Female Junior from NJ looking for more matches to add to my college list

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics
US Citizen

  • State/Location of residency:* NJ
  • Type of high school *: Public high school
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Black Caribbean Female
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): Low-income

Intended Major(s)
Pharmaceutical Science or Biochemistry
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.613
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.938
  • Class Rank: 19/78
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Didn’t take yet but my PSAT score was 1450

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes)
AP Physics- 4
Currently taking:
AP Lang
APUSH
AP Calc AB
AP CSA

Awards
Honor Roll for 9th and 10th grade

Extracurriculars
Volunteer school math tutor
President of Circle club(school’s LGBTQ+ and cultural awareness and tolerance club)
Girls Who Code Treasurer
Debate and MUN member

Essays/LORs/Other
I think my LORs will be good
For my essay I planned on talking about how I relate to my favorite show and how it help me grow as a person(Idk if this is a good topic)

Cost Constraints / Budget
My EFC ranges from 2,000-4,000 depending on the website

Schools

  • Safety *NJIT, Montclair State, Suffolk University
  • Likely * Kean University
  • Match Lehigh University, Florida A&M
  • Reach Northeastern, Tufts, Boston College, Swarthmore
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No idea if they would be able to meet your EFC (probably not) but Butler has a good pharmacy program.

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No Rutgers? I think their pharmaceutical program is strong.

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Agree with @Mom270 - Rutgers in state is a no brainer really good Pharmacy program. St Johns NY, and Temple in Philly also have good programs

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With your test scores and being a URM, you’d kill it at Alabama - dirt cheap - safety. They have the Mccullough Medical Scholars too- which may be of interest.

Otherwise, you need a meets need school. Have you lokoed at Questbridge? What’s your family income?

Schools like Franklin & Marshall, St Olaf, Richmond, Lafayette, Kenyon.

$2-4K will be tough - so you need a meets need school.

Good luck.

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It’s really going to be tough to predict what is going to happen next year, what with the anticipated Supreme Court ruling in early fall against consideration of race in college admissions. Your grades are good, but you’re about top 25th% in your class in a public school - not really at a level for top private schools that meet full fin need if they are forbidden from considering race in admissions, and you do need full fin aid.

As above mentioned, Questbridge! QuestBridge | National College Match: Dates And Deadlines.

This may really be your best option, since it is for low income students, which schools will surely use as a proxy in the hopes of maintaining racial balance in their student body. Schools wanting to avoid being accused of using race in admissions are going to go heavily to Questbridge, I suspect. To be perfectly crystal clear, if the Supreme Court bans consideration of race in college admissions in the early fall, colleges are very likely to admit heavily through Questbridge (and any other similar low income programs that have a high percentage of African American and Hispanic students, if such exist) in order to attempt to admit enough racial minority students so that their student bodies aren’t nearly all White and Asian. You need to apply to Questbridge!

Add Rutgers. You’re in-state, it should be on your list.

Your PSAT of 1450 puts you at 99th %. It may be worth it to you to go through the trouble of prepping for the SAT or the ACT, since if you get a very high score on one of these, it may help you into a school via the Questbridge application. You cannot go back and improve your grades or your class standing (although you can certainly work hard to get A’s this semester). But you can prep yourself for the ACT or SAT, and you can take advantage of any resources that your school may offer, to help in this. But even without it, a student who got a 1450 on the PSAT should be able to do self-prep, to get a high score.

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Okay, I went looking for schools where there seemed to be a bit higher chances of admission (i.e. not 3%) that also tended to be pretty generous in how they define need. If you go on College Navigator (the feds’ website) and look under net price, it will show what families end up paying to attend the school, grouped by various income brackets. There are schools that might have a $4k net price for families earning less than $30k while another school might have the net price of $17k. Same family, same information, different calculation to meet the family’s need.

Additionally, even if affirmative action does go away, you are still free to discuss your ethnicity. For instance, if being Jamaican or Haitian or a different Caribbean ethnicity has influenced you, you can mention that in your essays.

So, here are some schools that remain tough admits, but are not quite as difficult. For each school I will list the net price for families earning less than $30k and then between $30-48k. For incomes above this, the data is available on College Navigator.

  • Georgetown (D.C.): $596, $3182

  • Washington & Lee (VA): $769, $743. Also W&L has been trying to attract more minority students.

  • Bates (ME): $4735, $5268

  • Hamilton (NY): $7555, $8702

  • Mount Holyoke (MA): Women’s college; $7687, $11,140

  • Trinity (CT): $8252, $10,965

  • Union (NY): $10,627, $17,999

  • Vassar (NY): $10,697, $14,383

  • Colgate (NY): $10,923, $14,024

A couple schools who have much more approachable admissions rates that would seem to offer generous need-based aid to accepted students include:

  • Drew (NJ): $8914, $9717

  • Lycoming (PA ): Not as generous, but again, a much likelier get. $12,700, $12,679.

Also, check the calculators/net price for the New Jersey publics, too,. When I was looking on there, there was definitely a range that could be quite significant in comparison to your EFC. Do you live within commuting distance of a New Jersey public?

And yes, you should definitely look into Questbridge.

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For a likely, add Washington college in Maryland. You will get great merit. They have a STEM sisters club, a MUN club that goes to Paris, cleopatras sisters for women of color and their Allies, very active BSU, two very active LGBTQ clubs, and great STEM programs with awesome professors. You can apply to do research that can be funded by the Cater society. Cute downtown area. Don’t look at sticker price.

