College Search Help

I am about to start the college process myself being a rising senior. But, every time I do a college search or a mock list it feels like something is just missing and I constantly find myself restarting and getting different results. I desperately need help from this community to help me find the best list for me; so with that being said, let me list some of criteria below:

-3.2 GPA, 1200 SAT, 4 AP’s (thus far)

-Urban or Suburban

-Close to home (GA), but I have always liked California

-Would like to major in Journalism or Business

-Name somewhat matters to me

-No smaller than 7,000 students but no more than 25,000 students

-And a school with a fun student life/environment

-Active sports environments would be great too

I hope that some of you out there could help me because my list has gone nowhere. I am open to discussion as well.

Check out this thread: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2018547-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2019-3-0-to-3-4-gpa.html#latest

It may give you an idea of where to start.

Also add your budget to your list to get more useful feedback.

My D is a STEM kid so can’t help you directly ; )

It looks like from your other thread you are from GA and can afford something like $25-30k per year.

First, find several GA publics and apply to those. Those will be most likely to work out financially, and you have good choices in GA.

I think the College of Charleston is a great fit. Urban, very good school, right size, beautiful, fun city and campus area, great students, has business. I don’t know about football, but basketball is in the same conference as my school, and is usually good. You’d have to run the Net Price Calculator (NPC). It is expensive, and I don’t really know anything about aid there.

Here’s an interesting one, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond (RVA). It’s an urban campus. Richmond is now a great city for college students and young professionals. It’s a public university, and I think very underrated in rankings. We’ve known several current and recent students and they’ve ALL had an amazing experience there, and I think that says more than rankings. It has a business school and VCU Arts is one of the top art schools in the country (I saw your previous thread about fashion design, but I can’t say how open Arts classes are to non-majors, you’d have to research that). It has a funky, urban environment. And I saw you like sports–no football but men’s basketball team is good, actually made the Final Four in 2011, though I would not count on that). It’s a public university; you’d be OOS; so you’d have to see if financial aid would be available to you.

A couple of others–St. Louis University, University of Houston, and University of Cincinnati. All very good schools, all have business schools, all urban, all not too cold (well Cincy might be kinda cold). Google maps shows Cincy has a 7-hour drive, St. Louis a 9-hour drive, and Houston farther. You’d have to check the NPC for yourself.

And how about the University of San Francisco. 6500 undergrads. Great city. Business school, with great weather and and far from Silicon Valley. Just putting in the name on Google shows an average cost of $31k per year, although I’m not vouching for that number. Run the NPC for yourself.

Good luck!

@TTG Wow. Thanks so much! I’ll look into these schools.

If you can bump up the SAT, Vanderbilt could be in play. SEC sports, great music program as well. 12,000 students.

Whoops, meant those are drive times from Atlanta, not sure where you are in GA. and meant USF is NOT far from Silicon Valley, which might offer great internship possibilities.

Yes, you’re welcome. I hope those are some helpful ideas. You are asking great questions, which in itself are important to success in college!

@shuffle1 Are you sure if my GPA is high enough though? It’s often said here that Vanderbilt is the Ivy League of the South. I’m not questioning your judgement, but I just want to know why you think Vandy is in my range and how I could get there if it is.

@shuffle1
I’m not sure why you would think Vanderbilt could be in play. 10% acceptance rate, only 3% less than a 3.24 gpa and a 25% SAT score of 1470. It is a reach for very top students.

Ack, hadn’t seen the acceptance rate. Disregard unless the numbers improve in your favor.