Chance a lowkey average student at above average schools!

Going on some tours soon… looking to get an idea @ some schools i’m into!!

Demographics: White female from PA, rising junior, middle class, top public school, does divorced parents count as a hook…. prob not

Intended Major(s): Poli-sci or English

ACT/SAT/SAT II: PSAT 1210… didn’t study at all… feeling high 14 low 15 on my sat maybe… we’ll see!!

UW/W GPA and Rank:

  • School doesn’t rank

*3.63uw, 3.7w

  • UC GPA is 3.96uw 4.11w

  • MAJOR upward trend

  • 6 honors 1 ap class as of rn

Coursework: APs: Aphg (feeling a 4), next year i’m taking calc ab, psych, us history, and lang

Awards:

  • Best delegate award at Model UN conference

  • 10th grade honor roll

  • Selected for national conference in youth & gov

Extracurriculars:

  • School Basketball: Freshman year: Team manager, recorded games, and helped out with lots of bts stuff at practice

  • Youth and Government: Sophomore year: Elected as a Senate committee chair, chaired debates during club meeting, organized and ran a group of 10 people the weekend of our conference, collaborated and debated with other people from across the state, co-sponsored a bill that got signed by the youth governor, selected for Conference on National Affairs (25 out of 200ish)

  • Model UN: Sophomore year: Voted to be Vice President 22-23 and will to work closely with the other officers to plan meetings, conferences, trips, and fundraisers

  • Sophomore year: Member of Spanish Club and Key Club, nothing special

  • Work Experience: Freshman-Sophomore year: Worked as a cashier, around 30 hrs a week in the summer and on weekends during the school year

  • 30ish??? volunteer hrs, planning on getting more this summer

Schools: (from impossible to safety): Columbia, Georgetown, BU, NYU, UCLA, American, Fordham, Pitt, SMU, TCU, Temple, UofSC, PSU

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What are your financial criteria? I can’t infer from your list. UCLA would give you no aid whatsoever - is 65K/year affordable? If not… would you get need-based aid at the full-need-met schools like Columbia/Georgetown, and would the family contribution shown by the Net Price Calculator (being sure to include income from both parents) be affordable?

If Pitt, PSU, and Temple would be affordable, then you should have good in-state options, and you can build from there.

For your interests, look at both Dickinson in PA, and Denison in OH, if they work cost-wise. Maybe Syracuse in NY - their Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs was the birthplace of Model UN, and it’s a great place for basketball fans!

It’s really too early to “chance” you for the super-competitive schools, but it’s not too early to start filtering what makes sense cost-wise.

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A “hook” is something the college wants that you have. Sadly, there is no shortage of kids with divorced parents.

Pretty much the first question on CC is always: what’s the budget? Can you afford these schools, with no/minimal loans? Looking at your ECs, if you go the PoliSci route you want 0 debt- I can give you chapter & verse on way, but will spare you the soap box for now.

Second question: why these schools? Urban seems to be the only unifying theme (U of SC = SoCal or S Carolina?)

snap! @aquapt got in there on the $$ question

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Budget is super important. Even more important, particularly at this state of things, is do NOT fall in love with a school. Investigate options, see what’s out there, see what kind of things you like or don’t like. Seniors in high school think they know what they want in the fall and then 6 months later realize they want something else. This is just a time to explore.

If you are interested in politics or public policy, it can be very helpful to be in a capital, whether state or national. Being able to get experience throughout the school year rather than just summers can be very beneficial. Then again, in two years you might not want to do anything related to poli sci.

You already have Georgetown, American, and perhaps U. of South Carolina, if that’s the USC you’re referring to. So, to give you a taste of some other possibilities in this vein (where you can also get a good education in English) here are some schools with their distance from their state capitol building, or from the U.S. one if so denoted. There are small, medium, and large colleges, publics and privates, religiously affiliated and non-affiliated, big athletic spirit schools, schools with enthusiastic performing arts programs, etc. All of these schools also offer merit aid, so you can also see what kind of merit aid is available and if it would work for your family’s situation.

