Could you give me some safety, match, and reach schools?

College Search & Selection
1

I will be starting senior year.
I have a 4.3201/5 weighted gpa
I have a 95.76 unweighted gpa
Freshman year course: honors science, advanced computer tech, honors us history, honors algebra, honors English, honors Spanish, gym, and honors geometry.
Sophomore year course: honors bio, honors chem, honors alg 2, honors world history, honors Spanish 2, gym, honors pre-calc, and honors English.
Junior year course: honors Spanish 3, honors English, honors anatomy 1, honors chem 2, honors anatomy 2, honors psychology, honors government and civics, and gym.
Prospective senior year course: AP Calc, College English, College stats, College bio, AP Euro History, Honors economics, College history sem, College Spanish.
That is the most rigorous schedule possible. I am taking every AP and college level class my school offers.
Class Rank: I think I am around 7-10/354. Top 5%
SAT 1: 710 in Critical Reading, 730 in Math, and 610 in Writing. In my PSAT’s my writing score was much higher so I think once I retake I can get it to 700. This was the highest SAT score of any in my grade.
SAT 2: Haven’t taken yet…but I think I will take Math 2, Literature, and Biology (M)
ACT: Haven’t taken and don’t plan to take.
Volunteer work: Around 300 hours. 260-270 came from tutoring and the rest came from mentoring 6th graders. I am also setting up volunteer work at my local hospital.
EC’s with years in parenthesis: Student Council (2), Science Olympiad (2), Mentor to 9th graders (1), Future business leaders of America (2), Varsity golf (4), Varsity lacrosse (2), JV lacrosse (1). I also do tae-kwon-do for 5 years and received my black-belt. I also participated in the People to People Student Ambassador program.
I would like to major in either Biology or Business management. I plan on moving toward either Medical school to be a surgeon or law school to specialize in corporate law.
I am looking at school’s like University of Pennsylvania (pretty high reach, I doubt I will get in but it’s worth a shot) Georgetown (moderate reach, my SAT scores and GPA are average and I don’t know if my EC’s are good enough), and New York University (slight reach, but I think I will get in). University of Pittsburgh is a college I feel I have a really good shot in. I would like to also be admitted into the honors program.
Also I don’t really know if this makes a difference but I am a white male from a low income family and I will be the first person in my family going to college. In fact pretty much my entire family worked in the same factory so I plan on writing about that on my essay.

So if you guys could give me any safety, match, and slight reach schools that would be great.

What I look for in a college: Number of students doesn’t really matter to me. However I definitely want a school in a city. It doesn’t have to be directly in the middle (ex. Georgetown), but I want to be no more than a 10-15 bus ride to the core of the city. I am looking to major in either business or biology so I would like a school who is good-great in both of them, because I am currently undecided and I want to be safe if I change. I would prefer a range of schools from about North Carolinaish to Maine. I am especially interested in schools like Boston and Northeastern. I would also consider schools on the West Coast. I am especially interested in University of Washington due to their strong science and medical program. If anyone could give me a review of those schools it would be great.

Thanks for any responses guys

2

Can you afford the $75K/year for NYU? If so that helps a lot on the affordability side of selecting a safety.

3

Washington university in st Louis might be a good match/reach

4

@ErinsDad OP mentions that he’s from a low-income family. OP, NYU is known for terrible need-based aid, and that’s probably what you are after because of your income. Have you run any Net Price Calculators yet?

5

Thanks for the responses guys. To mickey9898, I haven;t really looked into Wash. in St. Louis. What is St. Louis like? If you could compare it to Pittsburgh, NYC, D.C., and Philadelphia, which is closest? Is the university good for business and biology? Thanks for any answers. To hs2015mom, I just did the net price calculator for NYU and got that it would be $25,065 after scholarships and grants. In case it helps anyone I did the other ones as well. Georgetown’s net price is $11,984 after scholarships and grants, U penn net price is $5,742 after scholarships and grants, Pitt is $23,340 after scholarships and grants, and Washington in St. Louis is $4,050.

