Help me find safety schools!

All As and 5s so far for AP classes

Brandeis would be a match.
Clark, Agnes Scott would be very good safeties if op expresses interest through the Request information form.

All As and 5s so far for AP classes

Brandeis is not a match with a 30 ACT. It would be a low reach.

WPI, UMass Amherst, and Northeastern are all good east coast schools for pre-med. WPI and Northeastern could give you decent merit aid and UMass Amherst isnt that costly, even for OOS. WPI and Northeastern are both big(ish) city schools and while UMass Amherst is somewhat isolated, its area is sorta like a bigish city especially with the surrounding colleges.

I don’t think Macalester is a “low match”. Probably a regular match, though. Willamette seems like a safety for you. Dickinson is a nice match, and you might get some merit there, bringing the cost down to around what you can pay.

@zbrown01 I totally agree with your post. However at 50,000 per year for a full pay, out of state student at UMass-Amherst is not perhaps as “low cost” as you would think.

However it depends on what you think “isn’t that costly”. It is much lower than many private schools

I meant it is less than private schools yes. I also forgot to mention in my post that they do offer decent merit aid for out of state students ($10-14k is common). I was originally thinking their aid was awful, because it was, but then I remembered I’m in state lol.

Didn’t know about the merit for oos. Good information. I think when I went it was 9000 a year for everything. 5000 was a guaranteed loan. So 4000 out of pocket. Full pay. This was the later 80s. Lol.

@sophieee123 What is your budget? Have you had the money conversation with your parents? Until you know what they are truly ready, willing, and able to pay, and whether they are imposing any specific conditions on that payment, a lot of the suggestions you are getting here are moot. Sit your parents down and run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of your home-state public universities and a couple of the places suggested here. Have adult beverages and soft tissues handy in case there are tears.

You need to find at least one place where your stats flat-out guarantee you admission and that you know for dead-certain you can afford with no aid other than guaranteed federal aid and/or state aid and/or merit aid offered for your stats. Plenty of places post that kind of information right on their websites.

OP states $55k max. With costs going up the way they have been, should look at $50k and below. Which does include most OOS public schools as well as all public instate ones.

I wish posters would read a whole thread before falling down the affordability/merit money rabbit hole. OP knows her budget and she’s looking for safety school suggestions, not financial aid, not matches or reaches. Does anyone have other safeties that are a good fit given requirements in post #3?

OP - my D had similar stats - worse GPA better scores - and her safeties were Rutgers and Temple. She was not pre-med though. Both schools offered her the Honors college and at Temple at least that made the school overall much more interesting academically. She wanted city, not the outdoors though and Rutgers is less big-city urban so that fell down the list. Since you mentioned you’d consider either I thought I would add them on.

I have older siblings in college so I know what they are willing to pay for. As long as its under 70,000 per year it is doable for my family.

You’d need something better than your instate publics though: either private schools with better learning conditions and/or low weedout, for instance. Or better Honors colleges - but UOregon’s is excellent.
So a good goal would be a private that’ll admit you for sure and will discount sufficiently, while offering something else than UO Honors.

Whitman is an excellent LAC that is often overlooked. Merit aid is available.

I’ll go ahead and third CU Boulder. Without a doubt the best “vibe” I had when I was touring schools. Gorgeous town and the flat irons as a backdrop is pretty spectacular. It is a very sunny city even though it snows, and it isn’t in the middle of no where. If I had gotten better aid, I would have gone there for sure (I was OOS).

With a better ACT score (32+) Case and Rochester can be targets. Case is fairly generous with merit.

OP mentions 5s on AP tests. If they are STEM related it’s highly possible that a lot of the premed credits can be waived.

Are you referring to the required college courses?

Most medical schools require the following courses:
One year of Biology with lab.
One year of General Chemistry with lab.
One year of Organic Chemistry with lab.
One semester of Biochemistry.
One year of Physics with lab.
One year of English.