dartmouth is known for its business program, Northwestern for its journalism and theater, and Tufts for pre-med and STEM majors. One thing I can say for sure about all three though is that they’re FREAKING cold. But they’re all great schools and you can’t really go wrong. Best of luck to you!
I agree with whatsamania, many people are going to have your grades or higher
@Ariz0na,.
Northwestern’s STEM are ranked significantly higher than than Tufts. Its chemistry and material sciences are among the very best in the world. One of its professor just won the Nobel prize in chemistry.
@IWannaHelp True. Like I said, they were generalizations of what I’ve heard other people say in the past were the best programs at each university.
@whatsamania @thedude2017 Thank you for your reply! My gpa is a 3.79/4.0 unweighted and a 4.16/4.0 weighted. Do you know what the average is for those applying to the schools that get in?
You could look at the websites for the admissions offices at those three schools for a profile of their applicant pools. Each school also has a common data set that provides a statistical breakdown of applicants and enrolled first years (but average GPA isn’t included.)
What the other posters were trying to tell you, I think, is that ACT and GPA alone aren’t determinative. Admissions officers consider many other aspects like extracurriculars and personal circumstances.
Its always confusing when discussing how far a college is from “a city”… Do they mean the city limits or " downtown “? Northwestern is very close to the edge of Chicago (probably loser than Tufts is to Boston), but yeah, it’s not as close to " downtown” as Tufts is.