<p>SAT: 2200
ACT: 35
SAT II's: not back yet but I think good
Hooks: Native american. I'm registered and also have and continue to participate in the native american community.
GPA: 3.8 (really bad I know. Do I have to send?)
5 AP's: all 5's except one 4.
Primary caretaker for younger sister with downs syndrome.
Participant in best buddies for 6 years (as an officer almost every year)
About 500 hours of community service with 2 of my most beloved charitys for junior year.
Anyways,
REACH: princeton, MIT
PROBABLE(some are a little more of a reach): upenn, dartmouth, northwestern, duke.
SAFETY: university of michigan-ann arbor, NYU</p>
<p>Is this a good list for me? Some of these schools would be impossible because I don't have as strong an application but I'm really relying on my native american heritage and test scores. Suggestions? Help? Thank you!!</p>
<p>Don’t submit your SAT score. And yes, you have you “send” your gpa…</p>
<p>35 + Native American + 3.8 should get you into just about any school you want. Keep in mind the rigor of these schools. Just because you can get into a school doesn’t mean you’ll fit in intellectually. At some schools you may find yourself at bottom of the totem pole and that’s not a fun place to be. At others, you’ll find yourself near the top, and that’s a much more comfortable situation.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything here that would make me think you wouldn’t fit in intellectually with the people at Princeton and MIT. You certainly have the academic credentials. If you don’t, Princeton and MIT won’t accept you. Your heritage may lead them to prioritize you over other qualified candidates, but it won’t get you in by itself. </p>
<p>I think it’s a great list. You might want to add another safety or two, just to be really sure.</p>
<p>I have a suggestion, and a couple of quibbles with things you’ve said.</p>
<p>Suggestion: this list is top-heavy, with respect to both selectivity and price. Unless you’re from Michigan, there’s not a moderately priced university on your list. If your family can’t just draw a check from your 529 for the cost of Princeton or NYU–actually, if they can’t cut four such checks–you need some financial safeties.</p>
<p>Furthermore, although I think with your stats you should be able to get into NYU, what will you do if that falls through? If you were my kid, I’d want to see more academic safeties on your list, too.</p>
<p>Quibbles:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>About your GPA–is it 3.8 unweighted? If so, it’s not eye-catching, but it’s not “bad” at all. With a 35, Native American ancestry and a compelling personally story about caring for your younger sister, I think you have a better chance than most at every institution on your list. On the other hand, if that’s 3.8 weighted, and your unweighted GPA is lower, you need to do some retooling.</p></li>
<li><p>About your “probables.” They all admit between about 10% (Dartmouth) and 18% (NU) of applicants. Even for a Native American with a 35, I think it’s overly optimistic to call any of them “probable.” You have, perhaps, a better shot at admission to these universities than most, but in these ranks, “better than most” is still a long way from “probable.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Unless cost is an issue. If cost is an issue, you need an entirely different list. And which list you need depends on whether you family qualifies for need-based aid, or doesn’t qualify for need based aid but needs you to find merit aid in order to make college affordable.</p>
<p>It’s true that Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth and Penn should be good with need-based aid, but only if you get into them. I expect the same is true of NU, but I don’t really know. Duke has merit-based aid, but probably not for an applicant with a 3.8 GPA. NYU is notoriously bad with financial aid.</p>
<p>If cost is really a factor, one safety isn’t enough. A student who needs to shop for value needs several aid packages to compare in April.</p>
<p>The reason cost hasn’t been a factor is because my family has no money. My mom is a single mother and we live off welfare and child support because she can no longer work. I work under the table when I can. So the reason my list is top heavy is because better schools tend to offer more financial aid. I appreciate the help. I am from maui, hawaii so I won’t get instate anywhere and I won’t apply to hawaii schools. Thanks! And my gpa is unweighted.</p>
<p>It would be good if you had a wider swath of mid-range schools that might offer merit $ to a student of your caliber–WUSTL, say, and USC are known to do that.</p>
<p>I don’t know which colleges or if this still applies, but it used to be that several schools were free to registers native Americans. I think it was land grant colleges. Then other schools would try to give scholarships just for having that heritage. </p>
