I’m currently a senior and am in the middle of college applications. This entire process is completely new to me and applying, I want to know what is realistic. Given my stats, what colleges should I be looking at?
Demographic: Female. First generation college student. Asian( Indian if it matters)
SAT: most likely going test optional because SAT got canceled 5x
GPA: 4.38(4 year GPA) 4.57(UC GPA) 3.97(unweighted)
Rank: 9/610 (1%) large public school in the Central Valley
Intended Major: public health/pre-med
Awards:
- AP Scholar with Distinction
- Academic Co-Curricular Special Recognition-Regional Winners+Chairman’s at FRC Monterey Bay Regionals
- Mock Trial Achievement Awardx2
- CSF
- Block School Awardx2 (in recognition of academic and co-curricular achievements)
AP courses:
Freshman year
- Human Geography
Sophomore year
- Biology
- World History
Junior year
- Psychology
- Envi. Sci
- Chemistry
- US History
Senior year
- Lang
- Physics
- Calc BC
- Gov
- Comp. Sci
EC:
-
Robotics
9th-12th
Finance+ Computer aided design
Monterey Bay regionalsx2 + Chairman’sx2
-
Science Olympiad
9th-12th
state competing team
regionals awards…
-
Math team/ Tutoring
9th-12th
-
Environmental Project
11th-12th
major projects/ established as 501©(3) charity-- spread worldwide
Leadership position
-
Link Crew
11th-12th
-
Mock Trial
10th-12th
Achievement awards both years competing
-
Yoga
Lead member at school club( 9th-12th)
donation drives through club
teacher certification 250hrs+
-
STEMinists institute Barnard C.
( top choice of school rn)
-
Chamber of Commerce Junior Board
10th
director
Major community project leader
special congressional recognitions
-
youth court juror
10th
( this was only one year-- pry not going to include it)
Strong Common App essay
Very strong Rec. Letters
What schools should I be looking at? Will competitive ones be reaching too high?
Any helpful information/ suggestions welcomed 
I’d say no school is a reach for you. It really comes down to your essays, if they’re good enough go ahead and shoot for the moon.
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Congratulations on your achievements.
Have you applied anywhere yet?
What can/will your parents pay each year of college?
ED to Barnard and submitted the UC+CSU app.
Financial Aid isn’t a big concern.
With your great stats / accomplishments to date you are competitive at a wide range of universities.
The first thing to do is to figure out what your budget is.
Then you need to pick out at least two safeties. Given that you are in California (if I am interpreting “central valley” correctly) the public universities in California are obvious choices. To be a safety a school has to be one that you know that you will get into, that you would be willing to attend, that has a good program in your likely majors, and that you know you will be able to afford. Regarding “good program in your likely major” I will note that multiple of the UC’s have very good medical schools including Riverside which while I am not from your area I really hope is a safety with your great stats. To me this suggests that they should be good for premed also.
One plus is that if I am remembering correctly being Asian will not be a disadvantage at all at the public universities in California. Also, there are a bunch of really good schools there.
Once you have picked and applied to two safeties, you should think about what you want in a university. You are competitive anywhere. Obviously you have great universities in California, both public and private. There are the small colleges in southern California such as Pomona and Harvey Mudd which are great, and it might be worth an application to UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, or schools at that level.
I do think that Stanford is a reach for you, but a sensible reach. It may be worth an application if you would want to do there and if you can afford it. If you have any budget limitation you could run the NPC to get a guess regarding what it might cost.
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