i need some reassurance with my list...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>hey, guys. so here's my list as of now & i wanted some feedback as to how it could be broken up between matches/safeties & reaches.</p>

<p>Boston University</p>

<p>Case Western Reserve University</p>

<p>Emory University</p>

<p>Macalester College</p>

<p>NYU</p>

<p>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>

<p>University of Rochester</p>

<p>USC</p>

<p>Vassar College</p>

<p>Wesleyan University</p>

<p>University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>

<p>University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill</p>

<p>UC-LA</p>

<p>UC-Berkeley</p>

<p>so, yeah, obviously i have a whole range of schools there. so, some advice on whether some of the reaches are realistic or not would be great, too :)</p>

<p>stats:
ACT-30 [W-34 ; M-32 ; S-26 :/ ; CR-26 :/] essay-8
SAT-2020 [CR-640 :/ ; M-690 ; W-690] essay-9
SAT II-Biology-660 ; USH-660
AP Scores-Biology-3;USH-4;Psychology-4
i go to a highly competitive public school in NJ. also, i'm bilingual [Turkish].
grades-heh, see here's my real weakness. i've taken a LOT of APs throughout the years so i haven't really gotten too many As, overall. so, it's been mostly Bs with some As mixed in. & junior year i really struggled & i got 2 Cs in APs [with an A and a B in the other 2 APs].</p>

<p>my ECs are pretty solid, though. i started a community-service-oriented club at my school 2 years ago, showing my passion & all that. i volunteer a lot & i did so in my background country [Turkey] over the summer. also, i have a couple of board positions.</p>

<p>basically, i'm a pretty good writer & my common app. essay made my GC tear up : )
so, hopefully that will help even out my grades a little bit. i've also had some atypical family problems & they may or may not get mentioned in my GC recc.</p>

<p>i know my situation is a little all-over-the-place & i'm not the typical student, but i'm really hoping that some schools would be willing to overlook some of my struggles in the past, & see my true potential. i went from 4 APs junior year [my major mistake] to 2 senior year+a couple of honors classes, & i'm getting almost straight-As now. so, hopefully i can keep that up. also, i've gotten pretty close with my GC lately & she knows how much i've grown from the past, saying how mature i am for my age & everything. so i hope that all really shines through in my letters.</p>

<p>haha, ANYWAY, so any advice? lol.</p>

<p>p.s. i won't be needing any financial aid.</p>

2

<p>The GPA makes it really hard to evaluate this because the ACT score of 30 is good enough for schools on your list with a good GPA. I don’t thnk anything on this list is a safety with the possible exception of Rochester. Wesleyan, Vassar, Berkeley and Emory are biggest reaches. You are probably better off apply to a larger list of schools because you situation is unusual and you don’t know which school will find your story compelling. Wisconsin is big into class rank so I think this is a reach. North Carolina is tough for OOS so probably a bigger reach here too.</p>

3

<p>UNC, UCLA, and Berkeley (Michigan?) are all super reaches with your scores/grades.
Michigan, USC, Emory, and NYU are reaches.
Wesleyan, Vassar are high matches</p>

<p>everything else seems a good chance</p>

<p>i think your list is pretty well-balanced, you have some solid safeties and some good reaches… good luck!</p>

4

<p>^^</p>

<p>With more Bs than As, Wes and Vassar are also reaches, IMO.</p>

5

<p>yeah, i figured my list was pretty reach-heavy. but are BU [couple of family members went/go here, btw], CWRU, Macalester, UWM, & UR <em>safe</em> enough matches? i don’t really have any true safeties that i would actually attend, so i figure those are fine?</p>

<p>also, our school doesn’t rank & we go by weighted, so i have about a 3.7 W, according to my school.</p>

6

<p>hmm, maybe i should add northeastern [mom went there] then. any thoughts?</p>

7

<p>WesKid’s probably right - wesleyan and vassar are reaches. and i’d suggest trying to find a true safety you’d actually want to attend! northeastern is more of a match(low match?) but i don’t know how heavily they factor legacy.</p>

8

<p>thanks, everyone who responded. any other advice?</p>

9

<p>Macalester is probably a reach. Case should be a match.</p>

10

<p>Your GPA is weak for Madison. Forget about UCB and UCLA.</p>

11

<p>I also agree that Berkely is going to be a huge reach for you (unless you’re in-state). However, if you really don’t need financial aid, being out-of-state might actually help you a bit. CA has this horrible budget crisis and our UCs are seriously suffering because of it. There’s talk of increasing OOS enrollment just to make ends meet. Then again though, you would have to decide if it was worth it to go to a UC is this crappy economic climate when resources are getting stretched to the max.</p>

<p>Enough with the CA budget rant though, I think you have a list with quite a few reaches, but I think many of your schools will value your rigorous course load. I agree that maybe you should find a true safety, but honestly, I think you will probably get into some of these, so you probably won’t need it. Just in case though.</p>

12

<p>Try Miami (Ohio), Indiana U.</p>

13

<p>yeah, i took UCB & UCLA off my list for a while. but considering the budget thing and the fact that i liked both schools when i visited, i recently re-added them on a whim :P</p>

<p>i just looked at Madison’s website & it says that the GPA range they usually see is 3.5-3.7 [basically, my weighted] & my ACT/SAT scores are either on the upper portion or outside of the range, so i’m thinking that’s a match/safety. so, i probably won’t end up applying to northeastern since i probably would not go there under any conditions :&lt;/p>

14

<p>hm, bumppppp?</p>

15

<p>bump of desperation? heh.</p>

16

<p>Fordham, Clark U (Worcester, Mass), U of New Hampshire, U of Vermont, U of Massachusetts-Amherst, U of Colorado, U of Kansas, U of Iowa, Indiana, Miami (Ohio), Miami (Florida), Clemson, American University, Dickinson, Denison, Gettysburg, Allegheny.</p>

17

<p>haha, wow, thanks! i’ll definitely look into some of these. yeah, fordham was on my original list, so maybe i’ll put it back on.</p>

18

<p>Also, Union College in New York.</p>