Hey guys so I have decided I should put out some applications to transfer. I have a few schools in mind, but I was wondering if any of you had suggestions for other schools to look at. I am a political economy major right now. I intend on continuing to be a political science major at my next school. Ideally I would also like to take economics classes as well. If a school has a public policy program I am extra interested. I would probably want to combine statistics and/or economics with a political science major at whatever school I go to. I prefer smaller schools. I definitely like liberal art schools the most, but medium sized universities are fine. Mostly I just would like smaller class sizes and be able to get to know my professors. I am openly gay and would like to attend a school with an active LGBTQ community in a more liberal setting. This also means I would like to live in an liberal urban area or close to one. Also intern opportunities in politics or law would be preferred as well. Also my family income is about ~50,000 so I need need based financial aid to go to college.
I currently go to the College of Idaho and it largely is lacking in those areas.
I got a 3.93 GPA this semester and have 15 credits so far. I am trying to transfer into my sophomore year. I am actively involved in competitive debate and have won several awards. I also am in the process of restarting the LGBTQ club at my school since it currently does not exist.
In high school these were my stats:
3.63 UW GPA
3.95 W GPA
32 ACT (superscored)
Got 4/5 on 7 AP Classes
I did debate for 3 years and was a captain. I also did a year of lab research at my local university and presented at a conference. I also spoke at my school’s TEDx talk as well. I also did a charity drive at my school for clothing donations.
My GPA is a bit low for a couple reasons. Mostly I was dealing with mental illness and family problems which drained my grades. I took 3 years of high school level math and science in middle school which went on my transcripts and almost all of those grades were B’s. Also my second semester freshmen year I got 5 B’s and 2 C’s due to those problems. After that I usually got a 3.86 UW GPA each semester onward. In my high school applications I mentioned the mental illness. This time I will just mention the family problems and say moving out helped immensely.
These are the colleges I am currently considering:
Macalester
Occidental
American
Emory
Tulane
I am not sure how likely I am to get into those schools or what other schools to add.
Pretty much any help would be greatly appreciated.