Hello! I am wrapping up my sophomore year and I have a few questions, but first my schedules thus far and extracurriculars
FRESHMAN YEAR-straight A’s and 4.4 GPA
•Wind Ensemble
•Honors Math 2
•Honors English
•Spanish I
•Biology
•Golf and Softball
SOPHOMORE YEAR-straight A’s and 4.67 GPA
(Spanish II the summer before sophomore year which counts as AP)
•Honors Wind Ensemble
•Honors World History
•Honors English
•Chemistry
•Honors Math 3 (Precalculus)
•Golf and Photography
PLANNED JUNIOR YEAR-GPA undetermined
(Spanish III the summer before junior year at community college which counts as AP)
•Honors Wind Ensemble
•AP US History
•AP English
•AP Chemistry
•AP Calculus AB
•Golf and Journalism
PLANNED SENIOR YEAR-GPA undetermined
•Honors Wind Ensemble
•AP Government and Economics
•AP English or ERWC
•AP Physics
•AP Calculus BC
•Golf
I will be in the National Honor Society for 3 years, California Scholorship Federation club for 3 years, Teen Voice club as the 10th grade rep and 11th grade rep next year for 3 years, I have won the Cougar of the Month (an academic award at my school that goes to state legislature) 3 times, I won a 1st place award for a small scale hyperloop science project, I plan to join the debate club and found a chemistry club to hold a leadership position (I’ll be in these for 2 years), I took photography for 1 year, I’ll be in journalism for 1 or 2 years, I am 1st chair in band which I will be in for 4 years, I’ll be in golf for 4 years, I am working towards a bilingual seal for spanish on my diploma, and I have 33 hours of community service so far.
I don’t have info about SAT/ACT scores yet but based on the info above and the fact that I’m a female hoping to study in the STEM field, what are the best colleges these classes/grades/extracurriculars will fit with? Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment on this long post!
Try to get your SATs or ACTs in, they look at your SAT/ACT and GPA, but they also like to see what your extracurricular are. And i can’t tell you a list of colleges exactly because I don’t know your major and how far you are willing to go from where you live. Personally, I am looking at Northeastern University, Drexel University, Penn State, University of Delaware since these schools are good Nursing schools.
@dhd713 Thanks for your advice! I plan on taking the SAT and ACT during my junior year, and I am willing to go anywhere in the US to the best college I can get into. Good luck with your college endeavors!
You still have plenty of time to think about colleges but I will start with most important factor: money.
You need to find out how much your parents are willing to pay each year for college. Once you have a budget, then you can determine if you are eligible for and/or need financial aid: need-based aid (parents income/assets) and/or merit aid (GPA/Tests scores) to make college a reality for you.
Since you are a California resident, you have some of the best schools in the country from which to choose and depending upon your money situation, most will be affordable to you as a resident.
What are you interested in studying/majoring in?
Make sure you prep for either the SAT and/or ACT.
Continue doing the EC’s you enjoy and do not do anything EC’s for the sake of getting into any particular college.
Work hard, take a rigorous HS schedule and keep up the grades.
Try visiting some colleges: Large public university (one of the UC’s or Cal States) and a small private Liberal arts college to see which type of college appeals to you.
Come back at the end of Junior year with all pertinent stats, a tentative college list and then posters can give suggestions and opinions.
Look at the US News and World Report rankings- disregard the rankings part, and use the list of colleges that they give you. Check out their rankings for top science schools as well. Google all of the colleges and see which ones you connect with! With your grades and ECs, you can consider any of the schools that you find. Niche is also a great ratings site to discover colleges on. They have pretty detailed student ratings.
If you live in CA, then you can start exploring the UC/CSU system for safeties, reaches, targets so you have some foundation to start with, maybe visit a campus or two in the summer. STEM is a broad field, but most of the UCs and CSU-SLO have good STEM programs across the board.
–Talk to your parents about any limitations on your college search (ex. financial, geographic, anything else).
–Study hard for standardized tests.
–Talk to your guidance counselor next fall to develop a list. If your HS has Naviance that is 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 a 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?
