<p>Right now I’m fairly confident that I’ll get into William and Mary (my SAT is only 1910, and my grades are
good but I’ve only had 2 Bs in HS-and they were in honors/ap courses, and I have quite a lot of ECs) and UCSC.</p>
<p>Both are tied for my first choice, but I have no idea which one is better for me.</p>
<p>I’m interested in film, but I’m of sure it will be my major.</p>
<p>I’m also interested in social sciences.</p>
<p>I’m pretty liberal (I am really big on LGBT and gender equality) </p>
<p>I’m pretty nerdy (I casually like comic books and play DC universe DnD for fun, I love dr who/sherlock, and love reading)</p>
<p>I like to stay fit and am slightly interested in intramural sports.</p>
<p>I’d love to try archery</p>
<p>I’m a Socal girl, and looooove warm weather, but something new may also be nice</p>
<p>I’m not big on pot, but I suppose I’d like to try (on the same note: I’m not big on party- I prefer to hang with just a few friends) </p>
<p>I’m pretty into fashion and thrift shopping</p>
<p>If you could give me any suggestions, it’d be great! </p>
<p>W&M would be a reach for you. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you are (apparently) OOS, and your SAT is only slightly above the 25th percentile for the most recently enrolled class. Definitely a reach.</p>
<p>Hi I am currently a student from W&M and I stumbled upon your thread. It sounds like it fits many of the criteria you are looking for in a college. The people are friendly and there is definitely the vibe that everyone is passionate about one thing or another, and I can just have a late-night discussion about the ramifications of an independent Scotland as much as I can have a casual conversation about Harry Potter. The general acceptance and welcoming nature is a huge change that I enjoyed from high school. There’s always something going on, but there is no pressure to go out and party if you don’t want to, people generally respect that. There are a bunch of intramural sports on here and are pretty popular, especially Ultimate Frisbee.</p>
<p>It’s generally easy to have a small group of friends you hang out with, the orientation is done very well (over five days of no classes, just hanging out with your dorm mates and getting situated) so I feel like that is an aspect of the college that I enjoy. One club I particularly enjoy is the Outdoor’s club which goes on hikes and other fun trips in different national parks in Virginia over weekends and stuff, so it’s easy to get close to people that have similar interests. There’s a bunch of different viewpoints here, but if you are liberal, you won’t be in the minority. Social sciences are generally strong (any particular one you are interested in?) and they have a couple of first year programs just designed to get students out and doing stuff, even doing research (something I’m getting started with) in their first year.</p>
<p>That said, what the others have said are true. It will be hard to get in out of state (I am the only person from my school accepted and attending) and your SAT will need to be improved (W&M takes into account primarily CR+M). USC is definitely in more of an urban environment than W&M and film department is rather strong. There’s nothing wrong with applying to both and having backups especially if you wouldn’t be able to decide at this point. Cost should be considered as well as it is more expensive OOS. As for grades, I had more than a few B’s in rigorous classes and was still able to make it, so don’t let that be a deterrent.</p>
<p>I would NOT recommend using Cappex for chancing purposes. According to it, I had a 33% of getting into Harvard (the most selective school I could find) which is obviously not true. I’d use Naviance if your school offers it to see how you may stack up or even heck college confidential and getting some experienced users to comment. But yes, work on those standardized test scores (see their website for averages) and your essays.</p>
<p>If you ever have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask! Visit if you can</p>
<p>Getting admitted is one issue, paying for an out-of-state public is another. Have you run the Net Price Calculator for W & M to see if this works for your family?</p>
<p>Use the scatterplots on parchment and collegedata. Look at as many examples as you can near your own numbers and try to figure out what you have in common with or different from each of them. (Note that WM,at least, uses only the 1600 portion of SAT, not WR).</p>
<p>For example, looking at the years 2015-2019, OOS female, 3.8 unweighted GPA and 1910/2400 SAT, WM shows only two data points admitted at those numbers or below, one of which is so low that there must be something special about her compared to everyone else (and the other is almost certainly fake or misentered). The mean of denied female OOS students is 3.74 and 1923; the mean of accepted female OOS students is 3.81 and 2109. (The numbers are very slightly better for males; WM gets mostly female applicants.) So it’s kind of a reach for you.</p>
<p>Looking at the same chart for UCSC, IS female, every single data point with at least a 3.8 and 1910 is accepted. So it’s kind of a safety for you.</p>
<p>(Keep in mind that these results are self-reported, and therefore neither random nor shown to be reliable. But there is no particular reason to doubt most of them, either.)</p>
<p>We found W&M to be quite expensive based on my families situation, and took it off our list because of that. Run the NPC for each college, or have your parents do it. The projected costs might end up being quite different, especially in-state for a UCal</p>
<p>I disagree about using parchment and collegedata for the same reason I disagree on using services such as cappex. As those are self-reported, one can not guarantee they are representative of the typical applicant or even guarantee whether it is accurate. I would use the common data set points which are published on their website or use Naviance which I mentioned earlier. Since Naviance actually uses students that were formerly accepted/denied from your school, the data points are much more comparable than someone who may be in a different high school than you.</p>
<p>What state do you live in? As much as I love W&M, I always recommend students to start the search with public schools in your state of residence first. That way you know you have good, affordable safeties you’d be willing to attend before you branch out to some other schools.</p>
<p>I would expect that W&M would have very few applicants from any particular southern California school; naviance is unlikely to have large enough n to be useful in her case. Collegedata and parchment aren’t perfect, but there are enough entries in them to be useful, and the anonymity makes honest responses more likely. (Cappex seems more optimistic and is probably less accurate.)</p>
<p>I’m from California, so UC Santa Cruz would be that school.</p>
<p>HOWEVER</p>
<p>The UC system got screwed over, and now they’re pretty poor, so they look to get more out of state students so they can charge them more. It sucks. </p>