Am I selling myself short?

<p>Hi everyone. Here's my stats</p>

<p>9th Grade
Pre AP English I A/A
Pre AP Geometry A/A
Pre AP Biology A/A
Pre AP World Geography A/A
Principles of Business and Money Matters A/A
Pre AP Spanish I A/A
Symphonic Band I A/A</p>

<p>10th Grade
Pre AP English II A/A
Pre AP Algebra II A/B
Pre AP Chemistry A/A
AP World History A/A
Anatomy and Physiology A/A
Pre AP Spanish II A/A
Wind Ensemble II A/A</p>

<p>11th Grade
AP English Lang & Comp A/A
AP Statistics A/A
Pre AP Physics A/A
AP US History A/A
AP Environmental Science A/A
Spanish III A/A
Wind Ensemble III A/A</p>

<p>12th Grade
AP English Literature
Pre AP Pre Cal
AP Biology
AP Government/AP Macroeconomics
AP European History
AP Comparative Govt/AP Psychology
Speech/Sociology
Wind Ensemble IV
may self study AP Human Geography
(my school added another period to our day and changed the schedule)</p>

<p>Rank- 19/639 Top 3%
GPA 102.34 (weighted)</p>

<p>1st SAT CR-580 M-540 W-590 essay- 8
2nd SAT CR-750 M-610 W-590 essay- 8 (I don't know)</p>

<p>ACT- composite 30
reading- 36
Math-26
Writing-32
Science-28</p>

<p>APs
World History- 4
Environmental Sci- 4
Statistics- 4
US History- 5
English Lang- 5</p>

<p>White Hispanic female with an interest in a Journalism major </p>

<p>Member of HOSA (Health Occupational Students of America) 10-12
Member of Spanish Club 10 and 12
Member of NHS 11-12
Played the Bass Clarinet for 7 years.
4 years of Varsity Marching band and 4 years of competitive spring band
1 on a class 1 solo at Solo and Ensemble 9-11
All-Region band member 9-11
Section leader for marching band 12
AP Scholar with Distinction </p>

<p>I'm applying to the University of Kansas, UT (In state for me), Mizzou, and maybe Syracuse.
I feel like these are all safeties, but money is a bit of a limiting factor because any aid I get will probably be merit. I am willing to go anywhere in the country, and I guess I would like some advice on other schools I could look at!</p>

<p>You’re doing so greatttt!!! </p>

<p>Any input you guys could give me would be great!</p>

<p>You are on the right track. See link for automatic scholarships and full tuition: <a href=“Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;

<p>Did you take the PSAT? Doesn’t everyone take it in TX? As a Hispanic, if your score was above 180, you could get National Hispanic Scholar (if you tell NMSC you are Hispanic.) And that could get you big automatic scholarships at many schools. Check out the scholarship thread at the top of the National Merit forum. It’s for National Merit, but many of the universities offer the same scholarships to National Hispanic.</p>

<p>Are you saying your family income is too high for you to get any financial aid, but your parents can’t pay for private school? What can they pay? In state costs of a public university?</p>

<p>I see you are targeting some top journalism programs with Mizzou and Syracuse. ASU also has a top program and gives full tuition scholarships to NHS, and pays costs of National Merit/Hispanic/ Achievement semifinalists to fly to visit the school. If you are not NHS, you will get at least $13,000/yr scholarship for your stats,bringing the cost in line with your in state schools. One thing to note is that ASU has several campuses, with Tempe being the largest. The journalism school is at the downtown Phoenix campus. Has a brand new building. </p>

<p>Apply to the UCs. Its a common application for all 9 of them. I definitely think you will get into at least 3 of them. The more options the better.</p>

<p>@celesteroberts‌
My score was high enough for NHS so I guess we will see what happens in September when they announce results.<br>
Yes, our income is at the range where we expect little to no need based aid so private schools are largely out of our range, but depending on scholarships state schools are affordable enough.
I don’t want to stay in Texas if I don’t have to. I will apply to UT Austin because of automatic acceptance, but I don’t expect a large amount of aid. I have a lot of family in the Midwest, and spent my summers near KU and Mizzou. We can pay either of those schools. Pretty much any state school is within my range.
I had looked briefly at ASU and will look again with the scholarship knowledge. Thank you :)</p>

<p>@Spiral7‌
As an Out of State student it was my impression that the UCs were very expensive, and most do not have an undergraduate journalism program. </p>

<p>Hmm I see, well Berkley has a Graduate School of Journalism
<a href=“http://journalism.berkeley.edu/”>http://journalism.berkeley.edu/&lt;/a&gt;
Just a thought. Good Luck! I respect you so much!</p>

<p>@Spiral7‌ Thank you for the information!</p>

<p>Why not A&M? Aversion to Aggies?</p>

<p>For the California UC’s, the price tag for OOS is $55K. Very little financial aid or scholarships are available for OOS. </p>

<p>The downtown campus at ASU has a new rec center as well as new journalism building. </p>

<p>Barrett honors has housing at downtown.</p>

<p>There is a light rail line between Tempe and downtown campus, so it is very easy to go to Tempe campus when you need to. Light rail also goes to the airport.</p>

<p>You can call Barrett and say you expect to be NHS. They will reimburse you for your airfare, and put you up for a night with a student, give you meal tickets and have you take tours, talk to dean and professors, sit in on classes. It’s a fun way to spend a couple of days. They don’t pay parent expenses, but you can go alone if that is an issue.</p>

<p>Some depts have scholarship money that stacks on top of the NHS money. Also, ASU has a lot of money for Hispanic and Native American students, so you might get something for that.</p>

<p>I know you don’t want to stay in TX. But if you change your mind, you know there are a few schools in TX that give good money for National Merit. A&M gives full tuition+. I think it’s UT-D that gives a full ride(?)</p>

<p>You should apply widely, as with your profile- Hispanic and excellent involved student, you are likely to get lots of merit aid at schools that offer merit. Though I don’t know what your GPA means as we live in an area that does UW letter grades. But I’m assuming 102 is a good GPA. If you are in Houston, you could look into possibility of Posse Scholarship, which would open up a few of the top no-merit schools.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about it, but don’t some of the top schools have special visit weekends for URMs and pay their travel costs, like ASU, but more elaborate? </p>

<p>What about USC? It might give you aid. Forget about the UCs? </p>

<p>You should be thinking about your list now, as you are. Some of the schools that give money for National Merit give it to all who apply, but others give out a limited # of scholarships and there is advantage to applying early. Like UMN-TC gives almost full tuition. The scholarship list doesn’t mention it, but they give OOS waiver routinely in addition to the $11K/yr. But they only award 125 and have more than that enroll every year. Denison has full tuition, but only about 20. Can’t recall who else. Also if there might be extra dept scholarships on top of National Meirit or at schools that offer regular straight merit money not to do with National Merit, many places require 11/1 application for merit aid consideration.</p>

<p>I don’t know about Northeastern’s journalism school, but they give $30K/yr to National Scholars. Used to be full tuition, but they cut back last year. and they still give a full tuition merit scholarship to exceptional interesting students, about 80 a year. If you want to be in that part of country, that is a sure way to do it for less than $60,000. They are all about coops, if that interests you.Seems like journalism would be a perfect major for that.</p>

<p>I’m in DFW.
I have a rather weird aversion to A&M and College Station but I’m sure I could be persuaded into it. </p>

<p>@celesteroberts‌ Thank you again for all the info about ASU and other schools, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about. I am looking at Northeastern now; I had never really thought about going to the East Coast, but this schools seems interesting. </p>

<p>@DrGoogle‌ I’ll look more into USC :)</p>