tell your story. They actually read that quite closely. Entrance evaluations are not just number crunching (although numbers are an important part) and Iowa does not want a bunch of clones (pardon the pun) so paint of picture of yourself as unique. I’m sure you have a reason for not performing well in high school but want a good academic challenge and believe you can meet it. Explain yourself in a compelling way in the essay.

Good luck. Oh, and don’t use the phrase “piss poor” when describing yourself on the essay!

State schools are now oversubscribed because private school tuition and fees are now almost twice average household income in this country (once you realize that they’re paid with after-tax money). One of my children scored 1800+ on his SATs and had a 3.6 with 7 AP classes, while being a national class skier. He couldn’t get into UVa, our state school of choice. His high school is ranked #37 in the country. Does this make sense? Not to me.

The best way I know to manage this problem is to go to a community college, if the state assures admission to the premier state school that you really want, upon successful matriculation at the CC. Sure, one’s parents won’t be able to brag on you for a couple of years, at their cocktail parties, but you’ll save buckets of money, and finish with the degree from SUI that you want, with none of this admissions stress. If they have this system in Iowa I’d check out Kirkwood or someplace like that. No reason why you couldn’t live in IC and start your life while commuting up 380. Then it will just come down to whether or not you have the discipline to excel in the community college classroom, while being on your own for the first time, because, frankly, you should do very well in a CC GPA-wise. But you won’t if you don’t want to spend your evenings with the books.

There’s always a way to get what you want, but sometimes it’s a circuitous road. Good luck and try not to let the dread of admissions rejection get you down. It’s phony and unnecessary. There’s always a way to get what you want.

Then there’s always the military. One of my bests english professors was from an anti-intellectual farm family that didn’t support his academic ambitions. So he went into the Army and secured in-state tuition treatment at a superior state school program, where he had never lived. Don’t know if this is still the rule, or where. But school was a breeze, inexpensive, and largely funded by other people. There’s always a way.

Here’s the RAI formula that Iowa uses to determine admissions – from here: http://www.uiowa.edu/admissions/undergrad/requirements/rai-page.html

2 x ACT Composite Score (or the SAT Equivalent)
+
1 x High School Percentile Rank
+
20 x High School GPA
+
5 x Number of Core Courses Completed
by High School Graduation
=
RAI Score

Over 255 = You passed!

Kirkwood. In Iowa City of course, don’t mess with that CR nonsense. Also, if you get your Associates Degree you can throw a big party for your graduation and invite all your U of I friends who don’t have a degree.

In their faces. That’s how I felt anyways. They probably made fun of me.

…are you sure you want to be asking college admission advice from these people?

my GPA wasn’t anything special but a good ACT got me in.

I recommend that you round up 3 or 4 of your dumbest friends and have them apply to Iowa as well. You know, the guys who took nothing but metalshop, woodworking and remedial math and still only managed to graduate by a dickhair. If they’re completely incapable of stringing together coherent thoughts (like many of my high school friends), give them a purple crayon and let them write their own essays. If writing happens to be their strong suit, you may need to do some editing. Insert a few quadruple negatives and be sure to put a comma after any word that ends in “g.” Also try to fit in the word “scrotumsucker” more than once.

Think of it as simplifying the admissions process.