<p>My daughter has set her sights high for some insanely exclusive schools. I'm not that great of a resource for "chancing" her. I had her list her accomplishments, so if you could help "chance" her that would be great. </p>
<p>Her highest "reaches" are Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia. She would also like to go to NYU, Vassar, and Georgetown, to name a few. Here are her accomplishments/stats; please bear with me as she hasn't taken the ACT or SAT yet!</p>
<p>GPA: 3.9
ACT Practice Test Score: 31
Top 8% in class of ~300
Taken every Honors class offered, plus APUSH this year</p>
<p>*1st Place, DECA Regional Competition
*3rd Place, DECA State Competition
*Top 20th Percentile Test Score at DECA Internationals
*Top Score (I think top 20) in Role Play at DECA Internationals
*DECA Chapter Secretary
*DECA Student of the Year last year</p>
<p>*2nd Place for Team Event at FBLA Regional Competition
*3rd Place for Individual Event at FBLA Regional Competition</p>
<p>*NHS Member throughout high school
*NHS Publicity Officer this year</p>
<p>*Member of school's "Elections & Eligibility Committee" throughout high school
*Youth City Council Service Committee Member this year
*Volunteered for a year at our local charity thrift store (roughly 200 hours)</p>
<p>*In addition to these, she has been president of her church's Young Women's Group for one year and Counselor for around 2 years, as well as earned her "Medallion" given for accomplishing 80+ hours worth of projects promoting growth as an individual. Should she include these in her apps?</p>
<p>Thanks guys. She has a few in-state and out-of-state safety schools, I just named her highest “reaches” thank you for the reply! For juniors, 3 AP classes are available. She is taking one, the others were full when when she tried to sign up. Is this a big problem? She is planning on taking more as a senior.</p>
<p>Honestly, her test score (31 on practice) is low for many of the schools on her list. She will need to up her game considerably (agree that a 34 is minimum she should shoot for if she sticks with the ACT). She might want to try the SAT, too. </p>
<p>I think NYU and Vassar are good possibilities with her stats (match). The rest are reaches unless she gets her scores up or has some hook you have not mentioned. She needs more matches and at least one safety if she wants to have several choices in April of senior year.</p>
<p>I assume you have been running net price calculators as well to see what the financial aid picture looks like. NYU has notoriously bad aid…</p>
<p>She is taking the PSAT next month; we will see how that goes. She is planning on taking the SAT. Since her practice test, I think she has been studying a little but do you guys have any tips for that? Is it worth it to get her a tutor? Thanks for “chancing.” She has some in-state and out-of-state match schools that I know she can get into, so I didn’t mention them. I don’t even want to think about financial aid yet. . .</p>
<p>Barron’s books will help her during school and studying for the tests. Barron’s always seem to deliver for me. Doing Homework in AP Courses also helped me a lot. Taking 30 Minutes at most to do homework helped me understand concepts easier. </p>
<p>Some AP’s will also be a lot easier than others. Such as AP Psych Compared to AP Physics C.</p>
You need to do this now, not later. There is nothing more dismal than having a kid struggle to get into a “dream” school and then not be able to afford to attend. Every school has a “net price calculator” when you can plug in your financial information and get a feeling for what kind of FA she might get. Note that having a small business, trusts, or divorced parents throw the calculators off (it will almost certainly cost you more than the calculator is showing). Do your kid a favor and look at these now…</p>
<p>Thank you, I will look into Barron’s. She spends a lot of time doing homework, I know, so I can’t imagine that she will do badly. Thank you so much.</p>
<p>Should I look at the school’s website for these calculators? Are these “dream schools” going to be ridiculously costly? She is the first of my children to want to go to school outside of her hometown; I’m new to this.</p>
<p>Most Ivies and top tier schools do cost a lot of money. Almost 50-60k per year. But people forget about government funding for these top tier schools.</p>
<p>I’ve read that average Princeton grad’s debt is only 5K. </p>
<p>So you really have to just focus on your grades right now. Do some research ,while she studies, on scholarships, grants and other opportunities.</p>
<p>Thank you, thank you! I don’t want her to graduate with heaps of student loans. Any more information on financial aid would be very appreciated; this has been very helpful.</p>
<p>If you go to each college website, usually there is a section on “affording” or “costs & financial aid” or something like that. You will find some kind of calculator at every college’s site (this is something new in the past few years and a great addition to helping figure this out earlier vs. later in the process!). You will plug in some information about your income and assets, and it will spit out an estimate of grants, loans, and what you/your student are expected to pay. The final number when they apply will vary somewhat, but these are in the ballpark if your finances don’t change much between when you run them and she actually applies for financial aid. I would suggest printing out each of these pages from each college when you do this so you can refer back to it later. I actually kept track when I ran them what I used as input as well, since tweaking those numbers changes the output.</p>
<p>There is a whole forum out here focused on financial aid. I think there are some threads “stuck” to the top of that forum that you may find helpful when starting to think about the complex world of financial aid. But I would start with the net price calculators for any school she is interested in.</p>