could use some advice on some safety schools please :)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everyone! I'm a junior from MA and attend a highly-ranked public high school. I'm all set with reach schools, naturally. But I'm having trouble with choosing some nice safeties. So far I have Case Western, Northeastern, UMass Amherst and UDelaware in mind.</p>

<p>I'm not even sure if Case is a safety to be honest... they've accepted everyone from my school who has applied but I know it is a very good school so I don't really know about that..</p>

<p>So yeah, any insight would be greatly appreciated! Here are my stats.</p>

<p>Class Rigor: All honors classes freshmen year (highest level offered)
Sophomore: AP Euro AP Biology and the rest honors (highest level offered)
Junior: AP Chem, APUSH, AP Language and Comp and the rest honors (again, highest offered)
Senior year I'll be taking 4-5 AP's, I haven't decided what yet!</p>

<p>Scores: 5 on AP Bio and 4 on AP Euro. 710 on Bio SAT subject test </p>

<p>GPA: weighted: 4.2 UW: 3.7 < not 100% sure. My high school doesn't calculate them so I did myself. Hopefully this will go up!</p>

<p>ACT: 30 (i know this is rather low for CC, but I plan on retaking and hopefully raising!)</p>

<p>EC's</p>

<p>Violin: School Orchestra since 5th Grade. I've been first chair throughout.
NEC youth orchestra: I've done this the past 3 years, very competitive orchestra.
private lessons for the past 8 years.</p>

<p>Piano: Kindergarten- present.</p>

<p>Guitar: I've played for over 5 years but I don't take lessons, I teach myself.</p>

<p>Tennis: School tennis team JV in 9th and 10th grade, Varsity in 11th grade.</p>

<p>Field Hockey: Freshmen and Sophomore year on JV</p>

<p>Clubs: I've peer tutored since middle school. Microfinance Club, SADD, Peer Leaders, UNITE Leadership, Math club, NHS</p>

<p>Leadership: I'm on student council, Secretary of Microfinance and NHS president. UNITE is a leadership club we had to apply to be a part of.</p>

<p>Volunteering: I volunteer at a hospital once a week for 4 hours. Over 200 hours thus far. I love it and want to pursue medicine!</p>

<p>Work: I work at a tutoring center year round (except for the spring during tennis) and scoop ice cream over the summer! I teach tennis to little kids during the summer too and babysit!</p>

<p>Oh yeah, I plan on majoring in Biology/Music. Thanks in advance for responses!</p>

2

<p>Take a look at other [Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://theaitu.org%5DAssociation”>http://theaitu.org) schools besides Case. Some of them are in urban settings if that is what you like and have good scholarships and strong, research oriented, biology programs.</p>

3

<p>you’ve probably already thought about College of the Holy Cross. You should interview with them and express interest in the Health Professions Advisory Program.</p>

4

<p>Thank you!! I will most definitely take a look :slight_smile: rennselear and WPI are popular among students at my high school</p>

5

<p>Oh yeah I visited Holy Cross. the campus is super pretty! I wasn’t sure if that was a safety or a match. thank you :)</p>

6

<p>Be sure to check cost of attendance and financial aid estimate at each school. A school is only a safety if you can definitely afford it.</p>

<p>Note: schools using “level of interest” as an admissions criterion should not be considered safeties – they may reject high stats applicants who appear to be using them as safeties.</p>

7

<p>^I’ll look into the “level of interest” aspect! thanks for mentioning that. Schools that do that are just trying to protect their yield, right?</p>

8

<p>Yes, yield protection is often a motivation for considering “level of interest” (see the school’s common data set section C). Public schools are much less likely to care about “level of interest” than private schools for some reason.</p>

9

<p>Oh yeah I visited Holy Cross. the campus is super pretty! I wasn’t sure if that was a safety or a match. thank you</p>

<p>No school is a safety if you’re not 100% sure that you have all costs covered thru assured scholarships/grants, small fed student loans, and family funds.</p>

<p>What is your budget? If you don’t know how much your parents will pay, then ask them. Safety schools rarely give great need-based aid, so for you to identify YOUR safety schools, you need to be sure that you can afford them.</p>

10

<p>They pay a little over 30,000 for my brother right now so having two kids in school I guess they can pay a little over 15,000 for each? My father is unemployed. But, they said I shouldn’t limit myself to public schools and that aid should be good with two kids in college. Should I be looking at more schools known for good aid?</p>

11

<p>“Should I be looking at more schools known for good aid?”</p>

<p>Absolutely. Aid is not always “good” just because there are two students from the family in college at the same time. Can your parents continue to pay 30,000 each year for your brother in addition to whatever your college expects them to pay? Your brother needs to stop by his financial aid office, and find out whether or not his aid package will change when you are in college. You need a solid back-up plan in case his college won’t adjust his aid package.</p>

<p>For more ideas, spend some time in the Financial Aid Forum. There are several good threads there on merit-based and need-based aid. Start with this one: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

12

<p>I’m glad you’re just a junior at this point. If your father is still unemployed this time next year you would have to totally reconsider your college options. In addition to the ACT also try the SAT. You might do better at it.</p>

13

<p>^My father has been unemployed for nearly 5 years. Luck has been terrible for my family. It’s not like I don’t have hope but the chances that things will change by next year seem slim to me :frowning: Though, my parents did save a lot of money when times were good. So I really have no idea how much they will be able to pay.</p>

<p>I am taking SAT’s this spring!</p>

14

<p>You need to have the money talk with them now. Do they know that many Private and OOS schools now cost ~$50K/year? Many parents are surprised at that because they remember being able to work their way through school.</p>

15

<p>Okay. Totally not looking forward to this conversation but I understand it has to happen. They did say that my brothers school will be altering his FA package when I enter school, so that’ll make things a little better.</p>