Chance Me? [NJ resident, 3.3 GPA, top 20% rank, 1340 SAT; journalism, linguistics, <$35k]

African American Male
US Citizen from NJ
Public school ~2500 people

Journalism/Linguistics Major

3.3 UW GPA, top 20%
4.2 W
1340 SAT

5 APs (English Lit, Macro, Spanish Lang, French Lang, APUSH)
18 Honors
10 Semesters of language classes (5 for French and Spanish Each
Only 3 years of math

Nationally Recognized Student Journalist
State Recognized Student Journalist

CoPresident of school newspaper that has been recognized on state level
CoPresident of Black Student Union (largest student group on campus)
Competitive FTC Robotics (Former state record holders + State semifinalists)
Theatre for 3 years
Nhs, French Nhs and Spanish Nhs

Letters of Rec from my junior year english teacher (who was also the advisor for newspaper and BSU), my sophomore/junior year spanish teacher and my APUSH/Macro teacher

Schools
UPitt, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, USC, Howard, Rutgers, NYU, Boston University, UMD, Syracuse, UCLA

Cost constraints? Have you and your parents checked the net price calculator on each college’s web site?

What level in French, Spanish, and math will you complete?

35k-ish before financial aid
by the end of this year ill have completed AP spanish and french

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Unfortunately, that will take the UCs out of the running. (There is no need based aid for out of state students and not enough merit aid to get you within budget.)

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The UCs you list are likely reaches to begin with, have out-of-state list prices much greater than $35k, and do not offer financial aid to out-of-state students outside of a few merit scholarships for the top admits.

Are you eligible for need based aid? Have you done the net price calculators for these colleges to see if they might come within your budget? If not…do,that now.

Did you apply early admission to UMD? They admit about 75% of their incoming freshman class in the early round.

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Nice work and a clear Humanities major profile.
That being said it doesn’t make up for your GPA for most of the universities listed so most of them are reaches.
I’m sorry to say that UCs are off entirely because you need a 3.4 uw to even apply and they have no financial aid for OOS applicants.
Same thing for Pitt, it won’t be within budget.
Beside Rutgers, did you apply to TCNJ?
What’s your EFC/Sai and can your parents afford?

Run the NPC on NYU, BU, Syracuse. (If you already have, were they all affordable?) They’re all pretty big reaches though.
Rutgers is a target for a writing/journalism major (remember to pursue a minor or 2 - post-AP World languages will focus on culture and other aspects of life in countries where the language is spoken; history, international relations, environmental studies are all good minors to have alongside journalism. )
I would recommend you sign up for “join our mailing list” at Ithaca and Denison; check your email at least once a week, click on links you find interesting: all of that is tracked.
UMD is not going to be 35k and under.

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Why a UC for journalism ? Have you run net or ice calculators to see if the schools can bring your cost to $35k? And you said b4 financial aid …does that mean your budget is less ?

You might look at other NJ publics. Rowan, TCNJ, Ramapo, Montclair State and have all have journalism but check their focus.

It’s late for Pitt but they have scholarships for minorities. Ms State will make budget. Fine for journalism and tops for meteorological journalism if an interest. Also check Millersville in Pa. W Carolina at $20k annually all in. Others at the same price in NC - $20k all in full price would be Elizabeth City Stare, Fayetteville State, and UNC Pembroke.

All schools mentioned have journalism and all should be budget friendly (except Pitt) at $35k. This (budget) should be your biggest focus - to make sure you have a few assured admittances at budget. I see zero on your list.

The GPA and test are hindrances but AA helps if you can communicate through awards or essays - and not sure if Co President of Black Student Union necessarily assures this. As you know, schools can no longer evaluate an ethnicity box check so through essay or activity descriptor might be ways to communicate this. That said I listed schools where you’d be at budget abd you’d be in regardless. But it might help with BU/SU although they are unlikely.

You’re obviously very talented and the good news is for journalism - where you go matters little - whether William Paterson or SU.

Best of luck to you.

I agree with most of the above, except “where you go matters little”, because for journalism it matters greatly. Not in terms of ranking though.
What matters

  • you want peers with an average verbal SAT 600+ (writing is peer-dependent)
  • financial support for summer internships (these will be mostly unpaid and you’ll need them to build your resumes)
  • courses in non fiction writing, including long form and internal communication for organizations (or something similar) as well as ease of adding a minor
  • an independent student paper (+ the process of applying for positions should be transparent).

UMissouri is a reference for journalism but not sure they are still accepting applications for Honors&scholarships (deadlines may be Dec1, so check them out fast).
Denison has also been listed above, their writing program places well and they “meet need” + also offer scholarhips so unless your family makes 250k+ they’re likely to be the least expensive one if they admit you (they’rehighly selective, sub 20% acceptance rates, so they’re a reach).
St Bonaventure has been well-known for journalism and they’d be a safety.

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Highly recommend you apply TODAY to University of Missouri. They have a fantastic journalism school and they offer substantial financial aid that could bring the cost in budget. (Your SAT score and weighted GPA look like they are high enough to qualify for a substantial merit scholarship. ) The deadline for scholarship aid is Dec 1 so you need to get to it ASAP if you are interested. You can submit your application and test scores today and then follow up with your school counselor right away on Monday to get transcripts and recommendations sent this week. Good luck!

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About 93%, actually.

Anyway, it will not be affordable to OP.

Rutgers NB is possible, but not a shoo-in. Have you applied to the Newark campus?

