average stats-- where can i go?

College Search & Selection
1

my gpa is roughly 3.4 (uw)
sat- 1080 (i took a practice a sat earlier and got 1150 but I’m trying to get to 1300)
act- 19 (working up to a 26ish)

im a female and im mixed with black and asian
i have a 400hr+ of volunteering
im in spanish club, tri-m (music honors society), i do pit band, and orchestra,

im an incoming senior in MD

schools I’m thinking about

safety:
san fransisco state university
kean university
UH Manoa

target:
portland state university
rider university
New York Institute of Technology
Colorado State University

reach:
Syracuse
CU Irvine
Carnegie Mellon University
UMD college park

2

Not sure how San Francisco state can be a safety as an out of state applicant unless your parents can afford to pay close to $40K/year to attend. No financial aid available for OOS students at the UC’s or Cal states and your stats currently will not garner any merit aid (think top 1-2%).

3

Carnegie Mellon is pretty much out of reach.

And UC Irvine, as Gumbymom said, gives no financial aid to OOS students.

4

I’m attending a precollege program at Carnegie so do you think my chances of admission could increase from this?

5

Just a quick note. @Gumbymom knows the UC and CSU systems and I love/follow her posts since I have a D18. She knows what she’s talking about. Thank you.

6

if no financial aid is offered, what about grants?

7

Those are really really low stats… I don’t know if u can get into most of these schools

8

Do you have any interest in Towson? That might be one to look at.

9

Hmm…if you’re from Maryland, why would you look at Rider and ESPECIALLY Kean??

10

If you are eligible for Federal grants such as Pell grant, then yes you could use these to pay for the California schools but that is a drop in the bucket in comparison to costs: Cal States $36-40K/year and UC’s around $60K/year. The maximum Pell grant is $5920. You could also only borrow $5500 as a Freshman applicant. Where would the other $30-50K come from, definitely not from the these schools.

California residents pay lower tuition costs since they in-state along with being eligible for Cal Grants and Middle class scholarships, none of these are available for OOS students.

I suggest you run the Net Price calculators on any schools of interest and also check the common datasets to determine where stand based on your GPA and Test scores. You really need to bump up those test scores to have a chance and most of the schools on your list.

11

I am thinking that you need SAT (or ACT) prep to get your scores up. Also, I am wondering about other public universities in Maryland since you live there and they are likely to be relatively more affordable than other schools.

12

I think Towson or one of the other Maryland public universities (not UMD) are your best bets, given your GPA, SAT/ACT scores, and desire/need for grants. Your stats are, as you say, average (not really low), and there are many colleges and universities that would be happy to accept you, but you need to know how much your parent(s) are able and willing to pay and find schools that are within the financial limits. As mentioned above, run the net price calculator for any school you’re interested in.

13

You should work on increasing test scores before designing the perfect list.