Can I get in to Northwestern?

you can get a clear idea of their expectations here https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/northwestern-college-2591?searchtype=college&q=Northwestern%2BCollege

1) They definitely help to make you stand out, but for a lot of these schools (U Mich not so much), if you don't have the academic profile to at least be an average applicant, they don't really give much weight to your extracurricular activities because you don't seem to have what it takes to be a successful student there, which is ultimately what you're going to college for. 2) It matters, but not a whole lot in relation to your college stats since your college performance is much more reflective of how you would perform at the collegiate level than any high school. Certain schools may put more emphasis on that and standardized test scores than others will, but you can bet that all of those schools will care because they don't want to take some mediocre kid who's just trying to circumvent the process. Northwestern transfer requirements: http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/apply/instructions-and-methods/transfer-applicants.html U Michigan transfer requirements: http://www.admissions.umich.edu/requirements-transfer-students U Chicago transfer requirements: https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/applicants/transfer/ You will note that those that require secondary school transcripts still do care, and that those who require standardized test scores still care about those as well, which is where your ACT score could really come back to hurt you. 3) You can look at acceptance rates for freshman compared to those for transfer applicants here: http://transferweb.com/stats/transfer-acceptance-rates/#.T6MdnsWB98E