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So you already applied to these colleges? Regular Decision?

How did your guidance counsellor feel about your colleges choices, in light of your financial constraints as well as your academic profile.

My concern is that out of the 11 schools mentioned, it seems that the majority might not be a strong fit, for one reason or the other.

Seems you me, you should have been advised to add maybe three more match and safety schools each, where you confirmed with each of their websites’ “cost estimators”, that they would be affordable for your family. But also look at the colleges’ admission stats from last year and see how your class rank, GPA and SAT compares to their (reported) 75th percentile range.

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GPA IS CRUCIAL for the UC’s.
Also, the UC’s don’t consider affirmative action for admission. It’s illegal in California.
The UC’s are full fees to OOS students which means $72-$74K per year. There is no significant financial aid for non-residents. The UCs are funded by state taxpayer dollars, so they cannot afford to fund non-resident students. Scholarships generally run from $2K to $5K per year. That amount barely covers your transportation costs.

If you receive federal financial aid, like loans, those amounts are less than $7500 per year. Even with your current home budget, that’s not enough to cover your tuition and room/board for the year, let alone 4 years.

Who advised you to apply to the UC’s?

You didn’t target the CSU’s which are also out of budget for you but less expensive than the UC’s at $42K per year. No scholarships to non-residents that will make any significant change in the costs.

You may want to significantly revise your list of schools since your GPA will be the driving force for your schools. Please look at your instate choices.

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Also, note how competitive getting onto the student newspaper is. For example, The Daily Bruin is reportedly highly competitive to get onto, since UCLA is a very large school with lots of students interested in journalism.

Have you already submitted applications to all of these schools?

I assume you must have already spent a lot of time on the UC application, since it’s due in a few days. That’s unfortunate, because I don’t see the UC system working for you, at all - admissions-wise because of your GPA, and budget-wise because the costs will be easily double your budget.

Your accomplishments are impressive, especially in terms of journalism. I could see this helping you a lot at Syracuse. Have you run the Net Price Calculator for Syracuse, and for BU? How do the costs look? If your net cost looks favorable and you really like these schools, an ED2 application to one of them could be a good strategy.

I see NYU and USC as being similar: high reaches both admissions-wise and affordability-wise. And Pitt and UMD are similar in that the OOS cost is over-budget, and significant merit is unlikely.

Seconding getting an application to Mizzou in quickly. For a serious journalism student, this is a top-tier school; and there’s a BA in Linguistics as well.

Similarly, take a look at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. The OOS “sticker price” at OU is 41K/year, so it wouldn’t take a huge merit award to get to your price point. (An added plus here is that tuition is fixed for four years, so there would be no unpleasant tuition-hike surprises.) A BA in Linguistics is available here too. Maybe @thumper1, who is an alum, could weigh in.

Temple University is another OOS public U with a solid journalism program, and the potential for you to get enough merit for it to be affordable. There’s only an undergrad certificate in linguistics, though, not a full major.

Which reminds me to ask - have you fully explored whether you are genuinely interested in linguistic theory? You are clearly very interested in foreign languages, but that doesn’t always translate to enjoying the study of linguistics. As an example, compare the Modern Foreign Language major at Syracuse, which allows you to combine the study of two languages Modern Foreign Language - College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University with the Linguistic Studies major (which is still more interdisciplinary and less computational than many colleges’ Linguistics majors) Program: Linguistic Studies, BA - Syracuse University - Acalog ACMS™ to see which seems more appealing.

It’s confusing to try to figure out where you stand, when you have a solid 4.2 weighted GPA, but an unweighted 3.3 which is low for the most competitive schools. Being below the top 10% in class rank also makes it tougher to get into the reachier schools. One way to get perspective is to look at the Common Data Set that most schools publish. It will tell you what percentage of entering students fell within different GPA, SAT and class rank ranges. For example, compare Section C of the Syracuse Common Data Set https://institutionalresearch.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/syracuse_university_cds_2022-2023.pdf with the equivalent at BU https://www.bu.edu/asir/files/2023/03/cds-2023.pdf To me, Syracuse looks more promising, especially if you consider acceptance rates as well (Syracuse: 44% overall, 60% Early Decision; Boston U: 10.7% overall, 25% Early Decision). If the financial aid forecast also looks promising for Syracuse, an EDII app there could be a good move.

I agree with others that more in-state match and safety schools could be in order as well. In addition to others that have already been mentioned, there’s TCNJ, which is probably a high-match, and they have a Journalism & Professional Writing major (and a Linguistics minor).

Good luck! You have a great profile, and I’m sure you’ll do well wherever you land; but your current list has a lot of schools with no path to affordability, as well as a lot of big reaches, so you need to fill in those gaps with better matches and safeties that will work financially.

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If it’s not too late, add Ithaca College to your list. They have a phenomenal media and journalism program, incredible facilities, and it should be an admit for you with substantial merit aid. GL!!

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OP has a $35K budget - and says that’s before aid - so not sure what that means.

But I can’t imagine Ithaca can get there - either $35K or below.

Thoughts?

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The students I know who applied to Ithaca (granted, this was awhile ago) did not get enough merit to bring the cost down to $35,000 a year. It’s fine to apply, but keep in mind that the finances may not work (or maybe they will, who knows!).

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I hope OP comes back and clarifies the before aid part - not sure if that means less than $35K or that’s the absolute most.

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I know of current musicians at Ithaca who are at $35k COA with no federal aid.

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