Alright, here we go! College suggestions for URM with awards and low GPA

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Hola :]
(Thanks to all the parents on here, you're all so helpful!)</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA: 3.227
Weighted GPA: 3.607 (very rigorous course load)
PSAT: 74 CR, 63 M, 70 W, 207 total
I'm taking the October SAT. I'm positive I'll get a 2100 or better.
Rank: Roughly top 30%
AP:
- 10th: World History (3)
- 11th: English Language (4), Psychology (4); I studied Psych without a class.
Senior Year Schedule: Very rigorous for my school; AP Biology, AP English Lit, Econ/AP Gov, NM History (required), Newspaper</p>

<p>EC’s:
Newspaper (10, 11, 12):
- Staff Writer (10, 11, 12)
- Backpage Editor (11)
- Feature & In-Depth Editor (12)
Multicultural Club (11, 12)
- President
Black Student Union (11, 12)
- Secretary-Treasurer
Quill & Scroll Honor Society (journalism honor society)</p>

<p>Awards:
Sophomore:
- Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Regional Gold Key (Novel Writing)
- Not really an award but accepted to the Iowa Young Writers Studio which is fairly selective.
Junior
- National Gold Medal for Scholastic Art & Writing (Short Story)
- National Creativity & Citizenship Award for Scholastic Art & Writing (Journalism)
- Regional Gold Key for Scholastic Art & Writing (Journalism)
- Regional Gold Key for Scholastic Art & Writing (Short Short Story)
Senior
- National Merit Semifinalist
- National Achievement Semifinalist
- NCTE Achievement Award in Writing</p>

<p>Other:
State: NM
Ethnicity: African-American
EFC: 0</p>

<p>My grades are splotchy. Lots of A’s and B’s, some C’s, kind of a weird trend, plus the kicker is that I have three D’s on my transcript: second-semester sophomore year, Honors Algebra II/Trig; first-semester junior year, AP Calc AB and Nursing Science. Nursing Science was a ridiculous elective my parents made me take (despite the fact that I’ve never shown any interest in nursing, so that was a failure in the making). And the math grades…no reason really except disinterest and lack of organization and being, unfortunately, scared of numbers...</p>

<p>Right now, the only schools on my list are NYU Gallatin, Hampshire College (EA), and the University of New Mexico (the last one is a safety and kind of gross so I might need safety suggestions as well).
- I adore liberal arts colleges. Schools with a liberal arts feel within a university work too.
- I prefer the East Coast, but any school in or near an interesting city is also good.
- Writing is my main focus (creative and journalistic). I'm also interested in neuroscience/cognitive science/psychology/biology stuff.
- I like the whole personalized curriculum concept, but it's not required.
- I will most likely attend grad school as well.</p>

<p>If you need any more information, just tell me! :]</p>

2

<p>Literally the second I posted this, I remembered something else…
Diversity is also pretty important – I’d like a strong multicultural community, even if it’s small, if that makes sense.</p>

<p>EDIT
Yet another thing:
Brown, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Pitzer, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Barnard, and Amherst have already been suggested to me. Most of them seem unrealistically reachy, but I’ll be looking into them anyway. :)</p>

3

<p>Oxford College of Emory University. You can apply Early Action.</p>

4

<p>Do you need financial aid? If so, your options will be very different than if you don’t. As you know, U of New Mexico is both an admissions safety and likely the most affordable too.</p>

<p>Will you be looking for need based aid too?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>These seem “reachy” to me also. Your SAT score (if you achieve what you hope to) would be a high one for an African American URM, I believe. But your high school grades, especially the D’s, seem problematic to me for these highly competitive schools. I don’t think they accept too many students with D’s on their transcripts.</p>

<p>If you become a NMSF, there are schools some schools that have scholarships that could help you with costs.</p>

<p>If cost is not an issue, then apply to Emory Oxford, Boston University (their general studies program), and NYU (general studies also).</p>

<p>Someone else will have to pipe in…do any of the schools on the OPs list offer merit scholarships to students with D’s on their transcripts?</p>

5

<p>Here are four East Coast options that come to mind: Northeastern U., American U., Marist, Fordham U.</p>

6

<p>“Brown, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Pitzer, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Barnard, and Amherst have already been suggested to me. Most of them seem unrealistically reachy, but I’ll be looking into them anyway.”</p>

