College choices

College Search & Selection
1

Hello everyone,

I’m a junior in high school who’s not sure about which colleges I would have a good chance getting into when I apply next year. I was hoping some of you who have gone through the process or are going through it could help me out. What colleges do you think I have good chance in getting into?

Stats:
High school junior currently
4 Ap’s: physics 1, psychology, English language, U.S. history
1 honors: Spanish

So out of my 7 classes, 4 are ap and 1 is honors

Gpa: 3.8 unweighted, 4.0 weighted (4.33 is the highest weighted gpa in my high school) my school doesn’t do class rankings except valedictorian and salutatorian

When graduating, I’ll have taken 9 ap’s (world history, us history, us gov, physics 1, biology, chemistry, calc AB, Psychology, English language)

I haven’t take the ap exams for any of them yet except world history (scored a 3) but I’ll probably score at least a 4 on all of them.

ACT: 32 composite (32 all 4 sections) and not super scored

Extra curricular: model un, honor society, over 150 volunteer hours, tutoring

I’m interested in medicine. I’m not sure if my scores are good enough to get into a 8 year or 7 year program. If not, I’ll apply as a biology major.

I live in New York and go to a very competitive school (top ranked in America and the state)

2

I can’t tell you which school is best, but I can say this. Search far and wide, but treat affordability is a precondition. You’ll be surprised how many high school seniors don’t get that, apply anyway, get accepted, then find out the price tags on all their prestigious schools, and spend their freshman year at community college.

3

I would start your college search off by taking the following steps:

–Talk to your parents about any limitations on your college search (ex. financial, geographic, anything else). Be sure to take any potential grad school costs into account when discussing finances.

–Consider if you want to re-take the ACT, try the SAT, or stick with the score you have.

–Talk to your guidance counselor to develop a list. A guidance counselor at a “top ranked” HS should have good insight as to the types of colleges students with your stats have been accepted into in the past. If your HS has Naviance that can be a valuable tool.

–Get your hands on some good college guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review) which can often be found in the guidance dept. or a library and start reading about schools in your academic range.

–Try to visit some different types of schools.

–Consider what you want in a college. Anything you care about is fair game. A few ideas of questions to ask yourself are: What size school do you like? Do you want Greek Life? Do you care about big time sports? What type of location (not just geographic, but also rural/urban/suburban) do you prefer? What do you want to study?

4

Thanks for your advice. Appreciate it!

5

Sounds good!