I'm So Confused IDK Where to Apply Next Year

College Search & Selection
1

I’m mainly looking for suggestions for schools based on my stats. kinda lost in the process lol.

Schools applying to:

  • NYU
  • Stanford
  • Dartmouth
  • Cornell
  • UCLA
  • More but undecided

GPAs

  • Unweighted GPA: 4:91
  • Weighted GPA: 4.7
  • UC GPA: 4.2 (I think)

AP Courses:

  • Ap World- 4
  • Taking: Ap Bio, Ap psych, Ap Lang, Ap Gov
  • School only allows sophomores to take one Ap

Extracurriculars:

  1. FBLA (9th-present)- President (10th-present)
  2. HOSA (9th-present)- Historian + Founder (9th-10th), Event Coordinator (Present)
  3. Field Hockey (9th-present)- Club Captain (present)
  4. NHS (10th-present)
  5. Children’s Hospital Youth Program (6th-present)- Committee leader (9th-present)
  6. STUCO (9th-10th)

Honors/Awards

  1. FBLA award
  2. FBLA award
  3. FBLA award (sorry trying to keep general)
  4. Honor Roll
  5. Academic Letter
  6. Academic Silver Pin
  7. Academic Gold Pin
  8. Challenge Award (taking 3+ weighted classes)
  9. Challenge Award (taking all weighted classes… only one other student in school has this award)
    Summers:
  • Freshman Year: STUCO camp (leadership), shadowed a doctor for remainder of summer
  • Sophomore year: STUCO camp (leadership)
  • Junior year: undecided. most likely commonwealth honors academy
2

My ACT without writing is a 33. I’m taking it with writing this month.

3

What are you thinking about majoring in?

4

What interests you in the schools on your list above? Why those?

You definitely need a well thought out list of matches and safeties/likelies. I really recommend picking up a copy of the Fiske Guide or borrowing one from the library and reading through it.

5

Your unweighted GPA isn’t 4.91 according to any GPA calculation approach that I have seen. Do you have all A’s?

What is your budget? Have you run the NPC on all of the schools on your list and are you and your parents okay with the results?

You don’t have any safeties on your list. For high stats students the “reaches” are sometimes easy to pick – just list the top schools in the US for your intended major. The “safeties” can be more difficult to pick, and need as much or more effort. We have seen quite a few threads over the past few weeks of high school seniors who only get to choose between their safeties, or in a few cases didn’t get in anywhere.

What is your home state?

6

Also think about what kind of campus you want- urban or rural? large or small? what part of the country do you want to live in? From your list - NYU and Dartmouth couldn’t be further from each other in terms of feel so other than “reputation” what attracts you?

7

Your stats are great and your extra curriculars are good but you definitely need some safety schools. There isn’t one on your list so far that you are very likely to get into.

Based on the list you’re currently looking at I would recommend UVA, UNC Chapel Hill, and University of Denver

8

What can your family pay? Have you and your parents run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of all of the places on your list?

Have you discussed this list with your guidance counselor? Which of these places have admitted students like you from your high school in recent years?

9
  1. talk to your parents about what they can afford from income and savings.
  2. build your list from the ground up. It means finding two affordable colleges tht admit 40%+ students and 3-5 affordable colleges that admit 30%+ students. Include your flagship’s honors college.
  3. get afiske guide and find 12-15 schools you like yet hadn’t heard of.