<p>I am a sophomore in high school about to finish my first semester and my parents want me to start looking at colleges. So far I have many ECs in music, Boy Scouts (many leadership positions), tutoring kids, Key club (president for 2 years), NHS (treasurer/secretary 9th grade and Historian 10th grade), Science Olympiad (not in 9th grade, president 10th grade), youth group (many leadership positions), ASB (student board representative 9th grade and Vice President 10th grade). I play golf casually but the reason I can't be involved in sports is because I got my 3rd concussion the beginning of freshman year. Also, the reason I hold so many leadership positions is because my high school is a new school and I am in the first graduating class, allowing me to help build the foundation of many of these clubs. In school I have received a 4.0 all throughout high school and this year I am taking a class at my local community college, with more to come in future years. I have not taken the SAT yet but I did take the PSAT last month and I will receive the scores in December. I am really interested in finance/economics, in addition to Computer Science. I have a list of roughly 30 colleges ranging from Ivy League schools down to small local universities. Should I be focusing my time on top level schools? I want to take trips to see some top colleges, but I don't want to waste my parents time and money flying around the country looking at schools out of my range. How should I go about narrowing down my list?</p>
<p>My first application deadline is December 1st and I’m still editing my college list… lol. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about colleges right now, that time will come. Focus on school and your present situation. If you invest your energy into your grades and extracurriculars and you don’t concern yourself with the somewhat far away future, everything will fall into place.</p>
<p>Look at schools that are ranked reasonably well in the specific field you’re interested in. It seems like you’ve already done that. The next step is to narrow them down based on what they offer non-academically. How urban do you want your school to be? Do you want a college town, a city, or somewhere rural? How many people? Do you want D1 athletics? Greek life? Close to home, or far away? How much money do you have, and do you expect to qualify for merit/need-based scholarships? Every one of those questions should rule at least a few schools in or out.</p>
<p>Sophomore year is a bit early imo. Your main focus should be getting good grades.</p>
<p>Your PSAT scores should be an indication of what colleges are in your range.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Remember that colleges like to see commitment and “passion” in a few areas rather than shallow participation in a million things.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>FTFY.</p>
<p>Since you don’t know your test scores yet, and it’s only the first semester of your sophomore year, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself in making a college list. It’s not apparent yet whether or not you’ll be competitive at top schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your list needs to have at least one guaranteed safety that you like and can afford. Then you can add reaches and matches.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Check with your parents about what they are willing to pay and provide them with links to some college net price calculators to see what they are expected to pay. </p></li>
<li><p>Have one or more safety schools on the list which you can afford and can get into. Typically these are state schools with some level of automatic admission built in based on some criteria like GPA, rank etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Visit a few types of schools (State, private, big, small, rural and urban) to figure out what type of school appeals to you.</p></li>
<li><p>Once you have a PSAT score, come back and talk to people on CC.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We did a little college visiting in spring of sophomore year for both of our kids. There is nothing wrong with that – but maybe visit a few colleges closer to home the first time. Check out an LAC, a university, maybe a more rural and a more urban school. Just to get a flavor for how you feel about the various size and locations. Once you have your PSAT back in junior year (around Christmas), then plan a serious round of visits for spring break and summer. If you have a family vacation or something in the vicinity of a college on your list in the next year, then you could take that opportunity to visit.</p>
<p>Right now keep focused on your grades and activities. Also think about how you are going to spend your summers if you are planning to apply to top schools.</p>
<p>And texaspg has that right – no point in visiting a bunch of schools you can’t afford, so I would ask your parents to please look at some of the NPC on a sampling of schools on your list. They may say, “don’t worry about it”, but they really should look at them… “don’t worry about it” in sophomore year can turn into, “Sorry, we can’t afford your dream school” in senior year if they don’t look at the numbers early.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is this true for the score you receive as a 10th grader?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>On some level it is. You can assume your ultimate SAT score will be higher, but it probably won’t change that much. My final SAT score was 240 points higher than my sophomore-year PSAT score times 10.</p>
<p>this might be rare, but for me
psat: 170 (soph)
sat: 2250 (soph) </p>
<p>and that was with like no studying. i think i took a practice test in between?? that was just my first try at the sat, and i knew i was gonna retake it, but then it worked out pretty well.</p>
<p>Did you sleep through your PSAT?</p>
<p>you’re talking to me, right?</p>
<p>lol no… but maybe i had test anxiety.</p>
<p>That is a huge difference if you took them in the same year. Not sure how far apart you took them.</p>
<p>Normally people work hard to improve from sophomore to junior year but I have noticed that it is hard to go up more than 250 points in consecutive years of PSAT if they are already close to 1900+</p>
<p>sophomore year: i took the psat in october and the sat in may</p>
<p>the curves could have played into it?? idk</p>
<p>They are similar tests except for the essay. </p>
<p>How did you do in 11th?</p>
<p>i didn’t take it in 11th</p>
<p>really? You were not interested in national merit?</p>
<p>i think that i was just lazy LOL</p>
<p>I suggest you start by identifying colleges you might be interested in that are easy to visit–either ones that you can drive to in a few hours or ones that you will be nearby on any family trips you take. Try to visit those this year and it may help you refine your ideas about what sort of school you want. I recommend you visit your state flagship school if it’s not too far away as it may turn out to be the most affordable option and give you a baseline for comparison with schools that may end up costing you more.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your responses. Is it even worth making a trip across the country Junior year to a school I like if I already know I like a school of a similar size close to home?</p>