<p>Alright so I live in Maine and im a senior in high school. I have to obviously start thinking about college and I have been thinking about it a lot and I have made my choices(I think) Please comment.
Safety: University of Maine in Orono, and University of New Hampshire.
Match: University of Connecticut, and University of Massachusetts.
Reach: Bates, Boston University
Now because of some problems I have not been able to visit many colleges, but im planning on doing that soon. I have visited 2 colleges UNH and Bates.
So what I was wondering about is are my matches right for me like are they good goals or are they too high? My GPA unweighted is: 88.444 which is 3.5 if i calculated it right and weighted is: 3.6(90.84).
My SAT score: 1480/2400 (bad I know im retaking in two weeks hopefully will do better)
Only took 2 non-honors classes that I could have taken honors in, other ones did not offer honors.
Took AP history already but only got a 2 but I dont really care if I have to retake the class in college. And taking 2 more this year AP Computer Science and AP psych, psych is easy for me so I think ill get at least a 3 on the test, computer science not sure.
For clubs: 2 year of tennis, 4 years of academic decathlon, 1 year mock trial, 1 year of drama, and maybe doing journalism this year.
Also im African American.
So what do you guys think? are my matches too high for my grades? Are there any other colleges I should look at, in New England?
Any helpful comments would be appreciated this has really started to bug me.
PS. I want to go to a school that has good academics which will make it easier for me to get a good job after it. Unfortunately after all my research on these colleges I could not find the way each school is perceived like as a party school, or has good academics. (I know UNH has a sort of party school title which might make it so it isnt taken as seriously)
thanks :)</p>
<p>anyone have any ideas?</p>
<p>What are you interested in studying when you get to college?</p>
<p>im not sure yet. Why? I figure since I might be going to a University Ill get to see different types of things than ill make up my mind.</p>
<p>Well, if you want to stay in the New England area, you have plenty of choices. I mean, amount of colleges and universities here are phenomenal. </p>
<p>What are looking for in a university? Do you want to go to a D1 school and watch the athletics there? Do you want to go to somewhere intellectual? Honestly, it’s hard to recommend a school to someone who doesn’t know what he/she is studying, or what he/she wants as part of their university experience.</p>
<p>For starters, you can add Boston College to your list. It will be a reach for you, however.</p>
<p>YEAH GO MAINERS! I might look at the smaller Maine publics (like UMF) as safeties as well, and maybe UMass too, otherwise it looks pretty good.</p>
<p>But what about the colleges that I have already listed, what do you think my chances at them are? And yes I want to go to someplace intellectual, im not big on sports but I don’t really care if it has a good sports team. Yes BC seems like a reach do I need to have SAT subject tests for it, because I didn’t take any? For studies if I had to absolutely choose right now I would say journalism MAYBE or some thing to do with software for computers, but keep in mind I am terrible at math that is why I don’t really know what I want to do yet. By the way thank you for your inputs I appreciate it :D</p>
<p>Woo Maine lol</p>
<p>By the way im in the top 30% of my school</p>
<p>Do you need financial aid? If not consider some SAT optional schools: [Optional</a> List | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]Optional”>ACT/SAT Optional List for Fall 2025 - Fairtest)
Also look into taking the ACT. Some students do better on that than the SAT.</p>
<p>BTW, UConn and UMass are probably reaches.</p>
<p>shoot 
are they really reaches? that really sucks. Yes I do need financial aid and I have looked into SAT optional schools but besides bates there aren’t many in new England and I really don’t want to travel too far away from home. I looked at Umass and it said the average gpa of incoming freshmen is 3.2 or something so it doesn’t seem like a reach but that was only on 1 website. (commonapp) so yea can you recommend any other schools?</p>
<p>by the way do you know what sort of gpa I should have for Uconn and the other schools on my list?</p>
<p>If you go to the Common Data Set for UConn <a href=“http://www.oir.uconn.edu/CDS2008_2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.oir.uconn.edu/CDS2008_2009.pdf</a> Section C7, you’ll see that scores are rated as very important. Go to Section C9 and you’ll see the 25% level for the SAT is around 1650. Unfortunately UConn does not show the average grades (Section C11) but you can see from Section C10 that 78% are in the top quarter of their class. You’re grades would have to make up some for your scores. You can do the same look at UMass.</p>
<p>Retake the SAT. Stay calm during the test. There is a strategy to it. Get some help on it NOW! For example, many professionals suggest that you should not waste time on extremely difficult math questions or guess at them, since they take off off for wrong answers. Focus on the ones you can get: easy and moderate questions. In CR dont spend too much time on one question. Be methodical and careful. </p>
<p>If your scores do not improve, then look at schools with SAT scores like yours. Reach,match and safety have to do with both GPA and SAT scores as they relate to YOU. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Yeah, schools will more likely be reaches for you based on test scores, not based on GPA. Take the SAT again, or look more into test-optional schools.</p>