Have no idea what schools to look at

I would really appreciate some match/reach suggestions as I dont want to get my hopes up for something unrealistic.

School: _____ High School (I consider very competitive)
I am a junior

GPA AS OF NOW; -11(First Semester Projection)
9-11 UW: 3.87
9-11 W: 4.13
10-11 UW: 3.83
10-11 W: 4.17

Courses:
Fresh-
Biology A/A
Geometry H A/B
English 9 H A/A
Basketball PE A/A
Photo Imaging A/A
Spanish II A/A

Soph-
English 10 H A/A
AP World H B/A
Chemistry B/B
Basketball PE A/A
Spanish III A/A
Alg 2 Trig H A/A

Junior (AS OF NOW)
AP Lang A
AP US H A
AP Psychology A
Pre Calc H (Weighted) A
Cooking A
Statistics A

SAT: First try 1970 :(, retake this Saturday. Expect at least 2050

Extracurricular: (If you have any tips on what i could do to pad extra curric, i would be very grateful. dont have much because my business takes up most of my time)

  • Certificate of Recognition Assemblyman (Raised 1500$ Haiti)
  • Basketball Fresh-Soph (Fresh/JV)
  • 300 Hours Volunteer Recreational Basketball Coaching (Freshman-Sophomore)
  • Co- Founder Competitive Basketball Organization (Soph-....) In first two seasons (6 months- 12,000$ revenue) Head Coach Three Competitive Basketball Teams
  • CSF (Junior-...)
  • Internship with owner of jersey mikes
  • Weekly volunteer timekeeper for spiritual sobriety group

Academic interests?

-What can your family afford?
-Intended major?
-East/west coast? Midwest?
-Urban/suburban/rural?

-Most likely money is not an issue
-honestly, undecided as of now. objective assessments on personality traits have always suggested law, but also interest in business. tbh no clue
-open to all locations
-preferably not rural or areas where land owns campus such as uc santa cruz or places such as montana

at this point, i am undecided. i definitely am not interested in science. i am an analytical thinker who is a strong writer and have shown interest in law in the past. business has interested me as well.

These Newsweek articles can be useful for generating ideas: “The 25 Most Desirable Suburban Schools”; “The 25 Most Desirable Urban Schools” (available online). If you ignore the super-reaches for now, you will still be able to pick up a few colleges to research further.

Bump

-Try using the supermatch function the left under Find a College.

-Also meet with your guidance counselor to get ideas.
-Do research – get your hands on some college guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide) all of which are likely in your guidance office and/or the library and start reading. Try to get a better sense of what type of school you want.
-Look at the curriculums of business schools versus liberal arts education (can be done online) and see if one is more appealing to you. If you want to go the business route then you need to focus on schools that offer an undergrad business program.

  • It is generally obvious when an applicant pads his/her ECs. But there is still time to get involved in some activity in a meaningful way. Find something that interests you.

Don’t dismiss more rural locations. You will probably find that geography takes a back seat to colleges with high standards.
Get the Fiske or Princeton Review college guides. You need to narrow things down, these books are a good way to start.
Finding the reach schools is easy. Work on finding match and safety schools that you will be happy at. That means your GPA and test scores should be near the 75% range of their students. For safeties, it should be above that. I am not an expert on this btw, just following the advice of other CC’ers as we have gone through this process.

I appreciate the holistic advice everyone!

I was kind of hoping for match/reach schools for stats and info I have provided

Personality/location/money aside. What schools do I meet as reaches matches and even safeties

My dear, there are 4000 colleges in the country. As others have suggested, use Super Match first. There are lots of matching websites. Try Uni + go (have to post it like that, or Cc removes it.) Get one of the guides I and others suggested above, they provide average stats of their colleges’ students. Go get one today at your library. You should do a little bit of work first, then people can give you useful suggestions.

