<p>Hello All,
I am a pretty unique student. I go to a very tough college preparatory school where all of the classes are AP or harder so my GPA should be viewed higher (hopefully). I also do tons of extracurriculars and I feel like I have much more to offer than my GPA shows. Here are my activities below:</p>
<p>Jobs:
Summer Intern At Law Firm
Photographer and Personal Assistant For Company</p>
<p>Volunteer Work:
Food Bank 144 hours. I go 3 hours a week. I am the lead volunteer there.
Peer Mentor
Assistant Middle School Girl's Soccer Coach
Volunteer in Peru and Costa Rica 80 hours worth of work.</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
JV Soccer
Varsity Track and Field
Service Club
Newspaper Club</p>
<p>Leadership:
Began Service Club at my school
Lead Volunteer
Peer Mentor</p>
<p>Awards:
Most Improved Track and Field Runner
Rotary Club Student of the Month</p>
<p>Ok! Here is what I want in a college:
In city or close to one.
Social Justice Oriented
Psychology Program
Smaller School
Great student-faculty ratio</p>
<p>Check out the colleges that change lives- ctcl.org. Many of these colleges accept students with stats like yours, and tend to have good student-faculty ratios. </p>
<p>After looking through some of the colleges that change lives, I’ve found one that seems like a perfect fit for you.</p>
<p>Clark University accepts around 70% of applicants and they are test-optional (Good for your weak SAT score). They have a strong psychology program, a tradition of social justice, a student faculty ratio of 10:1, and only 3,000 students. </p>
<p>The state of Washington has several public universities that may be of interest to you. Most are probably reasonable for admission, except for UW Seattle and possibly WWU. Evergreen State may appeal to a specific type of student.</p>
<p>Thank you guest15 for the suggestion! Ucbalumnus I have visited all three of those campuses and WWU is on my list. Thank you for the suggestion anyways though! I really appreciate it. Here is the list of colleges I have now but I just still feel a bit wary and do not know if these are in my range even though my school counselors say they are.
WWU
Seattle Pacific U
UPS
Simmons
Mills
University of Oregon
Mount Holyoke
Bryn Mawr
Goucher
Ursinus
Lafayette
Sarah Lawrence
Skidmore. </p>
<p>Some possibilities:
-St. Edward’s University (Austin, Tx)
-University of San Francisco
-St. Mary’s College of California
-Western Washington University
-Willamette (possibly a reach)
-Lake Forest College
-Rollins College
-Guilford
-Transylvania University (bit of a reach although not excessively so)
-Hofstra (somewhat of a suitcase school)</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to imagine that someone would be looking at schools like Skidmore, Sarah Lawrence, and Mills on top of Seattle Pacific University. Are you very religious?</p>
<p>Haha, good point. No, I am not. My sister-in-law went there and loved it but she is very religious. I toured it and like the atmosphere from what I saw. I think the main reason was its closeness to home, nice dorms,and a good psych program. Also it is not much of a party school. </p>
<p>Saw this intriguing program at Mills:
“…the department offers an accelerated master’s (4+1) degree program leading to a BA in psychology and an MA in infant mental health.”</p>
<p>These are the schools I know, so I’ll comment on them.</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke - Reach.
Bryn Mawr - High reach.
Goucher - Low Reach/high match.
Ursinus - High Match.
Lafayette - Low reach.
Skidmore. - Low Reach.
Sarah Lawrence - Hard to say. SLC is extremely holistic with admissions, and they split up admission into thirds - GPA, Essays, and Extra-curriculars. Your GPA will definitely be substandard there (the average GPA is usually somewhere in the range of 3.6-3.8 there), but if you write a fantastic essay, submit a very strong English Essay, demonstrate interest, and go there to interview you should have some shot of being admitted. Be aware that Sarah Lawrence is a place where students have to be very, very self-motivated and disciplined. </p>
<p>Thank you dyu13 for the in depth look at Mill’s psych curriculum. I saw that too and that is one of the many reasons why Mills interested me. And thank you Guest15 for your matching. Any other suggestions for colleges with the characteristics I have suggested above?</p>
<p>Lots of extra curriculars isn’t necessarily good. A college sees all of these and has no idea what you want to do. They prefer quality involvement for a few activities. Colleges look for people who specialize in one area. They don’t want well rounded students, they want well rounded student bodies. So if you plan right and focus on the right extracurriculars and right subject, if say you could get in somewhere as selective as NYU if you really try. I know someone with a around a 3.3 GPA and with 1600 on the SAT who got into NYU, but she had a stellar essay. So you really could get into anywhere if you play it right.</p>