Is an 1850 on the SAT good enough for UVA?

Have i already ruined my chances at uva? please read..?

• im going to be a junior in high school this year. im taking 2 ap classes and 2 honors classes. freshman year (4 honors courses)- 5 As, 2 B+s, weighted gpa of a 4.14 sophomore year (2 honors courses, 1 AP)- 2 As, 1 A-, 1 B+, 3 Bs, (not good, i know. i got distracted and started screwing up halfway through third quarter.) weighted gpa: 3.78 junior year i plan to make all As (weighted gpa: 4.4). i know it will be difficult, but i am very determined and i have to make up for messing up sophomore year. if i do get straight As this year and do really well on the SAT as well as the SAT II's and have some strong extracurriculars, do you think i have a shot at UVA? (im instate if it matters. northern virginia) or did i mess up sophomore year too badly already? thank you so much, im freaking out about college right now!

• Answer:

  No, you have not ruined your chances. You are more than just a number to them. Here's what their website says: "What's your minimum GPA and SAT score? "We don't have a minimum GPA. We don't have a minimum SAT score. "As strange as these answers sound, they're both true. Students are more than the sum of two numbers, no matter how important those two numbers may be. A cumulative GPA, for example, only reveals so much; it says little about the difficulty of a student's course load, or whether a student's grades have improved over time, or the level of grade inflation (or deflation) in a student's school. If we established a firm minimum GPA, a point below which no applicant would have any chance of being admitted, we'd miss a fair number of students who might make U.Va. a better, stronger place. "The same is true for SAT scores. Most people who work in admission at highly selective universities believe that standardized testing is a useful but imprecise instrument, an axe, not a scalpel. Setting an absolute minimum "1400 in, 1390 out," would be asking these tests to do something they weren't designed to do. "Of course, we do use GPAs and SATs. All other things being equal, applicants with good numbers stand a better chance of being admitted; and because our applicant pool is broad and deep, most admitted students have excelled in school and scored well on the SAT (see our Profile for more information). But we don't have set minimums for either, and we try hard to take into account all of the information we see in each application." Here is an interesting statistic: 88.5 percent of enrolling students ranked in top tenth of class (However, you have taken a lot of honors courses, so even if you're not in the top tenth, it's not because you're not smarter it's because you've taken honors courses, and they will look at that. It's great to challenge yourself with honors classes even if you get lower grades. B's are not bad, and they are not a sign that you should take easier classes.) Another interesting statistic: The middle half of the class scored 1250-1430 on their Sat I. Read http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/profile.html for more information on how to prepare. Remember to talk to your favorite teachers outside of class a little so they will be able to know you better in order to write great letters of recommendation.