Since your parents will not give you financial information, you have no way of knowing what financial aid you may get at each college, and you have no way of knowing if the resulting net price is affordable. You really need to talk to your parents about the money aspect. If they do not want to tell you, they should run the net price calculator on each college and tell you if that college is affordable.
Also, merit scholarships that are not automatic for stats tend to be opaque in terms of being able to estimate the likelihood of getting them, so you cannot count on them.
@ucbalumnus I will talk to my dad today when he gets back from work.
You should take your Guidance Counselor advice and apply to at least one CUNY/SUNY. You would be amazed at the number of students with your stats who end up at one of the CUNY or SUNY school due to the inadequate level of financial aid at higher rank schools or the parents cannot afford the COA. The CUNY application gives you access to six CUNY colleges. Students with your stats typically apply to the CUNY Macaulay Honors College.
Totally different question.
I was wondering why is your AP Lang score is delayed this year?
@MerryLee Not OP, but I don’t think they normally release the reason for a delay. Someone in the room could have been reported for cheating, and now the whole rooms under investigation, or it could be something else. I believe they release delayed scores sometime in August usually.
You might also look at Pitt as a safety. Try to visit along with CMU. If you like it the good thing is that it has rolling admissions and you can apply soon and know if you are in and can eliminate the need to try and find numerous safeties. Of course the financial issue may still apply so as reiterated many times so far you need to talk to your parents and get a better idea about that.
Also are you saying you don’t want to got to school in NYC? Otherwise Fordham might be an option.
^^ I believe the application for Pitt just opened so you can apply now.
@Dolemite I like the idea of rolling admissions, but I’m not a huge fan of Pitt. Are there any other schools with rolling admissions that I can apply to for a safety?
UAlabama and I think a lot of other southern publics have rolling admissions.
Have you nailed down the financial constraints you are working with?
@ucbalumnus I talked to my dad last night, but he’s being really stubborn. I think I’m just going to email him some school net price calculators so he can do it himself.
Will he even tell you “we will contribute $X per year” so that you can determine whether merit scholarships at schools that offer them will be enough to make them affordable?
If not, then you can only assume that $X = $0, so that your only safeties can be schools with automatic full ride scholarships for your stats.
@ucbalumnus No, but I’ll keep on trying to get him to tell me.
so just by sheer numbers, UCLA is a high reach for anyone. Cal is too for most people, but depending on major, may be easier for some over others. But don’t kid yourself, just because they are state universities, they’re not easy to get into. World class reputations. I have one at Cal and one entering Pomona. Both were accepted to UCLA. And with the new California application, they are moving to more and shorter essays than what they had the last 2 years. I think this will make it even harder to distinguish yourself. One tip though for UCLA: at the UCLA Day for Admitted students this year, Admissions said they are looking for students who are out to change the world. “Greater Good,” should be an emphasis of at least one essay. That’s my best tip for UCLA. Tough, tough school to get into. Everyone thinks they have a shot, hence 100,000 apps each season–the most applied to school in the nation.
You might consider Tulane as a solid school to which you would have a very strong chance of being accepted. I’d be wary of counting on Northeastern as a sure-fire safety: The school’s test scores have been increasingly rapidly, and my daughter knew at least one person with “good” stats who was rejected.
I agree about UCLA becoming a reach school in general. Only after my daughter was accepted did we realize how fortunate she’d been, since some of her high-achieving friends did not get in.
The thing about reaches is that they remain very hard to gain admission to even if your stats are in the 75%+ range. It’s not just that they are extremely selective; it’s also that the determinative criteria might well turn out to be something that seems utterly inconsequential from an outside perspective (e.g., they need a South Asian oboe player, they already have “too many” Econ majors from Northern Virginia, etc.).