Hello,
The college counselor at my son’s school is inexperienced and not helping the students, so I am trying to help. My son is an Asian international student with a 3.2 GPA from a US high school and a 29 ACT. He has been in the US for 5 years. His main extracurricular is choir, and he has sung solos. He has devoted a lot of time to it.
He is interested in a school with between 5,000 and 10,000 students, not in a hot climate (can be west, east or central but not south) and preferably urban. He would like a school that is diverse and has a significant international population. It could be a Christian school or a non-Christian school–either is fine. Cost is not an issue at the moment, so no financial aid will be sought. He is thinking of social sciences, particularly psychology and education, although he has no experience in these fields, except as a caretaker for younger siblings who are 10 years younger. He might want to switch to engineering or try a 3-2 program which offers both. He would like to continue singing in college, probably not as a major but would like a school that has options for that. He also enjoys intramural volleyball. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Depaul.
Has he visited any colleges yet? Would he prefer a college with a significant population of Asian students?
What does his transcript look like in terms of rigor? Is the 3.2 GPA unweighted? If you calculate a UC/Cal State GPA without freshman year grades, what is the resulting GPA?
The University of Hawaii at Manoa came up at the top when I ran the SuperMatch with your specified criteria.
He would prefer somewhere without too many Asian students. He is on the AP track this year but not the past few years (the school does not offer AP courses but AP tracks within courses). I do not know if the GPA is weighted. It is as small private school. Also, he does not do so well in warm weather, so HI might not be so good. Do you have any other thoughts. Thank you!
He has not visited colleges but said that Wash U St Louis and Carnegie Mellon interested him, which might be difficult to get into.
His scores are not high enough for Wash U and Carnegie Mellon unfortunately. What year of high school is in and which state are you in?
He is a senior and is in Wisconsin.
Unless he will have his green card before he graduates from college, there is little sense in majoring in education. It is extremely unlikely that a school would be willing and able to go through the H1B process for him. What is his visa status now? Is it likely that he’ll have a green card by graduation?
What plans does the family have for returning to the home country or moving to another country? What skills will he need to enter a job market there? That should inform his choice of major.
Has he looked at any of the state universities in Wisconsin? He might like some of them.
Thanks for asking these questions! I will discuss them. Yes, he is looking at the Wisconsin state options.