<p>I am a hispanic female, 1st generation college student, currently going to community college. I screwed around in HS my JR/SR year.. got way to involved in the party scene and what not... ;( I dropped out the last month of my SR year (so stupid, I know..). I ended up getting my diploma on-line through UT online high school and pulled off a 2.77 gpa with all the classes i failed my senior year. I am a great writer, I don't enjoy it but I'm good at it. Most likely I will be able to pull off some good essays. After high school I took a good hard look at what I really wanted in life, and realized that I truly am a remarkable student. I wanted a fresh start at a community college so I could have the chance to transfer into a really good university. I started my first semester last spring and came out with a 4.0. There's no doubt in my mind that I can make a 4.0 for the rest of my time at CC... BUT here's the thing.. I took dual credit classes my junior year of HS (history F, history C, psych C, sociology B) and I know those will be calculated into my transfer GPA. I determined that if i make ALL A's for the rest of my 60 hours, the highest transfer GPA I will be able to get is a 3.55 :,( I haven't been involved in any EC's since high school. Those include cross country, student council (held elected position of public relations officer), and volunteer mission trips to New Orleans after Katrina. I'm going to transfer to Austin Community College this fall because I am moving to Austin and I will definitely get involved in some math/science clubs and such. I honestly feel like I could succeed at any Ivy League school, MIT, anything, but I know my chances of transferring into any of those schools are practically nonexistent. I'll save looking into those schools for graduate school. ANYWAYS.. to the question. I'm not 100% sure, but I love math & science (particularly astronomy & chemistry) so I am thinking something along the lines of chemical engineering. I've done my research and came up with a little list of schools I would like to apply to.</p>
<ol>
<li>UC - Berkeley </li>
<li>UT - Austin (First Choice)</li>
<li>U Minn - Twin Cities</li>
<li>Purdue - West Lafayette</li>
<li>Penn State </li>
<li>UC - Santa Barbara</li>
<li>U Washington </li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
</ol>
<p>Which ones do you think are reach/match/safety schools? Should I add more reliable safety schools? I would still like to apply to safety schools with good engineering programs. THANKS.</p>