<p>Hello, I am currently a junior in high school. I greatly disliked my public high school so I transferred to a small private Christian high school this school year. I am very close to finishing 11th grade. My current plan is a Marketing major with a Creative Writing minor. I live in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>9th-11th grade: 3.71 W, 3.57 UW. I took one AP course at my former school in 10th grade and two honors courses. This year I have had four CP (college prep) courses at my new school.</p>
<p>SAT: 1090/1600 and 1690/2400. 530 math, 560 reading, and 600 writing were the scores I received. This was the second time I took it and I will take it a third time in October to get over 1100 for math and reading. I take the ACT in June for the first time.</p>
<p>Activities: Tennis team in 9th and 10th, cross country 9th-11th, and track 11th. I am a member of NHS as of March and I am part of student newspaper. In addition, I complete community service by being a Sunday school aid every other Sunday at my church for 1st grade boys. I also worked as a camp counselor/leader for 2 years as a 1st-2nd grade boys at a camp my church does in the summers.</p>
<p>Colleges:
Messiah College (PA)
John Carroll University (OH)
Grove City College (PA)
Penn State- University Park
Westminster College (PA)</p>
<p>I have visited Messiah, John Carroll, and Grove City. Messiah is my favorite but I worry about the price. My parents believe they make too much to qualify for financial aid and Messiah is roughly 40K/year. I went on their site and the net price calculator said I could get $11,500 in merit aid per year for my UW GPA and SAT score. Are net price calculators generally accurate? I really hope it is because that would make things much easier for my family! I started with a list of 13 schools but kept narrowing. I also visited Allegheny College in Meadville, PA but did not like it much.</p>
<p>I have two more questions for everyone. The first is what do you think my shot is at these schools? From what I've heard, Grove City and PSU may be somewhat difficult for me. My next question is does anyone know schools similar to any of these five that you recommend I visit? Thank you everyone in advance!</p>
<p>I am going to visit Malone University and Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio. I may scratch Westminster from my list. </p>
<p>You need to ask your parents how much they will pay each year. merit may not be enough if the remaining costs are still too much.</p>
<p>Thank you to both of you who have replied. I will use your advice. There is enough in college savings for me that my parents are comfortable with 25K-30K net/yr. After researching Malone, we decided it’s not for me but I still may visit Baldwin Wallace. My parents want me to keep Westminster on my list because it’s a good school and I have 3 relatives who went there.</p>
<p>I like Penn State but it’s the only big, public school that works for me. The only other big schools I considered were Pitt, Indiana University, and Va Tech. The issues are that Pitt is too close to home and I don’t want a college in the city. Indiana U has a fantastic business program but the price for OOS is crazy. As for Va Tech, my SAT score is well below average and the school is 6-7 hours away. Therefore, PSU is my only big school and the rest of my schools are 3,000 people or less LOL. It may seem weird but that’s just how things worked out. My 5 are Messiah, John Carroll, PSU, Grove City, and Westminster. I’m still unsure about Baldwin Wallace, I have to research it more. I find it so fascinating that there are over 4,000 US colleges and you narrow it down until you get to one!</p>
<p>Look into Eastern (<- sounds like a good fit for you), Washington&Jefferson, Susquehanna (very friendly school, helpful staff, AACSB business school), McDaniel, Elizabethtown (<- I think would be a great fit based on what you said so far), Knox (tops for creative writing AND they have business&management).
For Penn State, put Erie-the Behrend College as your second choice, it’s the most residential of the branch campuses, and apply for summer session AND DUS to have a real shot. GPA counts as 2/3 and it’s rolling admissions, so as soon as you get that SAT score in October send them, unless you get a 26-27 ACT in June, which would let you apply as soon as the app goes live on Sept1 and thus increase your odds a lot. Summer session is actually cool, there are 2,000 freshmen on campus instead of the 8,000 that’ll be there in the Fall (along with the tens of thousands others) so that makes it easier to find your way around campus, plus to get to knock two classes off and while other freshmen fumble your way around you already know where to go, what to do, etc.
Grove City is likely to be a reach, but if you like its philosophy apply to Hope, Gordon, John Brown, and Houghton, plus Hillsdale.
If you like Westminster PA, look into Westminster MS, Lycoming, Mercyhurst, Elmira.</p>
<p>Whoever responds next, could you chance me on my top 5?</p>