I’m a senior in high school, and I want to study classics. I’m a hispanic LGBT girl, and I’ve taken Latin as my language course in high school, this year I’m taking Russian too. I have a 3.33 unweighted cumulative GPA, and although I haven’t taken the SAT yet my projected score is around 1300. My dad is pushing me to apply to Princeton, Yale, Pomona, and UChicago. I want to go to a research school because I want to study languages and folklore, and try to find the “root” language. Is my application strong enough?
Your gpa would need to be 3.8 + and SAT 1500+ to be competitive for the schools you mentioned.
Still plenty of options for schools where you will be competitive and get a great education.
Do you have any schools that you would recommend?
Perhaps look at smaller liberal arts schools such as Middlebury college. Google which colleges have your interested major as it seems fairly specific then work from that list. Yale and Princeton are super reach schools for everyone and your stats aren’t quite high enough.
We need more information in order to give you good advice.
What is your course rigor (honors/APs)?
Does your HS have a good track record of sending students to highly selective schools?
Home state?
Class rank?
What can/will your parents pay for college?
Run each school’s net price calculator to get estimated costs. Note the NPCs may not be accurate if your parents are divorced, own a business, or own real estate beyond a primary home.
What majors are you interested in? A language? Which one(s)? Linguistics? Folklore? Others?
The schools listed above are very different…beside major, what other things do you want on a school? Size, setting, geography, vibe, etc
In addition to the high reach schools above, you will need a couple of more reasonable reaches, a handful of match schools, and at least one affordable safety as well.
those colleges seem a bit out of reach for you.
The Ohio State University has a folklore major and a center for studying it- maybe that’s a place to start. I think maybe Indiana University does too.
I take honors English and have taken AP Human Geography and AP US History. Next year I’m taking AP US Gov, AP Lit, AP Art, and AP Environmental Science. Typically students at my school take 6 courses, my junior year I took 7, and next year I’m taking 8. I live in Washington, and most of the students at my school go to UW Seattle. Someone from class of 2020 is going to Columbia, and I know kids in the past have gone to Rice. I’m interested in Classics, Classical History, and Classical Linguistics, I’m taking Russian and Latin next year. As a casual hobby I’ve been learning French and Spanish, and I’m hoping to start learning Greek too. I don’t care too much about the setting or size of a school, I don’t go outside much anyways. The colleges I listed were my dads top picks, but personally I really like Colgate and UC Santa Barbara. My affordable safety school is Western Washington University, though if I went there I would major in History.
A friend of a daughter went to Chicago. He might be the strongest student that she knew. I am not sure if he ever had a B in his life before he went to Chicago. In middle school he and my daughter were the strongest two students in the school in math, but he was strong at everything else also.
He came back at every major break and complained about how much work it was and how academically tough it is. I think that at one level he loved it, he learned a lot there, but it was very tough.
I would not even apply to Chicago with a GPA below 3.5. Even if you get in, I would not recommend attending.
Also, I understand that a lot of people do not agree with me on this next point. This is something that I feel partly because I attended an undergraduate school that was very tough: I personally would not recommend attending any university where your unweighted GPA puts you in the bottom 25% of accepted students. All of “Princeton, Yale, Pomona, and UChicago” are tough enough for the students who get there in the top 50% of accepted students.
I think that you need a different list of schools to apply to. There are a very large number of very good universities with very good professors. There will be very strong professors and very strong students at any university in the top 200 in the US, and at many other universities as well.
UCSB is out of Reach with your stats and UC’s require a minimum 3.4 capped weighted GPA to apply as an OOS applicant. Average admitted GPA is a 4.13 capped weighted.
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Also you would be full pay at $65K/year to attend with little to no financial aid. UCSB is not known for your intended majors.
I believe Colgate is a major reach with a 3.3 GPA.
At this point I suggest you get your hands on some good college guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review) and read up on schools that are more in your academic wheelhouse. Perhaps also look at the Colleges that Change Lives website if you want a small LAC. If your HS has Naviance that is an excellent tool as well.
There are many schools that would be happy to have you as a student.
You need to work to create a realistic application list that includes reach, match, and safety schools based on your academic stats. The schools should appear affordable (run net price calculators) and you should be excited about the prospect of attending each of the schools on your list.