College List Help ??

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I’m a Junior from CA just getting started on my college list. I transferred after 9th grade form a prestigious school (grades are really deflated whereas at my current school everyone gets straight As freshman year…) … but effectively I have a 4.0 ( all As) with all the Aps i can take. more info below

gpa; 4.0, will finish 11 aps 1 honors, 2 “advanced” by the end of senior year

SAT: no official score yet but practice tests are ~1500
SATII: 750 on French reading so far (might retake bc not great for fluent speaker)

ECs:
-Concert choir since freshman yr (on the board) and chamber singers since sophomore yr. we compete every year and were invited to sing at carnegie hall last yr! we won gold x4
-started/preside over schools first ever a cappella club group and we are going to sing at an old home
-student council member 10,11
-founded/president of my schools spirit society that puts on fun events for students to destress
-played volleyball freshman/sophomore year. won MVP.
-I went to a french immersion school and am taking AP spanish. Im fluent in french, and taking italian next yr (I love languages haha)
-i also love psychology and am taking ap psychology online bc my school doesn’t offer it

summers:
-worked at tech company after 10th
-interned at neuroscience dep’t at Upenn after 10th
-did a study abroad in france after 10th to keep up with my french
-working at Neuro tech company after 11th (its really cool I’m excited)
-working in a restaurant over summer
-going to an a cappella camp :slight_smile:

In a sentence, I’m a singer and a linguist. I think humans --our language, culture, minds are unparalleled.
I want to do something with neuro or linguistics

I do want to apply to a couple ivies (Upenn, maybe yale haha) because why not give it a shot, right?
im thinking: UCs (UCLA, berk, San diego, santa barbara) Pepperdine, Upenn, UMich, Boston College, Yale, USC
my school counselor kinda freaked me out cause she started saying that schools like pepperdine and purdue would be reaches but my sister had lower stats and got into much better schools so, idk.

also I want a college town type of campus (NYU is a bit on the urban side and Bucknell a bit too rural)

Any comments would be very appreciated and ideas for additions to my list !

2

My advice is first find a good safety school or two. Once you have your safeties, then you consider some Reach and Match schools. For most applicants, finding a safety school that they would be happy to attend, no matter what, is the most difficult part of forming a college list.

Until you have an SAT score, it will be hard to narrow down your list. Have you visited any schools yet?

UC’s are always a good option for a California Resident if you a “college town campus” add UC Davis to your list.

3

It will be around a 1500 when I take it in march (i’m estimating) and might go up if I take it again in June. I’m pretty keen on having my safeties in LA because thats where I’d be really happy (if not at one of my favorite schools elsewhere). Maybe chapman? LMU? Is pepperdine a match?

I’ve visited a few on the east coast but there the ones that stood out to me were upenn and yale which would definitely be reaches.

4

If you get that high of an SAT score then Pepperdine, LMU and Chapman would be very solid Match schools.

5

The 75 percentile score for students admitted to LMU is a 1380, for pepperdine it’s 1410, and for Chapman its also 1380.