College list help!!

College Search & Selection
1

I’m going into 11th grade at a large competitive public high school near Atlanta and I really need help with my college list!! I currently have a 4.2 gpa, and 30 ACT & 1300 SAT before any prep/classes. Class rank is around top 16% but hoping to bring that up a bit. I’m realistically aiming for a 4.3 and around a 33 or higher ACT after test prep by the time I start applications. My family can mostly afford private/out of state tuition, so that’s not a big concern for me but anywhere that has decent financial aid would be ideal.
So what I’m looking at so far is:
university of georgia, UCLA, USC (cali), NYU, chapel hill, and washu in st louis (where i have a bit of legacy from my brother)

Obviously I only have one safety school so far, and even that one isn’t super easy to get into so I definitely need another one or two. I also need a few more that are good match schools, the ones I have above may be a little bit reach but idk??

Extracurriculars/other stuff:
-12 years of violin + 4 years high school orchestra
-decent amount of volunteer hours
-in the STEM program at my school
-active member of HOSA (national future health professions club)
-summer internship in optometry

APs: human geography, gov, microecon, lang, bio, music theory, environmental science (plus about 2 more in senior year)
(rest of my classes were mostly honors, a couple on-level as well)

So I really need help finding more schools for my list/advice on if I have a good chance at the ones I’m looking at so far. I ideally want a school thats in or close to a city, isn’t too small, and has a nice campus. Also planning to do pre-med or other health careers so somewhere that has good opportunities for that and won’t kill my gpa if I decide to apply to med school.

2

What do mean “mostly” can afford OOS tution? UCLA gives no financial aid to OOS students, so your parents will be paying $60K+\year to attend. I would get an actual $$ amount and run the Net Price calculators of any school’s of interest.

Beyond that, your GPA (need to calculate UC GPA: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/) looks within range for UCLA but you need to bump up your test scores. Also you really do not want to come to California if you are interested in Pre-Med/Medical School. Too much competition.

For USC, again GPA is within range but test scores need to be higher. Apply before December if you want a chance at decent financial aid.

3

Congrats on your hard work and success so far!

As you indicate, several of the schools on your list are extremely competitive. WUSTL, in particular, accepts a very low % in RD. USC is similar, though no early admission programs. UCLA and UNC only admit a small % of OOS. It’s nothing personal. Many well qualified students are denied at these schools because many more apply than there are spots available. Many students are fully qualified and denied admission. NYU is also competitive. I wondering if that would be a good fit for you. It’s right smack in Manhattan and is very much a city school. There is really no campus; the facilities are blended into the city. Great for many, but less so if you are looking for a beautiful campus.

I’m going to suggest some match and safety schools. Please consider that a safety school is one where you have a very high chance of acceptance, that is affordable, AND where you would be happy to attend (not a place where you would feel like your were settling). You want one or two schools with acceptance % north of something like 50% where your numbers are on the high side, just to be sure.

I’m not sure how willing you are to go north and face winter weather, but some northern schools I would suggest researching are University of Vermont, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Villanova. Vermont is in Burlington, a fantastic college town (one of the best) right on Lake Champlain. The school is good size and has quality programs. We love WPI. It is not well known in your neck of the woods but is highly ranked (see USNWR), student starting salaries are among the highest anywhere, campus is beautiful and in a nice part of Worcester (3rd largest city in NE), there are about 5000 undergrads. It’s a very hands-on, project-oriented science/engineering school. Right now it would be much more in the match than safety range. Both of these have very cold weather. Villanova is a mid-size national university on a beautiful campus in suburban Philly. It’s pretty hot today, probably partly because of the Men’s Basketball National Championship a year ago.

Other schools that come to mind University of Denver, Santa Clara University, SMU, and Belmont University in Nashville. Denver is a campus school in a fun city. Santa Clara has a beautiful Spanish Mission campus right in Silicon Valley, where great internships are available for a science student. Weather would be spectacular. SMU has a great campus in Dallas, along with big-time sports. Belmont is a mid-size school in another great college city.

Wake Forest seems like a good fit for you but would also be a reach, at least at this point (though you are young). You might research it as better a better fit than one or two of your current reach schools. Clemson and NC State might also be good fits. Clemson, in particular, is a pretty “hot” school right now. Good luck!