  • U. of Hartford (CT): 4 miles
  • SUNY Albany : 4.6 miles
  • Siena (NY): 5.5 miles
  • Otterbein (OH): 15 miles
  • Virginia Commonwealth: 2 miles
  • George Mason (VA): 19.3 miles to U.S. Capitol
  • Providence (RI): 1.9 miles
  • Butler (IN): 5.1 miles
  • Dickinson (PA ): 19.4 miles
  • Union (NY): 18 miles
  • College of New Jersey: 3.6 miles
  • Ohio State: 3.5 miles
  • U. of Wisconsin: 1.6 miles
  • Trinity College (CT): 1.7 miles
  • George Washington (D.C.): 2.2 miles to U.S. Capitol
  • Emory (GA): 6 miles
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1210 to 1400-1500ish is a huge jump, though you do have some time until you need to take the SAT, so hope for the best but keep in mind that 50 points or so is a more typical improvement from PSAT to SAT.

There are two pretty good ways to get a better idea of what your chances are like at particular schools. One is Naviance scattergrams from your HS. The second is to google “Common Data Set” and the name of the college or university you are interested in.

If you do that for Temple it will take you to https://www.temple.edu/sites/www/files/2020-2021_common.pdf look at Section C where you will find that your current stats put you somewhere around the 50th - 60th percentile of last years accepted/enrolled students. Don’t know if you considered that a safety or not, but with median stats as compared to the accepted/enrolled students, it is more like a possible match.

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Poli-Sci and English are 2 very different majors. What do you dream of becoming when you’re out of school and into the adult world?

Aw, I was a double major in Poli Sci and English. Former journalist turned lawyer. Being able to write well is a skill that will serve you well in many fields.

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What is your budget? I would begin there.

I think you are a good student and right now I would focus on finding affordable safeties. Your instate schools are a good place to start. Once you have a test score (and budget) you will be able to come up with a longer list of possibilities

There is nothing wrong with applying to Columbia and Georgetown as long as you also have realistic and affordable options. UCLA is a reach and will not give you money.

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More information regarding UCLA. Since you are a rising Junior, your UC GPA at this point does not mean much until end of Junior year. OOS Honors classes are not weighted in the UC GPA calculation, only AP/IB or UC transferable DE courses taken 10-11th grades. HS course rigor is Very important for UCLA along with academic GPA and the Personal insight essays. UCLA looks at 3 UC GPA’s: unweighted, capped weighted and fully weighted.

Admit data from 2021 below. 2022 data will not be available until Jan-Feb 2023 but it shows how much of a Reach UCLA will be for you. Also as stated, you will be expected to pay full fees so $260K for 4 years is pricey.

2021 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted overall and not major specific.
UCLA: 6%

Best of luck with your college search and find some realistic and affordable options.

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Yes, I agree that either or both would be good preparation for law school. Is that what this student is saying?

If that’s not the goal, then we’re looking at humanities on the one hand vs social science on the other. While either are good general preparation for a wide variety of career paths, they do have different implications for a student’s interests and different options when we ignore the future options where they do overlap.

I’d just like to get clear about what this student’s are that led to these 2 choices.

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You have the benefit of time if you’re just finishing your Sophomore year. At a 1210 PSAT, you’d be projected in the 1300’s… While SAT is not a top criteria anymore, there is still a big difference between 1300’s and close to 1500.

Columbia and Georgetown would be nearly impossible unless you really increase your GPA, add far more APs and bulk up your ECs.
BU, NYU, and probably UCLA (I don’t know west coast schools as well) would be high reaches right now, but if you can bring up your GPA to a uw 3.8ish, get a good SAT (for BU and NYU), those schools could become reasonable reaches.
American, Fordham, etc… are pretty solid matches. You can add George Washington to that list, particularly for Poly Sci.
Not sure anything on your lift is really a safety, but Temple, UoSC… would be “likely.” They could become safety if you lift up your GPA and rigor a bit.

As the title of your thread suggests – average student for above-average schools – You have one more year to become an above-average student, if you truly want the above-average schools.

For the sake of these admissions odds, I will assume you get 1400. Note this would be a strong gain from PSAT to SAT that 80%+ of students do not achieve.

Columbia to UCLA - not realistic.
American to Penn State - you should get into at least 1/2 of them.

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UCLA is permanently test blind so SAT is not a consideration for admission.

The first thing you need to do is run the net price calculator on all the schools on your list and see if they’re affordable. College choice becomes a lot easier once you have that baseline established. And, in my opinion, there’s no rational need for a long laundry list of universities. All you really need is maybe 3-4 at most, using your in-state university as the baseline.

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