Help me choose some schools :)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>It's time to start choosing which schools I will be applying to! I plan on majoring in business but i'm not completely sure which particular field. I was considering entrepreneurship, i-banking, or venture capitalism.
Anyways, the colleges I am currently considering are these:</p>

<p>Reach:
Stanford
Cornell
UPenn (Wharton)
UChicago</p>

<p>Match:
Berkeley
UCLA
University of Notre Dame
Northwestern University</p>

<p>Safety:
UTexas Austin
University of Virginia</p>

<p>Just some stats so you can get to know me as an applicant:
I am Asian (bummer), I live in Southern California (another bummer), and I attend a large public school (2000+ students). My mom doesn't work and my dad is a businessman who makes $250,000+ a year.</p>

<p>GPA:
- 4.7 weighted GPA (rank 10 out of 700)
- 3.9 unweighted GPA</p>

<p>SAT I:
- 2240 (720 critical reading, 750 math, 770 writing)</p>

<p>PSAT:
- 220 (National Merit Commended and pending, hopefully become a Finalist!)</p>

<p>SAT IIs:
- 790 on Math II
- 760 on US History</p>

<p>AP Tests:
- 3 on World History
- 4 on US History
- 4 on Environmental Science
- 4 on Psychology
- 5 on Language and Composition</p>

<p>(taking 5 more my senior year: Calc AB, Gov and Econ, Lit, Statistics, and Physics)</p>

<p>Sports:
- 2 years on Varsity Golf
- 1 year on JV Track and Field (100 meter dash)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
- 1st place for Public Speaking I at FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) Inland Conference
- 1st place at Science and Engineering Fair for RIMS County
(Yale Science & Engineering Association, Inc. 2012 recipient for Most Outstanding Eleventh Grade Exhibit)
- Kukkiwon Certified 1st degree black belt
- Organized soup kitchens to the homeless areas of LA
- Been to several missions trips to Mexicali and Tijuana, Mexico
- Interned (unpaid) at a State Assemblyman's office over summer (over 100 hours)
- Shadowed the CEO of an Inc 500 company (500 fastest growing private companies) on his business trip to China and Korea</p>

<p>Please give me some feedback on which schools you would consider if you were in my shoes! (not just from an academic perspective, I'm looking for all around good schools that are within my reach)</p>

<p>And if you could chance me for the above schools, that would be greatly appreciated :)</p>

<p>Thank you</p>

2

<p>bummppp! come on guys, can’t any of you help me out?</p>

3

<p>I think if I were you I might swap out one of the dream schools for another target school or two. Your list is a little top heavy with schools that accept under 10%. If you didn’t get into any of the reaches with your current list, would you be happy with the other choices?
Your an excellent candidate so I think there are tons of good schools you could get into.
I don’t know the acceptance rates for your targets, so I don’t know your odds there…You can look that up on any good college search site ([College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)) or the college’s own websites. Or google the Common Data Set for each of the schools…</p>

<p>Are you looking strictly at undergrad Business schools as opposed to majoring in economics and then going for an MBA? Are there other criteria that matter such as location?</p>

4

<p>Can you afford UT OOS? If not then it is not a safety. UVA will at least meet need. As to whether that should be considered a safety, I don’t think so. It is extremely competitive for OOS students.</p>

5

<p>OP said his dad makes over 250,000 a year. Financial aid not a consideration :-)</p>

6

<p>^^^</p>

<p>Uh, just because his dad earns that much does NOT mean that the family will pay full freight. Finances may, indeed, be a consideration. </p>

<p>If the parents will only pay the equivalent of a UC (about $30k per year), then cost or merit aid will be a consideration. </p>

<p>Safety</p>

<p>UTexas Austin
University of Virginia</p>

<p>While your stats are good for UCLA and Cal, those schools might still be low reaches for you since you are Asian and admittance at those two schools is VERY iffy. </p>

<p>Neither of those schools are safeties for you. Neither school accepts many OOS students. </p>

<p>You have a 1470 M+CR…very good, but not high enough to consider those schools as safeties…especially as an OOS student.</p>

<p>Because of your dad’s income, you will not qualify for any aid. </p>

<p>What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year? If they won’t pay more than a UC, then your safety options will be more limited since a safety has to be affordable.</p>

7

<p>mom2collegekids, you are very right. Just because my dad makes a good amount of money doesn’t mean that I will want to pay 60k a year for college. My sister is one year younger than me and my little brother is in elementary school, I do not want to put financial strain on my parents. I want to make my own money and pay off my own debt.
This is one of the main reasons Cal is a top choice. In state tuition is only about $12,000.
That being said, if I am accepted to a school like Wharton or Stanford, I will most likely attend. My parents (and grandparents) would not let me miss the opportunity to attend such a top-notch school.</p>

