<p>I'm a high school junior. My GPA is a 4.0 (unweighted), so I have consistently gotten good grades throughout high school. I haven't taken the SATs, but I will in march. I have however, taken SAT IIs and scored in the low-mid 700s. I aiming for around there or a little higher on the SATs. I'd say I'm in the top 5-10% of my class. I go to public school in suburban New York.
My extracurricular activities:
1) JV soccer- 2 years (starting team; captain one year)
Varsity soccer- 1 year
2) Newspaper
3) Student Faculty Congress -10th grade
4) Academic Team
5) Spanish club
6) Literary magazine
I'm also increasing my community service hours and I've had work experience in retail and as a summer camp counselor.</p>
<p>Classes:
My course load is always full. I'm also taking a science researching course.</p>
<p>I'm really into liberal arts colleges. What would you say my chances are at the following:</p>
<p>Also, I took AP Bio in my sophomore year (5 on AP) and I'm currently taking APUSH (these are the only APs available for me to take). I plan on taking 3-4 APs my senior year.</p>
<p>Sounds good, if you score at least a 2000 on your SAT Reed, Bard and Oberlin Should be match/high match</p>
<p>Amherst is a reach with a 2000 but with a 2200+ you should be able to get in that. Get really good recommendations and write a good essay.</p>
<p>I know a lot about small colleges, and if you want prestige also look at Williams, Grinnell, Carleton and maybe Macalester (don't be afraid of the midwest)</p>
<p>Other great colleges that are not as well known to consider, St John's in NM or NJ(?) is a great school very comparable to Reed and Grinnell, very tough academically, also Beloit College is another excellent midwest college along with Knox. If you are a really do it yourself type I would also suggest Hampshire or Marlboro. Don't use US News and World report to look at how good a school is. I would recommend researching LAC in Fiske Guide to Colleges and read Looking Beyond the Ivy League by Loren Pope, which is an excellent book which is a fountian of information about the liberal arts.</p>
<p>Thank you for the information, and I just got a fiske guide that i can use to look at more schools. Also, thank you for the other suggestions, I'll have to look at some of these schools. Originally, I wanted to avoid the midwest but as you point out it has a lot of great options. I'll have to take a closer look out there. Thank you!</p>
<p>Also Google each school's Common Data Set. Sections C7 to C12 give the profile of the last entering class, and you can see what is important to each school. Because of the way yields work, you should be about a 50/50 match if your numbers are near the 67th percentile. There are lots of exceptions, and fit is important.</p>
<p>A lot of people are scared of the populationless wasteland between the two coasts, but Ive lived there my whole life, and it is not that at all. Yes, it is flat and there is some corn, but there are many small-large cities with a few very large cities (detriot, Cincinatti, Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Paul/Minneapolis, St. Louis). While the schools there do not have the same prestige (save for a few WashU, University Chicago, Northwestern, Carleton, Grinnell, Some Publics), the midwest is loaded with amazing small colleges, that if on the east/west coast would be easily as competative as Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Vasser etc. They have amazing educations and diverse students, but are overshadowed by the idea that the east and west coasts colleges are amazing. Its one of the best kept secrets in colleges.</p>