Hi there, a current high school senior here. I’m beginning to start my college applications and I’ve been looking into schools but I don’t know if there’s a shot for me at any of these decently competitive (under 25% acceptance rate) universities.
Little background- I hope to go into international studies or affairs of some kind and want the college to offer a lot of language courses because I want to take lots of language classes- but only really competitive schools seem to offer all the ones I hope to take.
Anyway, here are my current stats:
3.85 GPA unweighted, 5.1 weighted (my freshman and sophomore years in high school I was at a school where I couldn’t take any AP’s as an underclassmen and then moved to a different school)
7 honors classes and by the time I graduate this year 6 AP’s total
Top 20% of my class
1270 SAT score (which I took last year when I was sick so I’m retaking and will most likely get it up much higher.)
I’ve done speech and debate all four years but have only one award
FCCLA as an underclassman
FBLA as an upperclassman because my new school didn’t offer FCCLA-
5th place at FBLA state last year.
I completed the female equivalent of an eagle scout which took two years to finish.
I am president of my church youth group and mentor younger classes in my church.
I do an early morning before school church class and have been all four years.
This past summer I went on a selective state-department funded scholarship to South Korea for 7 weeks to complete and intensive Korean language program.
In my free time I study Spanish and Korean (I’ve taken Spanish all four years of high school)
I also play piano and flute but I’m not sure if I should put that on my application
College Budget?
Geographic preferences?
School preferences? Public/Private/Large/Small/Rural/Urban?
No budget if the school has the perfect academics I will make it work- though as you can imagine cheaper is better!
I’d like it to be either east coast or west coast, and I would want it to be either in or a close commute to a city.
I’ve been looking at a few UC schools, NYU, UW, Wisconsin-Madison, and the DC schools as well, though they all seem quite competitive
If you are not a California resident, UC’s do not offer financial aid so expect to pay $60K/year to attend. Does your family have $240K to pay for you to attend for 4 years?? UC’s are very competitive and even in-state applicants have difficulty getting into their own state schools. SAT score is low for many of the UC’s but GPA is within range. I would still get a $$$ from your parents and run the net price calculators on each school of interest before applying. No point of applying if a school is unaffordable.
The best chances you want to be at or above the averages:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT:
UCB: 1280-1490
UCLA: 1280-1500
UCSD: 1250-1470
UCSB: 1290-1450
UCD: 1190-1430
UCI: 1190-1420
UCSC: 1170-1380
UCR: 1090-1310
UCM: 1020-1230