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All- don’t forget EFC is $2-4K. I’m not sure how much the parents can really afford to pay - but even schools with fantastic merit - if htey’re not meeds needs schools or need blind schools - likely off the table.

In addition to Quesbridge, there are full rides out there - whether a Bama or an SMU, W&L, Seattle and more. If NMSF was in the picture, Tulsa, etc.

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Thank you for your input. I have applied to the Quest bridge Prep Scholars program and I plan to do the College Match process as well. My parents income is around 40,000.

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Smith, Howard, Agnes Scott?

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Agree with Questbridge, good luck for Prep Scholars this summer. Work hard on the Questbridge College Match app this summer, it is time consuming and requires a great deal of focus, and is due at the end of September.

Regarding your safer schools: NJIT/Suffolk/Montclair/Kean…I am concerned they might not be affordable, and if that’s the case they aren’t safeties. I would strongly encourage you to add Rutgers, but am concerned that might not be in price range either (I think you will likely have to pay room and board, which will be quite a bit higher than your EFC). I don’t think FAMU is going to be affordable.

It is important to talk with your parents to see how much their budget is and to make sure they can afford the amounts each school’s net price calculator is showing (run all the NPCs on each school’s website).

What was your PSAT Selection Index score? It seems it should be close to being NMSF which would open doors for you. Definitely prep for an SAT or ACT between now and the end of the summer…is that in the plans?

Your common app essay topic sounds good.

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Honestly, any topic, no matter how mundane, can be massaged into a fantastic essay. I knew of a girl who wrote an essay with the first line of “I hate mac and cheese!” It was considered so good at her T20 that it was mentioned in the welcoming ceremony speech. That being said, when you say that you plan to write about how your favorite TV show helped you to grow as a person, my immediate reaction is that you might think of a better topic, that is based upon doing rather than watching, how what you have already done shapes your aspirations to do more.

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Stockton should also be affordable with room and board, but you’d have to look at their majors.
Rutgers looks like it might be too expensive but it’s worth a shot, especially for SAS. If you’re interested in the pharmacy program it’s more competitive.

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Rutgers pharmacy program is competitive, but very well regarded. This should help with affordability, and freshmen at Rutgers do not need to live on campus. Scarlet Guarantee | Rutgers-New Brunswick

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I am not sure that will be true for NJ, but definitely high enough for CBNRP and there are some great scholarships and opportunities tied to that.

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In a recent study by the Georgetown UniversityCenter on Education and the Work Force, the top 3 colleges of any type, ranked for return on investment were as follows:

  1. University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St Louis
  2. Albany College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (NY)
  3. Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (Boston)

Run the net price calculator for each, which is easily available on their financial aid page to see your estimated costs. The average student at Albany and Mass pays between $30-40,000 after financial aid.

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Kean and Montclair are super safeties for you.
TCNJ, Rowan, and NJIT are good matches (you may be offered honors at NJIT so do apply for extra perks/scholarships). Rutgers should be on your list, match for chemistry/biochem but probably reach for Pharmacy.
Run the NPC (Net Price Calculator) to see if they’d be affordable.

Florida A&M is a match - but why a public HBCU in Florida? DO run the NPC because as an OOS applicant you wouldn’t be eligible for instate tuition nor their instate scholarship program.
If you’re interested in HBCUs, definitely look into and run the NPC on Spelman and Howard (low reach) as well as Delaware State (safety).

Lehigh, Northeastern, Tufts, BC, Swarthmore are all reaches.
However their “vibe” is quite different: BC and Lehigh are work hard/play hard (very intense academics, lots of alcohol on the weekends) whereas Northeastern is preprofessional (kids learn to get a job but aren’t necessarily all excited about learning new stuff) unlike Swarthmore where kids tend to be intense and intellectual, priding themselves in how much they work (one of those “where fun goes to die” reputations). DO note that these are painted with very broad brushes, to learn more and have more details, read The Fiske Guide (any edition 2020 and later is fine) and Princeton Review’s Best Colleges.

If you like Swarthmore, why not look into Bryn Mawr or Haverford?
If you don’t mind looking a bit further, run the NPC on Bates, Denison, Grinnell, Smith (all high reaches).

Good matches: Kalamazoo, St Olaf - both excellent for biochemistry or chemistry.
Another match, closer to home: Muhlenberg. College of Wooster?
High match to low reach: Dickinson, Denison, Franklin&Marshall.
Reach: Lafayette, Mount Holyoke, Kenyon.
All of these meet 100% need, meaning they provide the best possible financial package, and some don’t package loans (ie., it’s all scholarships + work study). When you run the NPC you’ll see that each college calculates your need differently so cross out the highest net prices.

Actual safeties (as long as they’re affordable as per NPC): Juniata, Ursinus, Elizabethtown, University of Scranton.

Good luck for Questbridge - you sound like an ideal candidate! :slight_smile: No guarantee of course but fingers crossed.

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Pharmacy is not the same as pharmaceutical sciences. Pharmacy is a 6 year (or 4+2) professional degree. I assume the op knows that.

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You’re right.
I hope she does.

OP would meet the admission requirements of maximum rigor (meaning, math beyond Algebra2, more than 2 years of FL, physics in addition to honors bio/chem, and, I assume, some APs since “AP credit” has its own link).
Direct admission to Pharmacy is a reach but it’s worth a shot if that’s what OP is interested in.