What do you think are my chances of getting into NU?

Question

What are my chances of getting into Northwestern?
In a nutshell
im ranked 28/480
ACT: 32
Extracurriculars:
Debate (Captain)
MUN (Exec Board)
FBLA (secretary)
Volleyball Team (Captain)
I also have lots of volunteer hours

my extracurriculars are strong my i feel like my low class rank kills me, what would u say are my chances of getting into NU? (im a junior btw, i can still work on some stuff)

Answer 1

Why do you think that your class rank is low? Isn't that like top 6%? I'd say that's pretty good. However, since more and more high schools no longer rank, actual GPA is more important. Is your school competitive? You might want to work on the ACT a bit, not that a 32 is bad whatsoever, but it's really just okay as far as northwestern apps go. It's pretty much up to par, but if you could bring it up even a point that'd probably help significantly to set you apart. Good luck!

Answer 2

This depends on where you are in school. If you are at a highly-competitive prep school from which most students expect to go into Ivy League schools, maybe, but if it is a normal high school, that will kill you. Know that no highly selective school will take extracurriculars in place of academics. You haven't mentioned what your grades actually are or how rigorous your academic program is, but these things are important.

Answer 3

Class rank doesn't mean as much to universities as applicants think it does: after all, you're competing against a national applicant pool with a wide variety of grade measurements, not the rest of your class. The rest of your stats look decent, but what's your GPA, and how difficult is your courseload?