Chance Me or Provide Advice, Class of 2021

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Location: North Carolina

High School: Top HS in State, I believe the #1 public, not including charter schools/invite only

Race: White

Ethnicity: Not Latino

Both parents attended at least 4 years of university.

GPA:

3.904/4.0 UW

4.476/5.0 W

Rank: 88/339 (My rank is an egregious summation of my rigor and success in my classes… effectively every student earned an “A” for this past year, both 1st and 2nd semesters. I had earned an A in all of my classes, and was comfortably on the way to end the year that way, but there’s no way to show this through my statistics.)

Standardized Tests:

ACT: 34 comp

36 superscore

Math: 36

Reading: 35

English: 36

Science: 35

Writing: 10

PSAT: 1400

APs:

Sophomore:
World History - 3 (not planning on reporting)

Junior:
AB Calc - 4

Chemistry - 5

Lang - 5

APES- 5

Extracurriculars:

President of my town’s Youth Council - basically coordinate liaison positions to town council meetings and also volunteer opportunities

Starting December 2019, have been working between 12-20 hours during the school week at a bakery

4 year varsity athlete - going to be a captain this year, assuming we have a season

Model UN - not that notable… attended a few conferences

Leadership Role/Founding member of “Veteran’s Club”

Played club soccer for 10 years

Volunteered weekly to build/repair computers and teach students how to use them

Peer Tutor at school

LORs:

Currently I have two confirmed, I’m under a confident assumption both will be, at the risk of sounding ignorant (it’s hard to judge something with numbers that is in writing, and has also not even happened yet), 8/10 or above

Spanish Teacher: should be pretty good, he knows me well and he’s extremely personable.

English Teacher: his class was extremely engaging, and he’s read a lot of my writing, we got to know each other very well.

My list (I don’t have a good idea of what are reaches, matches, safeties):

UNC-Chapel Hill (in-state), Clemson, University of Georgia, University of Richmond, Duke, UVA

If you have any advice, I’d appreciate it, whether that is a school you think I’d be well-fit for, or classifying the schools I have listed.

If it’s important to you, I am interested in Business (International Business/Finance) and Data Analysis (something related to Economics and Artificial Intelligence…)

2

Have you had the “money talk” with whoever will be paying the bill? An acceptance from a school that you can’t afford is worse than a rejection. Some parents say don’t worry about the price and then are stunned by the need to spend $70,000 per year. If you need financial aid, it is easier to make recommendations based on what is affordable for you.

3

@helpingmom40 Ah yes, sorry for the lack of information, and thank you for the point!

I have an understanding with my parents that they will cover the cost of attendance for any college that I would like to attend, given that the cost is “reasonable” (loose term considering the extreme costs of many schools) compared to the academics. I’d assume this means that they aren’t comfortable paying more than 35 thousand for a safety school, but for a match/reach they’re comfortable with any amount.

So, tl;dr, cost is not an issue.

4

I agree with @helpingmom40 Try to go to each school’s website, fill out the NPC and show your parents the cost. That way you are all on the same page.

5

You are going to need something more concrete than “reasonable” and an assumption. Two of the schools you list are out of state publics and while they may meet need or give money to out of state students, there is no way of predicting how their financial health will be impacted by the pandemic. It is better to know for sure before you find yourself with an absolute favorite that is too expensive. There are plenty of cases where parents say money is no object until they see the financial aid package and then it becomes we can’t pay THAT much.

6

Honestly, I think you have a great shot at all of those. Now just make sure your essays are really great!

7

I can put it in perspective a bit. An in-state university is reasonable. An out of state university is triple the cost, and a private university costs even more. Those aren’t reasonably priced. The vast majority of parents either can’t, or won’t pay that kind of money for a bachelors degree, relative to benefit you’re getting. I would go for UNC, you’re a an excellent candidate, There’s also NCSU and several others in your home state.