Considering my choices

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am a white male sophmore attending a decent public high school in Southern Mississippi (yuck). I am considering applying to:</p>

<p>Safety:
U of M
Millsaps</p>

<p>Level:
GWU
Pepperdine
UChicago
College of William and Mary
Tulane</p>

<p>Reach:
Princeton
Yale (number 1 on my list)
Cornell</p>

<p>My GPA hovers around a 4, and it will probably stay that way. I'll be in the top 5 of my class, and I have test well. (ACT-32, SAT-1360, no SATIIs yet, or APs.) I'm hoping for Nation Merit, because the cutoff here is insanly low (200). I intend to take AP English (both), AP Bio and Chem, AP Euro History, US History (but the teacher for those is awful, no one has made higher than a 3, no I'm not anticpating a good score there), AP Gov, AP Calc, AP Stats, and mayber AP Spanish. I'm also taking several honors classes.</p>

<p>My main EC is Forensics (Speech and Debate), but I'm also in Mu Alpha Theta, Beta, Student Gov, Frontline (anti-tobacco), and Teenage Republicans. I've held a few minor leadership positions in each so far. Community service is required for graduation, but I haven't gotten around to any of that yet.</p>

<p>My school offers a program that allows students to do a 2-year research project that I'm entering this spring. This also adds several weighted grades to my GPA.</p>

<p>My main concern is finance. My parents make enough to exclude me from most institutional aid, but not enough to pay for an Ivy league education.</p>

<p>I'm hoping my location will be a considerable factor. Which of those colleges do I have a decent chance at, and what do I need to do now to better my chances?</p>

2

<p>oops</p>

<p>I'm also vaguely considering BC, Georgetown, and Loyola-New Orleans</p>

<p>I'm an active Presbyterian (PCA)</p>

3

<p>You'd need to boost your SAT's to be competitive for your reaches. Aim for at least a 2100 on the "new" SAT. William & Mary should go into your reach category as they accept very very few out of state students. U of Chicago should also be considered a reach. Otherwise, it looks like you are mostly on track - at this point, give a lot of thought as to what you like and don't like about all of these schools - some are quite different in terms of atmosphere.</p>

<p>Pepperdine likes to see strong church-related extracurriculars. You might want to check out USC, the Claremont Colleges and Occidental in California as other options. Another school that you may want to check out as a safety is Hendrix in Arkansas --- just a notch up academically from Millsaps.</p>

4

<p>thanks for the input</p>

5

<p>i'll go ahead and add that i intend to major in something in the neighborhood of polisci/intlrelations, then go to law school. I'm not sure if that matters, but if it does, there you go.</p>

6

<p>My initial impression is that your safties are too low and your reaches are too high. In the middle, I'd move Chicago into the reach category. </p>

<p>If finances are a consideration and you won't qualify for financial aid, look for schools that will give you merit aid. There are a lot of good ones - many in the midwest. You might like St Olaf in Minnesota, for example. Another very fine school that's generous with aid is Rice. In the South, Univ of Richmond and Rhodes might be worth a look. Check out this info from Kiplinger - <a href="http://www.kiplinger.com/planning/college/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kiplinger.com/planning/college/&lt;/a>. Look for schools that have a high percentage of students on non-need-based aid.</p>

7

<p>bumb bumb bumb</p>

8

<p>You need another 100 points on SATI and really solid grades on the other tests to be in the running for your reaches. Location will be a tip factor, but you need to be clearly within the range. Good luck!</p>

9

<p>I disagree about your SAT being too low, it is well within range. Also, the fact that you are a male from Mississippi is to your advantage. W&M accepts males at a higher % rate then women, because many more women apply, colleges like to keep a good mix of students. Also, the fact that you are from Miss is better than Maryland, NY or NJ which gets thousands and thousands of applicants to W&M. I think you have a very good chance.</p>

10

<p>i think you might be able to get in cornell</p>