Hi everyone! I’m in a bit of a predicament. I’m a rising senior, and I’m realizing now my list of prospective colleges is basically all reach schools. My parents said I can apply to as many schools as I want, so I was hoping to get some advice as to where else I should look. Here’s some info about me:
I go to a pretty average public high school in northern New Jersey, definitely not the likes of Livingston, Millburn, Chatham, etc. if any of you are familiar with those but it’s not too terrible
I got a 35 on my ACT first try in February (35 English, 33 Math, 36 Reading, 35 Science)
I took the SAT in December and got a 1340, and I don’t plan on retaking it now or submitting it since corona decided to ruin everything
We couldn’t take AP classes until junior year at my school, and I only took APUSH and AP Stats as a junior. Otherwise, I’ve been in all honors classes since freshman year. Next year I’m taking AP Physics 1, AP Calc BC, and AP Comp Sci
At the end of this year I’ll have a 4.56 GPA weighted on a 5.0 scale
I’m a member of math (running for secretary in the fall), science, and English honors societies (secretary), and they haven’t released the roster for social studies yet but I’d assume I’m in it
I’m a member of my school’s American Sign Language Club, and I plan on running for president of it in the fall; also a member of my school’s extracurricular orchestra club (I play the viola) and the freshman mentoring program
Since quarantine has started, I’ve begun writing a children’s book and I have helped tutor elementary schoolers over Zoom as part of this program some alumni from my high school organized
Not exactly sure what I want to study yet, but probably business or computer science
My current list of schools is: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, Georgetown, Duke, Ohio State, UMich, Vanderbilt, UNC Chapel Hill, UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, University of Virginia, and Emory (Stanford and Harvard are my #1 and #2, but everything else is about even)
Both of my parents are unemployed right now because of coronavirus
Thank you in advance for your help! I really appreciate it. I know a lot of these schools are incredibly unrealistic for me so I definitely need to look for some more on my level.
I’ll get back to you on the unweighted GPA thing, I have to calculate that myself. My parents said they can pay like, at most, 15-20k a year for me, but I’m hoping that since neither of them are working right now I’ll be able to get decent financial aid.
EDIT: With only core classes, my unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale is 3.95 I believe.
Have them run each school’s net price calculator to get an estimate of costs.
Need based financial aid will be based on their 2019 income, and current assets at the time of filing FAFSA and CSS Profile. If you need merit, you will have to focus on the schools that offer that, like U Alabama on your list.
Safety/target: You’re in NJ so include at least one affordable in state option. If Rutgers-NB seems unappealing, do a deeper dive into the Honors Program/College. Your stats would likely get you merit at Rowan, College of NJ, or possibly NJIT. Rutgers Newark has a decent business school. U Maine Orono would charge you the same tuition rate as in-state for Rutgers. You might want to check out U Del, U MD, or U of WV as targets where OOS merit is possible.
Based on your 15-20K budget, Berkeley and UCLA will be unaffordable as there is no financial aid for OOS. Michigan offers only a few named merit scholarships (highly competitive) and UVA has a named scholarship by separate application (Jefferson?), also extremely hard to get. Emory and Duke also offer competitive merit scholarships. You might be able to get some merit money from Ohio State or GA. You’d get merit from Alabama due to stats.
As for the competitive but meet full need reaches on your list (Harvard, Stanford, etc.) you will have to submit the CSS profile as well as the FAFSA. While your folks are currently out of work, if they have significant assets/savings, that will affect how much need-based aid you might be awarded.
Your stats are great but budget drives the process. Best of luck to you.
OP wrote that she is undecided as to major but debating between CS (computer science) and business. This is important as many schools require/encourage applicants to apply for direct admission to become a CS major or a business major.
OP: As a resident of New Jersey, UCLA & UCal-Berkeley may be too expensive as UCs do not give financial aid to non-residents. If you eliminate UCLA & UCal-Berkeley, then you have 18 schools remaining on your list of which 13 are reaches.
Reach Schools on your list:
Harvard
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
Chicago
Northwestern
Columbia
Georgetown
Duke
UNC-Chapel Hill
Brown
Vanderbilt
Emory
Match schools:
University of Michigan
University of Virginia
University of Georgia
Safety Schools:
University of Alabama Honors College
Ohio State University
OP’s parents can contribute $15,000 per year, while OP can borrow $5,500 per year plus the annual incremental increases.
