In desperate need for SAFETY schools!!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am an asian female, applying to undergraduate college, with a major in English.
I have a 3.98 unweighted GPA and a 4.41 weighted GPA. I am currently taking 4 AP's (Gov, Psych, Lit, Calc AB) and took 3 others in the past (APEuro:4, English:5, APUSH:5), along with about two or three honors classes a year. I am ranked number one in my small class of less than 80, at a private school.
I am ASB Vice President, and am the president of a gardening club, Vice President of our International Thespian society (honor theatre) troupe, and have been extremely involved in my school's drama program.
I am a national merit semifinalist, and have an SAT score of 2280.
SAT 2: Lit 730, US History 740 I am taking Math 2 this saturday, and Lit again, but don't think I will get much higher.
I am thinking of going either the English-to-writer route, or the English-to-lawyer route.</p>

<p>I am applying to:
Stanford (reach)
Princeton (reach)
Columbia (reach)
UC Berkeley (match)
UC LA (match)
I am considering Johns Hopkins, but think that it is kind of a reach for me, and I have too many reaches.
I AM IN DESPERATE NEED FOR A "SAFETY SCHOOL" to apply to, and with my budget, can only apply to (at MOST) two safety schools.
I like feeling like I am in a campus, not a sprawled out building-here, building-there conglomeration, and place a lot of importance on school connections/alumni and feeling of community.
Do you have any suggestions for SAFETY schools?? And what do you think of Johns Hopkins (I've heard that they have a great Writing Seminars program, but also a very science-centered feel in the community)? THANK YOU!</p>

2

<p>Maybe just try your local university for a safety school… such as University of (statename here) … or (state name here) State University</p>

3

<p>JHU is a great school with a great english department. How much can your parents afford? I’m assuming not much if you can only afford to apply to 8ish schools. If you don’t know ask them, and have them give you a specific dollar amount.</p>

<p>Are you a California resident? If not what’s your home state? If you are, any of the other UCs could be safety schools (with the possible exception of UCSD, and even then you’d likely get in), and all they require you to do is check off a button and pay the $55 application fee. All of them have a well defined campus and all but possibly Merced have a decent, if not excellent, English department. </p>

<p>If you need a full ride, check out the guaranteed full ride thread. Plenty of other schools would give you merit aid for your stats.</p>

4

<p>There are several threads on the topic of guaranteed merit based scholarshipsin the Financial Aid Forum. Go to that forum and scroll down until you find those threads. The one on guaranteed full rides has links to most of the other threads, and an updated list of the full tuition & full rides on about p. 10. Sorry I can’t post the link myself frm this device.</p>

5

<p>This thread contains a lot of good info.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/881237-ivy-caliber-safeties-matches-condensed-advice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/881237-ivy-caliber-safeties-matches-condensed-advice.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>JHU is an excellent school best known for pre-meds and engineers. It has a nice campus but the area around it is not very nice.
I’m surprised you don’t have any LACs on your list, since that sounds more like what you are describing.</p>

7

<p>I assume you are in-state for CA since you have UCB and UCLA as matches. Here is a slightly old list of schools that offer good NMF scholarships:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html&lt;/a&gt;
Denison U, a LAC in OH, gives full tuition scholarships.</p>

<p>Here is a list of full tuition/ride scholarships: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;
Bama would give you a full ride.</p>

8

<p>Michigan, Colgate, Emory, Miami-Ohio, Boston College, Wisconsin-Madison, Wake Forest, Richmond, Maryland, Fordham.</p>

9

<p>Are you a california resident? Looking at the information you gave us, I feel like any of the other uc’s can be a safety schoolf or you.</p>

10

<p>Thanks Sacchi, you’re right, that was a really helpful link! It was very comprehensive.</p>

11

<p>Erin’s Dad, thanks for the link, it was really interesting–I didn’t know that there were that many State schools with nmf full-rides… Do you know if I have to name the school my #1 choice (if I get Finalist status; the results haven’t come back yet) to get the scholarship? I know some of them do, but do you know if that is the case for all of them?</p>

<p>And yes, I am a California resident.</p>

12

<p>You’ll make NMF unless you have some behavioral issues since your grades match the SAT scores (15K/16K NMSF become NMF). You just have to name your #1 choice in April/May after you’ve made your college choice. You can leave it TBD until then or even change it at that time. I don’t know if you have to do that in all cases but I would imagine it is a requirement because they want credit in the documentation with College Board.</p>