How do I determine my reach, target, and safety schools? Recommendations welcomed.

College Search & Selection
1

I’m going to tour colleges and work on apps soon, but I honestly have no idea where to start. I know that GPA, standardized tests, extracurriculars, and rec letters are important in determining this, but other than that, I’m not sure how to use my stats, since I don’t know which schools have what type of standards. I’m also pretty unsure as to where to apply-- I’d like to stay in the Northeast, preferably. Thinking about studying something related to business-- accounting, or finance?

My unweighted GPA is 91.57, weighted is 95.14.

SAT superscored is 2310, SATII scores of 780 (lit), 710 (US History, but I think I’m going to try to retake to get above 750), 720 (Math 2, also going to retake), and 680 (Spanish).

5 in APUSH and AP Lang, and 4 in CompSci, so if there are schools that accept these, that would be awesome.

Extracurriculars are meh, officer for 2 years of the international club, part of the mock trial club, some awards for model UN (and I’m chairing a committee this year). Volunteered for the library from 7th grade until 11th, hopefully will get more volunteer hours in.

I also have scholastic awards for writing, though I have no idea if these are worth anything.

College recs/tips for school searching? I have no idea how to sift through the internet.

2

You look like a very qualified applicant. What is your home state and how much can you and your family afford? Are you in need of financial aid and/or merit aid? These questions need to be answered to give posters a starting point in recommending some schools.

3

Wharton, NYU, Boston College, Cornell, Lehigh, Bucknell and Villanova have the top programs in the Northeast. A little further south you have Wake Forest, Georgetown and Richmond.

You have great stats and will do very come acceptance time.

4

How much your family can afford to pay for college and where you can get admitted may help set boundaries. If your family income is above say $250k, then you will probably not be eligible for any financial aid although with your stats many colleges would offer good merit aid. So, if your parents can afford to pay $60k/year for four years then you are only limited by where you can get in. If they can only afford $30k then you are limited to in state publics or schools where you are awarded good merit aid. If your family income is the national median or lower (say $60k), then you will find that the mist selective colleges with large endowments are also the lowest cost. Say you live in MA and your family income is $60k and you get into Princeton and U.Mass Amherst. U.Mass will probably cost more than $20k and Princeton will cost less than $5k. Although you sound as if you aren’t that proud of your ECs, they are nothing to be embarrassed of and are probably about as impressive as most applicants. BatesParents2019 made some great college suggestions. Consider also Babson, Bowdoin, William & Mary, Georgetown

5

You can go the Economics route and have more choices.

6

Thanks for the feedback!

I currently live in NJ, and my family income is around $200k (around 150-180k AGI), which might make it difficult to get financial aid (which is definitely a factor). I’ve definitely considered schools like NYU and Georgetown, but they seem like reach schools rather than target schools (then again, I’m not really sure), and are pretty expensive, which is kind of worrying.

7

My son has the same GPA as you, the same interests, is coming out of a top prep school, but much much lower SAT scores. So while I’m not sure about match and reach recommendations, I did want to suggest a safety where I’m guessing you would get merit aid with such great SAT scores - - Bentley University in Waltham, MA. We’ve looked at quite a few business programs now, and honestly, from a facilities and job placement perspective, we were very impressed with Bentley. I would definitely take a look there. Even though I’m sure you will get in with ease, I see on their website that they have full and half tuition awards. Seems like you’d be in the running with those outstanding SAT scores. After touring 20+ schools between my two sons, I have to say Bentley seems very underrated to me . . .we toured Babson as well and thought Bentley had a lot more to offer, although Babson has a very pretty campus.

My older son goes to Bucknell and has a number of friends in the management school. The academics are strong, and my son loves the social scene, but it is very Greek, so you need to be interested in that, or at least not turned off by it. Very very happy, friendly students there though from what I have seen. Work hard, play hard type. It is expensive as all get out though so you’ll want to investigate the merit aid possibilities. I visited Lehigh with my older one, and they also have an impressive program - - my sense is it is quite similar to Bucknell socially. Again, I think you would have no problem getting into these schools, but you’ll want to research what kind of merit awards are possible.

8

Just saying, your scholastic writing awards are worth something. Don’t disregard that.