<p>None of them is “unrealistically reachy” for you. D (who is AA) had AA classmates with weaker gpa and test scores who were admitted to Amherst and Brown (probably the most competitive of your list). SLC (even though it’s SAT optional) is a near-safety for you. Pitzer, Bard, UPenn and Barnard are match school - - assuming they offer need-blind admission. Also, your Nat. Ach. and NMS recognition which will put on all of the top schools’ radar. (Hampshipre - - really?? why??)</p>

<p>The more important factor/question in your case is MONEY. Even tho I believe most of the schools you listed meet 100% of demonstrated need (I’m not sure about Bard and SLC), the composition of the aid package will vary - - perhaps significantly since your EFC is $0, indicating minimal financial resources. </p>

<p>You should look at schools that offer all grant aid (ie: no loans) and those that cap loans below the $18k max for low-interest fed gauranteed loans (I believe Wellesley caps at $15k). And some of the top schools offer a limited number of merit awards (Smith and MHC, for starters) where scholarship $$ will replace the loan portion of your finaid package (and effectively creating a no-loan/all-grant award).</p>

<p>If you want to be in a city: Columbia, Barnard, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Harvard (why not?) - - but remember that most of the fun stuff in a city costs money and you will probably have limited money for dinner out, shopping etc., and in NYC a LOT of the socializing revolves around clubs/bars.</p>

<p>If you want a town: Smith (open curric, strong humanities and neurosci, Norhtampton was recently vote the #1 college town, also #1 on Princeton Rev’s "dorms are like palaces); Scripps (another school with great dorms; stronger academics than Pitzer, which is part of the same consortium), Wesleyan (nice town, close to NYC, great academics), Wellesley (close to Boston).</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

7

<p>If financial aid is a concern, NYU is not a good choice as they don’t promise to meet 100% of students financial need. I know people who went elsewhere because NYU offered them tens of thousands of dollars less than was their demonstrated need.</p>

<p>Because you are resident of NM perhaps you can get merit aid and need-based aid from there that will cover your costs. Otherwise you aren’t going to get the financial aid you need. NM is not one of the 2 or 3 publics that promises to meet all students financial need. Most publics can’t even meet the financial need of most of their in-state students.</p>

<p>Maybe you could get excellent aid from North Carolina Central, which I think has some good scholarships for National Achievement semifinalists. Because you need full aid and yet don’t have the stats to get into the tip top schools that provide such aid, your best bets might be looking at HBCUs that offer full aid to NA semifinalists, and also looking at your in state public universities.</p>

8

<p>I suggest taking a serious look at Smith.</p>

9

<p>Brown, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Pitzer, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Barnard, and Amherst were suggested to you. </p>

<p>I agree these seem reachy, but not totally out of the league considering your other factors. But Amherst I don’t think would be a good fit considering you want a large multi-cultural community. However, because it is a more homogenous school, they are actively recruiting multi-cultural students, so they are likely to give you a close look if you are interested. I don’t think it’s a good fit for you, to be honest, just based on your interests and based on my periphery experiences haivng gone to Smith and taken classes at Amherst via the Five College exchange. </p>

<p>Sarah Lawrence and Bard on the ohter hand I think might be more your style, and not really out of reach all things considered. </p>

<p>As for Hampshire, which you’ve noted you plan to apply Early Action to, think REALLY REALLY hard if you want a place that is very unstructured. Because it’s not just that you get to personalize your curriculum, it’s that you have to drive it. It’s actually a lot of hard work to get out of Hampshire what Hampshire is supposed to be. It’s ten times more difficult to have to define your own curriculum rather than fulfill requirements or even choose from among requirements. When it works, it’s great. But for a lot of people it doesn’t work. </p>

<p>So think about it. If your teacher offers you an option for a final of: a paper, a test, or a project that you get to define, which do you go with? If it’s the project, then maybe Hampshire will be a good fit. If it’s the paper, you might consider an LAC where there are no core requirements but there are still traditional majors (flexibility and structure). Smith is one, but there are lots of others.</p>

10

<p>Bookmarked.</p>

11

<p>Sorry, S&P - - Amherst tends to lead in terms of racial diversity, including % of AA students (Amherst 11%, Smith 7%, Hampshire 4.5%, SLC 3% and Bard 2%). Amherst is not what first comes to mind for an artsy-writer, especially a female artsy-writer - - but OP also says she’s interested in the sciences (a suprprise given her weakness in math), so Amherst isn’t an unreasonable suggestion. For Amherst caliber student who is artsy and who is more of a free-spirit, I’d say Wesleyan.</p>