<p>I am quite confident that I will get into UTexas Austin. I plan on establishing residency there if I do not get accepted to any of my reach or match schools and then paying in-state tuition after the first year. </p>

<p>But since you have mentioned it, what would be some more suitable safeties in your opinion?</p>

8

<p>UT and UVA are safeties for you since they are a lot harder to get into OOS</p>

<p>You should also look at USC and UCB they have top Bschools</p>

<p>Also establishing residency isn’t easy
You would get half price from USC if you are a merit scholar</p>

9

<p>Before you plan to establish residency in Texas or Virginia as a way of lessening your tuition costs, check the laws in each respective state. You wouldn’t be able to establish residency that way in California, for example, and you’d be expected to pay out-of-state tuition all 4 years.</p>

10

<p>*UT and UVA are safeties for you since they are a lot harder to get into OOS</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>I think Barrk meant to write that those schools are NOT safeties…</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, Cal will cost a lot more than that unless you can commute. I think tuition is about $14k, but when you add other costs, it would cost about $30k</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>NO…you will NOT get instate tuition after going to school there for one year. Your residency is based on where your PARENTS live.</p>

11

<p>Yes I meant to say they aren’t safeties for OOS</p>

12

<p>So if you don’t want to pay full price unless it is one of your reach schools, then you need to approach the target/safety schools (other than your in-state schools) based on the odds of getting merit aid.
Trying using the stats here
[Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)=ALL&id=none
to find schools that give out good merit aid (you can sort the list based on average non-need based aid, but also note the % of student receiving that aid), and then see which ones have good business programs. Research those to see if you represent a better-than-average candidate for those schools. Tulane pops up as an example.</p>

<p>Or do the search in reverse, look up the merit aid stats for schools you already know have good business programs:
[Best</a> Undergraduate Business Schools 2012 - Businessweek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

13

<p>*Quote:
I am quite confident that I will get into UTexas Austin. I plan on establishing residency there if I do not get accepted to any of my reach or match schools and then paying in-state tuition after the first year.
*</p>

<p>I never understand this kind of thinking. If this were possible, then guess what? No one would pay OOS tuition after the first year. But, guess what? OOS students do have to pay OOS rates for 4 years unless their parents move there, or they MARRY a resident of the state.</p>

<p>Do you think colleges and states are stupid? Do you think that they wouldn’t notice that you attended the school for a year as an OOS student. Do you think they won’t think…“hmm, this student just moved here to go to school, he paid OOS tuition, his parents didn’t move here (and pay taxes), but he thinks we’re going to think he’s now a Texas resident?”</p>

14

<p>Okay just touched up on the residency laws.
The reason why I thought this was possible was because a friend of my dads told me that he did this. Maybe the laws have changed since however many years ago. </p>

<p>Anyways, since my scores and gpa seem overqualified for UTexas, wouldn’t I receive merit based aid or a scholarship? I think the average SAT score is in the 1800s, I got a 2240. </p>

<p>And if I am a national merit finalist, do they offer any automatic scholarships (like USC’s presidential scholarship)?</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>Does your google work?? </p>

<p>

[Plan</a> II Honors Program](<a href=“Plan II Honors Program | Liberal Arts | UT - Austin”>Plan II Honors Program | Liberal Arts | UT - Austin)</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>Tuition this year is $12K (well, actually $13K). But there are a lot of other costs of attending college than tuition. mom2collegekids is correct – if you live on campus, it’s almost $33K. Even if you live at home and commute, it’s going to run you almost $24K.</p>

<p>[UC</a> Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office Cost of Attendance](<a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm]UC”>http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm)</p>

17

<p>Okay. 30k a year is doable. 60k a year is not.
And if I get any merit based scholarships on top of that 30k, then that would be even better</p>

18

<p>Berkeley’s food estimates seem crazy to me…</p>

<p>Food </p>

<p>Living on campus: $940 (includes non-meal plan food as well)
Living off campus: $2,598<br>
Living at home: $1,686</p>

<p>I highly doubt that a year’s worth of meal plan food, plus off-campus food is less than $1000…especially when you look at the other estimates for food living at home or off-campus. </p>

<p>What am I missing or confusing??? Or maybe the housing rate for on-campus include the meal plan and that 940 only represents off campus eating??? Maybe that’s it.</p>

<p>Edited to add…I now see that their various housing prices includes the minimum meal plan. Better meal plans have an upcharge.</p>