@VANDEMORY1342 : That reads slightly shady. “Super duper employable majors for those who don’t know what they want to do with their life” lol. Although, I suggest that anyone going into a finance major at a selective school like Emory be ready to work. Some BBA majors are known as less intense workload and competition wise, but finance and accounting have lots of intense folks who were or got good at math quickly. I think I had a friend doing finance and he showed me one of the exams (he was a senior) and it actually had a great deal of mathematical rigor (applied calculus beyond level 1). It looked like what you may expect from an upper division quantitative econ. course.
@VANDEMORY1342 @bernie12 Yeah I definitely don’t have my life figured out yet, but the sciences and law are my preferred areas of study I think, with history being a hobby or something, because I don’t see how a degree in history gets me anything except a teaching job. Like I said before, anything international is really appealinig too, maybe international business.
Chances at UW Madison? Other schools to recommend based on my profile and interests???
@bernie12
Yea definitely a bit of passive snark from yours truly.
@mydaywasgreat : Of course you don’t see how a history degree gets you anything. You are in high school…we tried to explain to you how you could leverage a major like that (again, often not about the major). Many talented people easily leverage it especially those coming from elite privates.
UW Madison, you should have a super strong shot, but it would be nice if you were closer to the median SAT score (you are solidly in the middle-50). GPA should be fine. I am recommending University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne as another reach. It is an excellent school for STEM, especially life sciences (definitely more modern curriculum since UIUC has a HUGE computational Life Sciences scene)!
Miami University Oxford provides strong training/education (I have a friend who only transferred away from it because of Emory’s business school. He seemed almost overprepared tbh) and is a tad less selective than Madison so it would be a match I suppose (unlike UIUC which would have an in-state preference on top of already being very selective when it comes to scores. It gets a lot of great applicants from in-state).
Apply to Case Western. It is basically just a tad less selective than Emory so may be a reach for sure, but they tend to accept a higher % than Emory which means that since your stats are near the interquartile range for SAT, you may have a shot if they kind of overlook the freshman grade. With Emory, there will be much more randomness because it now gets similar application volume to CW but admits less students.
Another public-Try University of Maryland College Park. I don’t know how much your odds diminish being out of state, but it would be great if you just tried. They are known to be good at many things, and if you end up trying STEM, they have been VERY aggressive with updating the curriculum (mainly in chemistry and biosciences) and keeping it relevant (but note that it is rigorous, so expect to work pretty hard).
University of Miami-Interestingly participates in the same STEM reform efforts as UMDCP and is likely more accessible. You are square in the middle 50 of U of M and it is private, meaning no in state preference. It is a very good school (it and Case Western are Emoryesque in certain ways). U of M may be a match (lower scores than CW or Emory and higher admit rate than CW). Consider giving it a shot.
If you actually like Emory a lot, you can try it ED and see what happens. The thing is, you only have to withdraw other apps if admitted. You should also submit financial info as early as possible, because if you cannot afford Emory if admitted, you can actually get out of it for free. Considering the existence of no super reaches among privates, Emory is likely your best chance at good financial aid. If you are actually poor, then you may end up paying something similar to UW-Madison.
You should also look up financial aid policies for different schools. Here you go for Emory: http://studentaid.emory.edu/types/grant-schol/emory-advantage.html
@bernie12 Thank you so much for the suggestions, I’ll look into every one of them seriously. My parents are divorced, and so I’ve had my custodial parent fill out the financial aid calculator at The College Board and the tuition is less than what I would be paying at Madison. I have yet to talk to my non custodial parent, who is in better financial condition than my custodial parent. Does the fact that my non custodial parent is married to someone who makes good money affect my financial aid package at Emory?
Emory’s FA office will ask for the tax returns of both your custodial and noncustodial parent.
However, you are entitled to seek a noncustodial parent waiver (and to avoid providing the noncusotidal parent’s tax return) if the noncustodial parent has little or no contact with you and/or has refused to support your college education in any way.
@BiffBrown Alright, I’ll do you one better, she’s married and her husband does not wish to support me or fill out a form… Would they waive it then?
@maydaywasgreat
The issue of how to handle non custodial parents’ unwillingness to support a student’s college education will be relevant no matter where you attend college and I am guessing that how it’s handled depends on the college.
The only way to know for sure is to ask the college. Getting written documentation of the non-support (e.g. emails, letter from noncustodial parent) will help.