Asian female from NJ Income: 100k> (Junior)
GPA - 4.54
Standardized tests:
SAT- 1510 Math- 790 English- 720
Biology- 800
Chemistry- 780
(Planning on taking Math)
Freshman year: Bio Honors, English honors, Spanish honors, World civ/cultures honors, Geometry honors
Sophomore year: Chemistry honors, English honors, spanish honors, algebra 2 honors, US History honors
Junior year: APUSH, AP Physics, Precalculus Honors, Spanish Honors, AP Chemistry, English Honors
Senior year: AP Lit, AP Lang and comp, AP Psych, AP Bio, AP Calc BC
Extra curriculars:
Emergency Medical technician - help ambulance in aiding real emergency room scenarios
Softball- 1 year varsity
Varsity Debate- 2 year varsity
Church summer school volunteer - taught mathematics and english
Swim team manager
Here are some options for low reach/matches, although a number of these are getting harder to get into. Your ACT will help you but being from NJ is not an advantage. Also, while your GPA is okay, you should try and rock on your grades this semester to show a strong upward trend:
Fordham
GWU
UMiami
URichmond
Gettysburg
Elon
Boston U
A good safety might be some slightly lower ranked Catholic schools, such as Catholic U.
You might also want to look at schools in the Midwest and further west where being from NJ might not be a disadvantage. Maybe MW schools such as Marquette, DePaul and Loyola? Good luck.
Bryant University has two types of finance degrees and they require all of their business majors to get a liberal arts minor (it is built into the degree). Might be worth it for a match/safety!
^ That is a very good list by @lalalemma . You could add a couple of reach schools on top (say Georgetown and Notre Dame and/or UVA) and one/two safeties where you will get some merit money and you are done. Just as a head’s up, Miami and Northeastern currently have no additional essays so are relatively easy to add to your common app.
I think that Stern and Wharton might be too much of a reach given your (current) stats. BC and Georgetown would be better reach schools. Also, you might have a better chance at GU and BC getting in to the A&S school and majoring in Econ. That way you could get the liberal arts plus the Econ major (and in the case of BC A&S students can take up to 8 classes in the business school. Just a thought as the B schools there are getting harder and harder to get into. UMichigan might be another reach school to check out and Indiana Kelley could be a match (I know less about the latter 2 schools).
I am not an expert on either Colgate or CMU so maybe others can comment on those.
Regarding how you can improve, I would try and rock your finals and get all A’s this semester and also get A’s in the autumn as well. While the laws of Math will prevent your GPA from increasing too much at this late stage, an increasing trend in GPA is a great thing.
Lastly, you mentioned that you are retaking the ACT again which is a good thing. Try and get your Reading component up on the ACT as some schools subscore the ACT. Also, study hard and try and rock your SAT Subject Tests, if you can get those 750+ that will be great as you will need 3 good subject scores to apply to Georgetown.