If money is not an issue, and you’re not sure what you want to major in, there’s tons of options. Assuming you get a 2050:

Reaches
-Barnard College
-Boston College
-Cornell University
-George Washington University
-Lehigh University
-Macalester College
-NYU
-Reed College
-Tulane University
-Vassar College
-Wake Forest University

Matches
-American University
-Baylor University
-Beloit College
-Boston University
-Brandeis University
-Case Western Reserve University
-Clark University
-Emerson College
-Fordham University
-Lewis & Clark College
-Muhlenburg College
-Providence College (I’m applying here as well)
-Syracuse University

Safeties
-Azusa Pacific University
-Canisius College
-Drexel University
-La Salle University

More specifically, the US has 1968 four-year public and non-profit private colleges, the vast majority of which you’d be qualified for. You have to narrow it down somehow. A list of stats is of little use to us without more information unless you just want people throwing out random schools willy-nilly.

College selection in a few easy steps:
[ul][]Sit down with your parents and have a discussion about finances. You need to know what you can and can’t afford. If you need schools with good financial or merit aid, that needs to be factored into account.
[
]Visit colleges in your area, even if you’re not that interested in them. Visiting a variety of colleges will help you figure out what you do and don’t want in your college. Big or small, suburban or urban, Greek life or none, and so on. What appeals to you (or doesn’t) when you visit a college?
[]Draw up a list of the factors that you consider important. Do you want an urban campus or a rural one? A large university or a small liberal arts college? Is a big athletics scene important to you? Do you want a campus where everyone lives on campus or where most people commute? Do you want to be part of a thriving Greek scene or avoid one? Is a big LGBT or religious community important? Do you prefer single-sex or co-ed? There are many other things you may want to consider.
[
]After you have your list of factors, draw up a list of at least 30 or so schools that meet most of your criteria. CC is helpful at this point; it has an excellent [search engine](http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/). College Board’s [search tool](College Search - BigFuture | College Board) and [url=http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]IPEDS[/url] are also helpful.
[]Get as much information about your list as possible! Visit the colleges. Read books like the Fiske Guide or Insider’s Guide. (I personally find Princeton Review extremely hit-or-miss.) Ask for info on CC. Attend information sessions in your area in the fall.
[
]Narrow your list down to about 6-10 colleges. Be sure it has at has at least one or two safeties you can afford and a good mix of matches (50/50 chance of admission) and reaches (admission possible but unlikely).[/ul]

Finding a good safety school should be your first priority. It needs to be a place that meets ALL of these criteria:
[ul][]Admission is nearly guaranteed for someone with your stats
[
]It is definitely affordable
[li]You would be happy to attend[/ul][/li]Rolling admissions (the sooner you apply, the sooner you hear back) is a definite bonus for a safety school.

Many use a state flagship (UMD College Park, UVM, UT Austin, U Alabama, etc.) as a safety school. Others apply to non-flagship public universities as safeties (MTSU in Tennessee, WWU in Washington, George Mason in Virginia, etc.). Still others prefer private colleges where they’d receive large amounts of financial and/or merit aid.

Once you have a safety or two, you can start figuring out the rest of your list.

With your grades and curriculum, extracurriculars, and a 2050 SAT, you could probably get into a fair number of colleges. The top 30-40 universities and top 20ish liberal arts colleges (according to USNWR) would be unlikely, but you would have a decent shot at most other places.

@newjerseygirl98 gave some suggestions in the range you need to be considering – American, Case, Fordham, GWU, and the like. One could also add colleges like Trinity (TX), Rhodes, Occidental, Colorado College, Ursinus, Willamette, Santa Clara, Villanova, etc.

I recommend taking as rigorous a course load as you can handle next year. Your junior and senior years should be tough classes with good grades if you want to aim high for college.

What is your state of residence? (If I have missed this earlier, I apologize.)

Also, do you have any preferences in terms of the size of the student population at a school?

California; preferably big. I visited ucla and usc and absolutely loved the campuses