Expand my College List

College Search & Selection
1

I need help finding target schools for me. Ideally these are in the Top 50 schools. I have plenty of safeties and reaches at the moment, but I don’t seem to have any that are “good” but I still have a decent chance of getting accepted to.

Stats:

  • 4.33 GPA Weighted
  • 3.9 GPA Unweighted (My school counts unweighted A+ as 4.33)
  • Improved from a 4.1 W GPA freshman year to a 4.5 W GPA junior year
  • Have taken every AP science offered at my school (5 classes), as well as an AP Math and 2 AP histories (didn’t get a 4 or 5 on any of the exams - oops)
  • 1540 SAT (760 ERW, 780 Math)
  • National Merit Semifinalist (226 Raw Score)
  • Captain of school’s science bowl team
  • Founded a recycling program and recruited a bunch of my friends to help me recycle for the school. We also collected bottles and redeemed them for a total of $226 which we donated to a homeless shelter (Ran for 3 months before COVID hit)
  • 1000+ hours of assorted volunteering with children

My GPA is definitely the low point here, so I’m going to have my counselor emphasize the 4.1 to 4.5 increase in her letter of rec.

I was thinking somewhere along the lines of good state schools. Like UNC Chapel Hill, U-Texas Austin, and GIT. Any recommendations would help. Preferably ones where a merit scholarship is at least possible.

2

Desired major? Budget? Home state? Gender?

The highest-ranked flagships like the ones you mention don’t tend to offer much merit aid, unless you can land the ultra-competitive scholarships like the Robertson at UNC. But there’s merit at the southern flagships like Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina… southwest flagships like Utah, Arizona, New Mexico… and various others like Michigan State, Minnesota, UMass, UVM, and Pitt. And the schools that give big NMF merit like ASU Barrett, UCF Honors, UT Dallas. (These may already be on your “safety” list.)

Private-U wise, Northeastern and USC are particularly generous with NMF merit. CWRU and URochester also have good merit potential.

Then of course there are the high-ranking but no-merit-aid schools where you’d have a decent shot admissions-wise but would pay your EFC. Not sure if those are feasible for you.

3

Sorry, I thought I included my major in this. I’m majoring in biochem on a premed track. If med school doesn’t work out I’m thinking PA school or law school for patent law.

I’ll definitely look into U Rochester and CWRU, I hadn’t looked into those yet. Thanks!