<p>(Warning in advance: deathly blocks of text.)</p>
<p>I thought I had a good college list, but then I realized just how top-heavy it was. I've got my reaches more than covered, and now I've fixed up my safeties- but can I have some help thinking of matches? It's half that I'm drawing a blank and half that I really don't feel that I can see myself clearly enough to know exactly what is a match.</p>
<p>To prevent overlap, right now my list is: Stanford, Brown, Chicago (legacy), UC Berkeley, Reed, Tufts, UMD, St. Mary's College of Maryland, University of Redlands, University of Rochester, and Northeastern University; maybe Duke (legacy), UNC, or the University of Washington. This may be cut back a bit- I probably won't apply to more than one of the 'maybe's, and might drop a few of the others- but will likely stay essentially the same.</p>
<p>Demographics: caucasian, Maryland, female, need-based aid is not happening
School Stuff: big public high (class is 620), in a science and tech magnet program so that I can go from out-of-boundary (I like humanities waaaaay better, but it's the only reasonably good publich high in the county), presumably in the top 5% of my class (but my counselor just didn't feel like telling me my rank..... aghhhh!)
GPA: 3.90 unweighted (3.86 Fr | 3.86 So | 4.0 Jr); 3.93 w/o freshman year
4.14 weighted (3.86 Fr | 4.0 So | 4.57 Jr); 4.29 w/o freshman year
Testing: 231 PSAT, 2290 SAT (800 R | 700 M | 790 W), 800 Bio E SAT II, 800 W. History SAT II, 780 Math II SAT II; am retaking the SAT on the next testing date to bring up that math score for superscoring.
APs: US Gov (5); Bio (5), Calc AB (5), Lang (4), W. History (4) [Overwriting on some essays and underwriting on the others! >:( Basically, lousy time management. It was really embarassing when the scores came back. I'd been swearing that it would be the other way around this year.]
Have taken, wherever possible, APs and honors classes (or my magnet program's equivalent thereof), whichever was both tougher and available (with one exception, Physics- stuck to honors equivalent).
ECs: editor-in-chief of the school satirical newspaper w/ involvement all four years and a leadership position in Soph. yr. before the previous EIC decided to restructure and killed my position; Model UN in Jr. and Sr. years, w/ an award for the best new member this past year; Japanese National Honor Society/J-Club in Jr. and Sr. years (JNHS helps run J-Club, which is almost too active; only eligible for JNHS since Jr. year).
Senior Yr. Courseload: AP Stat, AP Lit, AP Japanese, AP Computer Graphics (technically Studio Art, but w/e), Creative Writing, Research Practicum (senior capstone project for the magnet program- see 'Other'), and either a second period of AP CG or AP Env. Science, depending on how much the scheduling office hates me. We'll see.
Other: National Merit Finalist. This summer/school year I'm doing my senior capstone project as part of a small group collecting data in a national park near my school, though I won't know exactly what my topic will be until sometime after school starts. I'm a fantastic writer. I'm also getting two great recs from teachers, one from my guidance counselor (who hardly knows me... T_T), and can probably find one more great one if I need to.
Also: I was depressed for much of my Fr. year and the first part part of my Soph. year because I got outed to my parents and then went through a messy breakup- I managed to keep my grades up for the most part, but doing more than one EC was not something I could keep up with, and you can tell I was exhausted if you look, since I was picking out my courses because I only took 1 AP in Soph. year instead of the 2 that I could.</p>
<p>I'd prefer colleges in California, the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast, and the mid-Atlantic if you really must. Distance from home (suburb of DC) is a HUGE plus. Size isn't really a big issue for me, but somewhere between 4,000 and 25,000 is probably best. NEEDS to be LGBT-friendly (emphasis on the L...) and preferably with at least a liberal slant (like that'll be a problem); being in a liberal state = also a huge plus. Equal focus on the humanities and sciences, please- or at least not too far to one side (my bias is for the humanities)... Ability to double-major is important, as are majors in English (more important), History, and Computer Science (not quite as important). Wide selection of languages, lack of religious affiliation, not a huge core curriculum are pluses (but not necessarily necessary). The geekier, the better :D</p>