<p>As for Hamp, OP should remember that since Hamp does not have traditional majors and course sequencing, if she’s interested in grad school, she may have to take a lot of off-campus courses. And again b/c Hamp doesn’t have traditional majors and course sequencing, in many cases she will have to convice profs at other colleges that she has the appropriate prereq preparation; this may pose a problem if you want/need to take upper level sci courses.</p>

<p>And, I think OP has to refine her geog preference. Bard, Colby, Wesleyan, Smith, Columbia/Barnard and Northeastern are all on the east coast but VERY different. Bard is rural and isolate; Colby is fairly isolated and Maine is wicked cold; Wes is a large town and close to NYC; Smith is in Northampton (!) and has four schools close by for socializing; Barnard an LAC in NYC with an Ivy League uni literally across the street; Northeastern in Boston - - a much smaller city than NYC - - not much of a campus but LOTS of other schools nearby; Johns Hopkins in another small city (Baltimore) with a number of schools nearby and stone’s throw to DC (even more schools including Howard). </p>

<p>Finally, remember that the devil is in the details. And it can be hard for a black girl to get her hair done in Maine or Ann.-on-Hudson.</p>

12

<p>The OP posted on another thread that her parents don’t have money for college so NYU is an atrocious suggestion.</p>

13

<p>With those awards, you should definitely reach for the top. If you get that 2100, even better. Stellar essays + excellent recs can get you really far. Many top schools are forgiving of lower stats if true excellence is shown in other ways besides the usual metrics. I think your app will be a breath of fresh air at the most selective schools, so apply to any school you wish because you never know how it might turn out (tired adcoms love it when they have a reason to make an exception to a promising applicant). Some schools to look into in addition to the ones mentioned above are Tufts, Northwestern, Oberlin, Hamilton, Yale, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Bowdoin. Oberlin, Hamilton, Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Bowdoin are rural though I believe.</p>

14

<p>I think the suggestion of Tufts is also a great one.</p>

15

<p>girl, apply wherever you like. As was written by one of the above posters, you never know what might happen and not applying guarantees that you won’t get accepted. However, please have real safeties. For my taste, the posters above are giving the aa hook way too much weight. My D (also an aa) has significantly higher stats in an extremely competitive hs. Nevertheless, in addition to a number of high reaches, she has 3 real financial and academic safeties that she loves, including one state school that has 100% guaranteed acceptance.</p>

16

<p>Hi…
As a NMSF and NA you will have some big merit opportunities.</p>

<p>Does anyone know how GPA affects becoming a NA Finalist? </p>

<p>The D’s might keep you from NMF, but I don’t know how it will affect NA Finalist. Anyone know???</p>

17

<p>Wow, so many suggestions. What’s a good number of schools to apply to? I’m getting a little overwhelmed.</p>

<p>@foolishpleasure: I guess that’s a little promising. As for why I’m applying to Hampshire: part of the Five Colleges; amazing grad school statistics; places emphasis on essays, recommendations, and extracurriculars in admissions; and great education philosophy. And my East Coast preference – I would really prefer to just not be in a boring location. (And lol, I agree that the devil is in the details, which is why I prefer a nearby city and a somewhat diverse community)</p>

<p>@Erin’s Dad: I’m aware of that, but they’re also unpredictable with aid… so who knows?</p>

<p>@SmithieandProud: Personally, I’d opt for the project and then the paper. Good analogy. :slight_smile: I’ve read a lot about the Hampshire curriculum, so I have a pretty good idea of what I’d be getting myself into. </p>

<p>@nychomie: Again, that sounds promising. I guess I’ll never know if I don’t apply, right?</p>

<p>@dignified1: Thanks. Definitely trying not to make my list too reach-heavy.</p>

<p>Tentative list:

  • NYU
  • Hampshire
  • Bryn Mawr
  • Smith
  • Wellesley
  • Barnard
  • Brown
    plus an in-state financial safety (UNM).
    I’m also applying to Harvard to appease my dad, if you’ve seen my other thread.</p>

<p>Researching:
Wesleyan, Amherst, Bard, Tufts, Pitzer, Scripps, Northwestern, Oberlin, Hamilton, Yale, Penn, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Northeastern, American, Fordham, Marist.</p>

<p>I think my final number of schools might be around twelve (or higher…). Should I narrow it down? I really don’t mind writing supplements.</p>

<p>And thanks for all your responses :)</p>