Click here to go to the NEW College Discussion Forum

I live in Chicago Illinois and have a strong interest in the Physical Sciences. Here are my stats.
GPA: 4.2 W 3.95 UW
Rank: 20/490 W and UW
APs: Calculus BC and Physics (The Physics class is 90 minutes long and lasts the full year. My school uses a block scedule so it is hard to cram a lot of APs into the scedule.)
I am also considering taking the AP Statistics test without taking the course, because it is not offered at my school.
Tests: ACT 26 (I have done some training for it so I think I can improve when I attempt it again in a couple months)
Should be able to get some good recs.
EC: working at nursing home, black belt in karate, a couple clubs, and I've played in some chess and card turnaments with some winnings.
Overall class scedule is rigorouse with mostly honors level classes, but it is not the most difficult scedule imaginable .
Advice on schools would be greatly appreciated. I have done some research but am having trouble finding a school that looks right for me.

By SAT on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 07:30 pm: Edit

Try taking the SAT's. I have found that a lot of people get a much higher equivalent score on the SAT than on the ACT. I was one of these people, and I only sent in my SAT scores.

By ad on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 08:24 pm: Edit

UIUC

By John on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 08:34 pm: Edit

Where is UIUC?

By $.02 on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 09:50 pm: Edit

Well, if you're from chicago...you should be a lock for most of the midwest schools...if your high school is solid, it should be a feeder school to one of the big universities around there (Umich...UofC...Northwestern...ND) As far as other schools (i.e. ivy universities) are concerned...it really depends on the high school.

For instance, the running joke (among students and faculty) at my old high school was that we were (and still are) black balled by Stanford...even tho we're a really solid cali school and send close to 30 kids to Berkeley and the Ivy schools each year, we have managed to send 1 kid (legacy) to Stanford in the past 8 years. We use to send quite a few kids to Stanford in the past but in one year...I believe 8 kids were accepted to Stanford and all opted to go somewhere else (MIT, Yale, Harvard, Cal Tech...) Ever since, Stanford has been giving my high school the cold shoulder.

Doesn't NW have a solid science program?

By John on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 09:54 pm: Edit

Do you think I am within range for UofC and/or Northwestern?

By $.02 on Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 06:12 am: Edit

John,
You should be within the range of UofC and NW because you are from Chicago. Those Universities are more inclined to take homegrown talent with "lesser" numbers than out of state kids who will probably never go to those schools and are awaiting ivy decisions. If you do ED, you should get into one of those schools. Talk to your counselor for more help.

Cheers