6

Also I haven’t looked personally at my chances and I don’t expect they would be too good but what about Johns Hopkins. They clearly have good biology and medical programs, plus I only live about 40 from Baltimore.

Also I probably should have mentioned this earlier but I am a Pennsylvania resident. I actually live about a 15 minute drive from Gettysburg.

7

Great that you ran the NPCs. Do you know how much your family can contribute?

As you’re seeing, when you’re after need-based aid, the most affordable schools are the ones that are toughest to get into. One happy exception to that is Franklin & Marshall in Allentown, which got rid of merit aid to put it all into need-based aid, and now gives remarkably generous grants. Stats-wise it would be a safety for you, but with much better aid than a typical private safety.

Muhlenberg is another good safety for you, good for pre-med and generous need-based aid, though not as much as F&M.

8

See I have an Aunt who does very very well for herself, and she has offered to pay anything I don’t get from scholarships and financial aid. That being said I would like to find a decently affordable school, I don’t want to take advantage of it. The more I am looking at it I like Wash in STL. But I have never been to STL and I probably won’t be able to visit. Has anyone ever been that could describe it?

9

I’ve never actually been to St. Louis, so I can’t really compare it to another city. Although I know that there is plenty to do, as well as a lot of opportunities for jobs/internships in the city. As far as your majors go, both biology and business are in the top 5 most popular majors, but the I know the biology program is especially strong.

10

Thanks mickey. I will definitely look into it more. I feel like colleges really need to videotape an info session and get like a gopro to record a tour and put that on to their website. Because there are colleges I would love to visit but it is unrealistic for me to actually go. That way I would be able to basically visit. They could even set up that you have to pay something like $10 to get access to it. Then you can watch it however many times you want.

11

A number of schools - not Wash U, though - have expense-paid diversity fly-ins that are open to low-income/first-gen students as well as URMs.

http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/2015-college-fly-in-programs/#sthash.mNnGA1QM.dpbs

12

I know you want colleges in city, but limiting yourself geographically can be risky. I would add University of Alabama. You qualify for OOS tuition waiver and it will help reducing the cost.

13

There will be some good options for safeties here: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

U Washington offers very little aid to OOS students. BTW, did your wall of text in the OP have your home state listed? I didn’t see it (just as I missed the low income info).

14

Yeah sorry Erin’s Dad I forgot to put it in. I mentioned it in a later post but you might have missed it.

I am a resident of Pennsylvania, about 15 minutes from Gettysburg.

15

I also noticed that U of Wash didn’t give much OOS aid after I did the net price calculator and found they only gave me 3,000!! That pretty much takes that off my list, and their med school is 60,000 a year so it doesn’t look like I am gonna go there.

Thanks for the safety options.

16

Temple is an obvious safety for you, as a PA resident. You will undoubtedly get in and qualify for a very generous financial aid package. I expect you to get into Pitt, where you will also get in-state tuition, but they might not give you quite as much assistance as Temple.

17

To woogzmama: I visited Temple and I liked the campus, but the surrounding area was really rough and I didn’t feel like that was a place I could go. I am not the biggest fan of Philadelphia, but I do like the area U Penn is in.

18

@Jensen41 - Many people share your feelings about Temple, which is one reason it’s widely considered an “underrated” university. My son goes there, by the way.

19

Has he ever said anything about it? Like was that always a problem for him during his college search or did he just fall in love with it anyway? What does he major in?

20

Both bio and business are really strong at WashU (business just opened a $90 million building). There’s a lot of support for research and entrepreneurship too. I think a lot of students also do both business and a major in a different part of the university. Plus the medical school is great.

@hs2015mom Unless they changed it, WashU does do a diversity fly-in each semester (one in the fall and one for admitted students in the spring). I don’t think they would have changed it since it had been around for years.