Chance a rising senior!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Chance me! I’ll be filling out college applications soon and while I won’t put all my weight on this, I’m curious to see what people think.

I’ll be applying mainly for the Animal science majors under an equine emphasis, but I’ll be on the pre-med track.

I’ll also be applying for the honors colleges as well, if y’all would be kind enough to consider that as well.

Top choices:
•University of Florida
•‎Cal Poly Tech, San Luis Obispo
•‎University of Georgia
•‎Penn State

OOS Female from Utah
Bi-Racial (African American/white)

ACT: 33 Composite (34E, 26M, 36R, 34S, 9W) May retake for a 34 and improve my math

GPA: 3.9 UW, about ~4.6 W? Not totally sure

Class rank: Top 20% of ~500

AP Classes (including capstone program): AP Euro(4), AP Lang(5), AP Comp Gov(4), AP U.S. Gov(2), AP Seminar(3)
Still in Progress: AP Bio, AP Stats, AP Psych, AP Lit, AP Research

Honors: ~7 classes

Extracurriculars (not many):
•Barnes & Noble employee for a little over a year
•‎~150 hours volunteering every week at the info desk at my local hospital
•‎~20 hours at my local aquarium (just recently started)
•‎ 2 weeks spent shadowing doctors in the Dominican Republic as a part of the GAP medics program. ~40 hours of shadowing
•‎4 years of my Skills USA club, minor leading member for 2 years
•‎Horse back riding as hobby, but I haven’t done competitions in years
•‎No time for extracurriculars really, as most of my high school career I had to always be home to look after my sister as my dad was never really home

Awards/Accolades (also not many):
•AP Scholar Award
•‎2 awards for creative writing, only went as far as regional
•‎Several horse show awards of various places, but from around when I was in middle school

Family:
•Separated parents
•‎Two sisters on my dad’s side
•‎ Father’s income ~50k, which will be my reported family income

Any feedback is much appreciated!

2

As an OOS applicant, Cal Poly SLO will give you little to no financial aid, so expect to pay $40K/year to attend if accepted. You are definitely competitive for SLO academically and have great major related EC’s. Your race/ethnicity is not a consideration for California public universities.

Being OOS for all the schools on your list will be an issue due to costs so make sure you run the Net Price Calculators for each school.

3

Why not the University of Utah? The stats could get you into the Honors program and it would be way cheaper than OOS public schools.

4

With $50k in income, there’s no way you can afford to go out of state, unless you go for a scholarship. Check out University of Alabama, SUU, and Texas State University. There are scholarships in the southern states, so do some good research. Check out Ole Miss, Miss State and Auburn as well. Since you’re low income, you might be able to qualify for need-based merit from private schools. Try running the net price calculators for TCU and Baylor. You might already be qualified for a tuition scholarship at Baylor.

Also keep in mind, Utah has some of the lowest tuition rates in the country, so it would be well worth applying to U of U.

5

My mother makes upwards of 80k and will be contributing to my father’s 50k. However, for the purpose of applying for financial aid with separated parents, I plan on reporting my father’s income primarily for better aid as my time spent with each parent is straight down the middle. I’ve considered the UofU in the past, but in addition to my strong desire to go out of state, they’re selection of majors and social life is not something compatible with what I’m looking for. SUU is a better fit and would give me a relatively full ride, though it’s not a very competitive school.

6

So how much will your Mother contribute each year? SLO might give you the OOS scholarship which is $1000/year I believe plus whatever you qualify from Federal aid. The Gap will be around $30K+ each year. I agree that unless you have a large budget, staying in-state for Undergrad would be the best financially. Your goal as a Pre-med intended student is to keep Undergrad costs low since Medical school is very expensive.

This ^^^^ is why you should consider the Honors program there.

7

You might consider Colorado State in Fort Collins - I hear good things about their equine program and they are part of the WUE program.

8

I would think that Utah would be better for pre-med since they do have a medical school associated with it plus it doesn’t give off as much of an LDS vibe as say BYU.

Lots of non-Mormons, especially Californians are now attending the University of Utah. I would not write it off for a pre-med.

9

@MSwagg The state of Florida offers the full-ride Benacquisto Scholarship for OOS students with great stats. UF and FSU are the most popular / flagships but there are many others who accept it.

NCF, UCF, USF, FGC, and UNF, too.
Don’t forget to check out FAU/Wilkes Honors College in Jupiter.

It’s a small public liberal arts college, like NCF, totally separate from the main campus in Boca Raton.

It shares the premises and boasts possible internships at the Scripps Research Institute-Florida, the Max Planck Institute for Neuroscience, and FAU’s Brain Institute, and Jupiter Life Science Initiative, ideal for pre-med.