Help Please, Need to Escape Bama

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am currently a junior at a so-so school in Alabama and I'm still trying to figure out where to target application wise. While not completely opposed to the south as a whole, I would definitely like to leave the Heart of Dixie. If you could just help me by chancing or pointing me in a certain direction I'd be grateful.</p>

<p>White</p>

<p>GPA: W 4.3
UW 3.8</p>

<p>ACT: 32 (still taking and hoping for another point or two)</p>

<p>EC: Eagle Scout
Occupied every position in my boyscout troop there is with multiple terms served in most
Staff a leadership training program for the Council Anually
Order of the Arrow (honor society)
Served as Crew Leader at Philmont, backpacking 91 miles in 12 days.
35ish Merit Badges and over 15 individual awards including religious medals, service awards, etc.</p>

<p>Tennis for 7 years, placed several times in the USTA State Junior Team Tournament including a Runner Up. Varsity for 4 years and received a individual runner-up medal in the county tournament.</p>

<p>2 years of scholars bowl, disbanded.
Captain and Team High Scorer Freshman and Sophmore years.
Recieved all kinds of state recognitions and all state team awards in middle school.</p>

<p>Top 10 in the state geography bee</p>

<p>4 years marching band, 2 as section leader.
2 years in schools highest concert band as well including qualification and trip to 2nd highest concert festival in the country.</p>

<p>Founding Member of my school system's Superintendant Advisory Council.</p>

<p>French Club</p>

<p>National Honor Society</p>

<p>National Merit Semifinalist</p>

<p>I'm really liking Brown and Vandy in particular but also Penn, Cornell, and Rice. Others include Georgetown, Tulane, and UChicago. Maybe Columbia? Anyway, I have fallback schools as well but I'm trying to gauge whether I'm aiming too high. I'm open to suggestions and and any help would be quite appreciated!</p>

2

<p>APs include history, chem, bio, stats, English 11 and 12, gov and Econ. My school only offers AP Junior and Senior year.</p>

<p>Also class rank is looking like valedictorian</p>

3

<p>All of them are reaches except Tulane. I think you still need to consider U of Alabama as your safety because not only it’s actually a fine state university, but also you can get full tuition scholarship. Also you might be eligible for scholarship that’s only for Alabama residents. </p>

4

<p>Bump</p>

5

<p>Geographical diversity may play in your favor…play up the rural southern thing in your essays if possible. I know the wanting to get out of the South thing…daughter did as well, went to MA for UG and now in NH for med school.?</p>

6

<p>Thanks, I’ll make sure to. </p>

7

<p>You’ve got your dream schools - all but Tulane would be reaches, because of heir selectivity. You’d have a definite shot but no certainty.
Since you have “fallback” schools, you now need to find matches - school that admit more than 30-40% applicants, where you’re above median to near the 75% threshold.</p>

8

<p>Could you give me some suggestions for match schools? There just aren’t very many in my area so I really don’t know what to look for.</p>

9

<p>look at some liberal arts colleges</p>

10

<p>Thanks, any other ideas for schools I should know about match wise?</p>

11

<p>Emory University?</p>

12

<p>Do you live in a rural area? Did one of your parents get a 4-year degree? Are you willing to travel far? Would you rather want a conservative or liberal college?</p>

13

<p>Emory University is too selective to be considered a match school.
OP, what are you interested in studying or looking for in a college?</p>

14

<p>I’m right on the border between rural and suburban, and both of my parents have bachelors degrees. And I’m willing to travel quite a bit, in fact I would prefer it. I am quite liberal, and would like to avoid a super conservative school, but then again my city was just ranked the #1 city for conservatives in the nation so I don’t really have much to compare myself to on the Liberal side of things. I’m looking to study something like history or Romance languages. </p>

15

<p>If you like Brown, look into Amherst. Both have the great open curriculum</p>

16

<p>Could I consider something like William and Mary? Or would that be too selective as well? And thanks I’ll look into Amherst.</p>

17

<p>You need to first narrow down what kind of school you want. The ones you listed are vastly different from each other. Big, small, in between? How about budget…that will cull down your list.</p>

18

<p>Hahahahaha that’s actually really funny you say that. I’m actually a current student at William and Mary. It’s an absolutely great school for studying history (second oldest school in the country) and it has a wide selection of study abroad choices if you are interested in languages. (According to their website, highest study abroad rate of public universities)</p>

<p>As an out of state student though, do you have a budget? That will be an important consideration going forward, especially when narrowing down college choices.</p>

19

<p>I qualify for quite a bit of Financial Aid at most schools but William and Mary looks awfully steep. I’m using the net price calculator and I have for most if the schools I’m looking at and I qualify for quite a bit of need based aid. </p>

20

<p>Family income is 100k-ish</p>