<p>I've applied to the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin with the U of M being my top choice.
I'm a senior
GPA - 3.93 UW
AP/Honors
ACT -29 (Math - 32 , English - 32)
Student Gov, BPA (Like DECA) , Religious studies
Went to business camp at University of Minnesota (highly selective)
NHS, WLNHS, Honor Roll etc.
Volunteer for nHS
Great work experience.</p>
<p>I want to be an actuary, but I want to major in Finance (to take the safe route) and minor in something similar in the field.</p>
<p>Do I really need a safety school?</p>
<p>I think you have a very good chance at both schools. Your GPA is up there for each school and your scores are near the 75%ile for each. As long as you’ve been taking the most rigorous classes then I think you’re set.</p>
<p>Every student needs at least one college or university that they can afford without any aid other than guaranteed merit-based aid and/or aid that they qualify for by filing the FAFSA, that they know will admit them for sure because the stats necessary for admission are right on the website and/or because every single student from their HS with those same stats have been admitted since time immemorial, and that offers the students projected major, and that the student would be happy to attend if all else fails in the admission process.</p>
<p>Do any of the schools you have listed meet these four criteria? If yes, you already have your safety. If no, you don’t have one yet so you need to keep looking.</p>
<p>If no school that you are applying to is a safety as described in post #3, then your default safety is community college. This is not necessarily a bad thing (many students succeed in community college, transfer to the state flagship, and graduate with bachelor’s degrees, sometimes going on to top PhD programs in their major), but it is really better to plan on a safety (which may mean checking that the local community colleges have appropriate pre-transfer courses that you need, if you want to use community college as your safety) than to have to back into one after being shut out in April.</p>
<p>OP, is it safe to assume that you are instate for one of the two? If not, the picture changes.</p>
<p>I agree with those above: although you look solid for both of your schools, it is always wise to have one really safe school as defined above. You might want to apply to one campus other than the flagships, for that reason.</p>
<p>Instate in Minnesota.</p>
<p>I would think you will get into Minnesota-Twin Cities, but why not just apply to University of Minnesota-Morris, as a safety?</p>
<p>I think you’ll probably get into both, and both should be affordable; as a Minnesota resident, you’ll pay the same in-state tuition at either school under the Minnesota-Wisconsin tuition reciprocity agreement. Since you’ve already applied to both, I’d say just sit tight for a while. They do rolling admission so there’s a good chance you’ll hear back from one or both of them before the deadline for applying to other schools. In the meantime, think about what school you’d use as a safety if the news is bad. Someone mentioned Minnesota-Morris, which is more of a LAC environment, but most people I know who have gone there love it; it should also be relatively easy to transfer from Morris to the Twin cities if you’re accepted at Morris and do wll there for a year or two. Wisconsin-La Crosse and Minnesota-Duluth are among the better second-tier publics in these two states. Then there are some private colleges that, with financial aid, might end up not being much more expensive than the public flagships.</p>