Realistically, OP should focus on finding safety schools which with an annual COA of $15,000 or less after scholarship merit money is applied.
You can eliminate some of those reaches with some careful research and consideration. Chicago and Columbia have strong core curricula, but Brown is very open - this is just one example. Careful discernment is needed to show how you fit what each institution is looking for.
But first - your parents must run the NPC to get a 4 year cost of each school, especially the reaches which only offer need based aid.
I agree with South Carolina and Ole Miss. Other schools with good merit include Arizona and Miami OH.
Your stats are great but NJ is tough because there are so many high stats kids. Northwestern told my son they could not give him an interview because of the number of applicants from our area. The Georgetown interviewer (from Short Hills) told him his son was applying for a seat in the same class, hmmm. My son (with a near perfect transcript and 5 AP classes) and others in his class got rejected from some of your reach schools so make sure you apply to safeties and target schools, even with a great record. You might want to look at McGill and Binghamton as “good value” schools. Good luck.
Thank you all so much for your help and best wishes! I really appreciate it.
Yeah, it’s really frustrating being from here because like EVERYONE is super smart. And of course, the colleges look at the kids who come from Millburn, Livingston, Chatham, Newark Academy, etc., and then the average schools in the Essex / Morris county area get overlooked, at least from what I’ve seen. Princeton takes roughly two kids from my school each year, and we’ve had a few Harvards in the past, but no one in the history of my school has ever gotten into Stanford (my #1) as far as I’m aware. It sucks.
I’m in the South Orange/ Maplewood district. The kids I know that were accepted to Stanford have been African-American top athletes and great students. The one girl I know that was accepted to Northwestern this year is an AA theater major. We have one student each this year going to Harvard, Yale and Princeton and they are all NM either semi finalists or finalists and exceptionally talented at math/science. Two to the US Naval Academy. Have not heard of any acceptances to Georgetown. If you can get into Rutgers NB Honors College, they have a beautiful dorm that looks like a nice hotel.
@octahate As the parent of kid at a school you mention, the biggest advantage, in my opinion, is most of those kids are also full pay and able to afford it. Our school is very highly ranked, great college results, and almost nobody gets into Princeton, so if your school averages 2 a year, that’s pretty impressive. We also have not had great luck at Stanford. Acceptance rates at those schools are so low, it all depends on what they’re looking for in any given year.
Also from NJ here!
You can run the net price calculator to see your expected family cost.
Other than that, you’ll have to target schools with merit.
UPItt
UMD
Ohio State
UMiami
come to mind for a chance at high merit. Miami gives a lot of $5-16k merit and some full-tuition scholarships you might be competitive for.
You indicated that your parents are out of work due to Covid and that you are hoping to get enough FA to bring the cost down to what they can pay…which is no more than $20,000 per year.
Will your parents eventually return to work? Keep in mind that once they do, you may be full pay or mostly full pay…and you might not get enough FA to pay for school. You need a 4 year plan…not a 1 or 2 year plan.
UVA and Michigan are reaches…both financial and being OOS.
I would add instate NJ schools where you will receive enough merit to bring the cost down.
I would look at private schools and OOS publics where you might receive full tuition scholarships (your parents can likely afford R/B at these schools…which could be $15,000+). Keep in mind that you will have to give up the prestige of your current list.
I would run the NPCs and see what the costs are at the schools on your list, and what they might be once your parents return to work. Add a few…be prepared to give them up if they are unaffordable (or if they will be down the road).
Apply for a few competitive awards at schools such as Emory, but be prepared to walk away if you do not receive them (these scholarships are competitive and unlikely).
Look into the U of South Carolina, Arizona, Pitt, U of Vermont, URI, the SUNY schools, Ohio State, Elon, maybe Richmond. Keep Alabama. UMD will likely not give you the merit you need.
Admission wise a safety. Affordability wise a reach. A presidential merit scholarship is very likely, but does not bring the OOS price down to $20k per year. The UVM NPC does predict merit aid (and for us predicted correctly).
Rutgers is a very good university. I think that you definitely should apply to it. I would add a second in-state public university. You may very well end up with 10 or more acceptances, and find that most are just not affordable. You want to avoid the situation in which all are not affordable.
I agree with others that the Universities of California are very unlikely to be affordable. You should figure that they will cost the full out of state price, which is way over your budget. You have a very long list and dropping the UC’s would make the list a little bit shorter.