Help me assess my college list (Tulane, UMiami, UVM, UC's, etc)

College Search & Selection
1

I am a rising senior at a competitive suburban high school. I have taken mostly honors classes, with “on level” classes in math and have also taken a few AP’s: AP Government, AP Lang, AP Psych and IB Bio. My unweighted GPA is a 3.8 and my weighted is about a 4.3-4.4. I have ADHD and some learning challenges and I struggle with test taking. I may or may not be taking the SAT (depending on COVID) but plan to use the test optional options that have been coming out at most of my universities due to COVID. I hope to major in Psychology and got a 4 on my psychology AP but failed 2 of my other AP’s (Lang and Gov) mostly due to struggles with the timing of the test. I hope to keep these scores off of my app and hope that admissions officers won’t fixate on it. I got A’s in both of those AP classes. My GPA may not be quite as strong as it seems in comparison to other people at my school because the school and county does have a good amount of grade inflation. However, I’ve never gotten a grade lower than B and have an upward trend with all A’s and one B in my junior year. I am a pretty hardworking student and have cultivated positive relationships with teachers and my recs will speak to that. I have held down two jobs, participated in a year-long civil rights and social justice program which I care deeply about, and been on 2 varsity sports teams, POMS and gymnastics, for 3 or 4 years of high school, as well as some other assorted volunteering/clubs.
What I’m looking for in a school:a strong academic environment but not too ambitious/intense. would love warm weather if possible, but it obviously isn’t a dealbreaker based on the list below. open to all geographic regions. I like to party to a reasonable extent, but want an environment that is racially diverse, liberal, not dominated by Greek life and open-minded. I want to get involved with social justice and animal rights advocacy.
Below is my college list. Would love tips on if I’ve categorized reaches/targets/safeties well, and also other schools that seem to fit me.

Reaches
-Tulane University
-University of Miami
-Emory (stepmom legacy)
-UC Santa Barbara

Targets
-Syracuse
-UVM
-University of Florida
-University of Wisconsin
-UC Santa Cruz

Safeties
-College of Charleston
-UC Boulder
-James Madison University

2

Have you had an interview with Tulane yet?
I think you have a solid list, just keep in mind that some of these schools may defer/waitlist/reject you. Would you be happy at any of your safties? What about at your targets? Good luck!

3

For Tulane, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you apply Early Action, given that the school offers much more students admission from this pool vs. Regular Decision and the merit scholarship pools are different. As @uniresearch3 states above, definitely request an interview if possible, as Tulane DOES take into account your demonstrated interest in the application process.

For the University of Florida, I would recommend applying to the Honors Program if interested, as it’s extremely strong in sending students to prestigious fellowships and offers smaller classes in the context of a large public research university. However, the Honors program (not the university) had ~13% acceptance rate this year, so it’s definitely more of a reach school than a match. Honors requires two separate essays, and instructions can be found on the Honors website here: www.honors.ufl.edu .

Hope this helps! Good luck with admissions!

4

Are you a CA resident? UC’s offer no financial aid for OOS Students so your costs would be around $65K/year?

Do you meet all the a-g course requirements for the UC’s including a year of a Visual/Performing arts course?

UC GPA’s? https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/L

Intended major?

For the UC’s, OOS Honors courses are not weighted.