<p>OP, without knowing your class rank or difficulty of your HS, and assuming a medium on both, then:</p>
<p>USNWR Nat’l UNI range of 15-25 for reach, 26-40 for slight reach, 41-75 for Match, and 76+ for Safety.
USNWR LAC range of 8-15 for reach, 16-25 for slight reach, 26-50 for Match, and 51+ for Safety</p>
<p>If you are top 10% in your class at a moderately difficult school, that slide those ranges to the left by several spots for everything. </p>
<p>If you are URM, then move UNI to the left 15 spots, and LAC to the left by 8 spots.</p>
<p>If you like NYU, then you will probably like the following urban schools (city):
American (DC)
GWU (DC)
Fordham (NY)
Northeastern (BOS)
BU (BOS)
Villanova (Phi)
Temple (Phi)
Miami (Miami)
Loyola Marymount (L.A.)
Minnesota (Minn)
Univ of Illinois - Chicago (Chi)
Depaul (Chi)</p>
<p>Also, for really easy schools that are going to be cheap, but less respected, try your Suny/Cuny schools.</p>
<p>^What? You see the person wants something similar to NYU and you pick Wisonsin? Are you kidding? </p>
<p>If someone is looking at NYU, they definitely should NOT consider some state school in the middle of no where. I think Wisconsin is a fine school if that is what you are into, but not for someone considering NYU or just generally wants something to do on the weekends other than the local dairy queen.</p>
<p>*I’m a female sophomore with a 3.5/3.6 gpa, very high sat scores (2200 on the sats last year but 2300 on recent practice test). I have decent extracurriculars.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Make sure you take the PSAT as a junior. With your testing abilities, you’ll likely be a National Merit Finalist. You can get some great scholarships that way.</p>
<p>Keep your grades up. Your GPA can keep you out of top schools. </p>
<p>Parents probably can’t afford to pay $50,000 price tag of a good school but they still want me to get into a few good ones so that we have options.</p>
<p>It’s ok to apply to a few of these schools “just to see” what happens, but if you know that these school may not be affordable, then protect yourself and apply to some financial safety schools.</p>
<p>You probably will get into NYU, but that school doesn’t give much aid…so it will likely not be affordable. NYU is the poster child for BAD AID.</p>
<p>University of Wisconsin is supposed to be really good but I’m more of a city girl. New York or Boston would be my ideal location. </p>
<p>I tried asking my parents what we could afford but they were all like “You just concentrate on getting in the best schools you can and we’ll pay for the rest”. Unfortunately, I know that’s not going to be the case since I have another brother on the way to college as well. </p>
<p>I really want to do something medical related like being a veterinarian for graduate school but would like to major in something like business or economics for undergrad. </p>
<p>Thanks everybody! My parents don’t know that much about colleges and CC is saving my butt!</p>
<p>"something to do on the weekends other than the local dairy queen. "</p>
<p>I see. So you’ve never visited the University of Wisconsin or the city of Madison. You should probably state that outright when you’re giving people advice about it (although to my eye, your lack of knowledge is obvious).</p>
<p>As a parent, I entirely understand what your parents are going through. They want to do their best by you, which means making it possible for you to go to a great school. If they don’t know much about colleges, they won’t understand just how expensive college is. They also won’t understand that though you’re getting great test results, so are many other students. Your grades and test scores are important, of course, but so is knowing exactly how much financial support you can get from your parents. The saddest thing here on CC is when students have acceptances in hand but can’t afford to attend the schools.</p>
<p>Hanna, you’ll have to excuse Informative. It’s not that s/he’s clueless, it is that s/he has a penchant for hyperbole and pontification. It took me a couple of hundred posts to finally get a read on that.</p>
<p>That 3.5 GPA is going to be a problem at a lot of schools mentioned here, unless your school has a lot of grade deflation and your class rank is high. If you’re feeling that NYU is reachy and you’re looking for something similar, I’d suggest Boston University: large, urban, private, secular, well-known brand, pretty good academics, Northeast Corridor. Admit rate is 54%, average HS GPA of enrolled freshman is 3.5, and your SAT scores put you into the top quartile of the entering class. Financial aid could be a problem at either NYU or BU, however, as neither meets full financial need.</p>
<p>A 3.5 gpa with those SAT’s is nothing to sneeze at. Don’t let the CC hawks get you down. Add U.Rochester to your list - it’s an absolutely top notch school that gets fewer app’s only because many people are afraid of the weather.</p>