<p>I know this is off topic…but if you are the primary care giver for your little sister, who will take care of her while you are in college? Will she be going with you and you stay in an apartment? How will all this work?</p>
<p>You sound like a wonderful person! I think you will be competitive anywhere.</p>
<p>Your safeties are not financial safeties, so you really need to adjust your list. Also, be aware that for these schools that are listed, most will also require your non-custodial parents financial information, so be prepared to ask this of the other parent. I would expand youlist to a few more schools that meet 100% need. </p>
<p>NYU cannot be a safety if you cannot afford the full price of $60,000 per year. NYU is notoriously bad with financial aid. Even just on admissions, NYU is probably not a safety for anyone.</p>
<p>Michigan is one of the few public universities that considers “level of interest” in freshman admissions, so it may not be as solid a safety as most people think of their in-state public universities. If you are need financial aid (especially if you not in-state), then you need to consider cost and financial aid there as well.</p>
<p>Check each school’s net price calculator to check what it may offer in need-based aid. While some highly selective schools (Harvard, Stanford, etc.) will offer good financial aid, others (including NYU) are at the other end of the scale. If you have no money, then you are looking for at most a remaining cost after non-loan financial aid of about $5,000 per year (which can be covered by subsidized Stafford loans; if you score good summer jobs or internships, or live frugally, that can help). University of Hawaii - Manoa will probably fall into this category if you are a Hawaii resident from a very low income family with no money. Slightly more may also be doable (subsidized Stafford loans and good summer jobs or internships and/or living frugally).</p>
<p>A safety must have these characteristics:</p>
<p>a. You must be assured of admission.
b. You must be certainly able to afford to attend.
c. It must be a school that is academically appropriate (has your intended or possible majors, or something “close enough” in the case of majors which are interdisciplinary combinations of other subjects) and which you will like to attend.</p>
<p>Note that a 3.0 GPA and 34+ ACT will give you an automatic full ride at the University of Alabama Huntsville campus. You may want to see if it can be a safety candidate.</p>
<p>Some reach-level full ride merit scholarships to also consider:</p>
<p>Duke: Robertson Scholarship
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill: Robertson Scholarship
North Carolina State University: Park Scholarship
Georgia Tech: President’s Scholarship (note that there are several levels for out of state students, including a full ride level and a full tuition level)
Berkeley: Drake Scholarship (only for mechanical engineering majors)</p>
<p>Have you checked with your tribe about any scholarships? We have a friend who is also Native American and his tribe pays for him to attend school.</p>
<p>One thing that makes me go hmmmm about your list is that you’ve got lots of really urban schools – MIT in Boston, NYU, Penn, or almost Urban schools – Northwestern. And then you have Dartmouth. Part of finding a fit is finding a place where you want to live and be. I always wonder when I see a list that has both really rural and really urban schools. </p>
<p>If you want “city”, maybe add UChicago or Columbia? If you want rural, then I’m sure there are schools to add too, I’m of the city persuasion, so I’m not as much help there.</p>
<p>This may be a silly question, but nobody else has asked it.</p>
<p>Are you sure you like all these schools? You’re from Hawaii and have no money so I’m assuming you haven’t flown to New Jersey to check out Princeton. Make sure you have done a ton of research. Also, you haven’t said what you’re planning to major in. If you are gonna do engineering then MIT and Michigan are really the only colleges you have listed with really well-known engineering programs. If you are planning on doing something else then I might take MIT off because when I visited it was all about engineering and it didn’t seem like it would be very fun if you weren’t an engineer.</p>
<p>I just flat out dont even understand where the separation between these schools are. From what ive learned NYU is a school capable to hang with the ivies and such so why it would be your safety is just ridiculous. </p>
<p>You have great stats but all the schools above should be your reaches. UMich is the least competitive of the list and id still put them on a reach-probable list.</p>
<p>I think you should look into schools like U of Maryland as safety type schools and even those are competitive. Just look into which schools are good fits and have what you want.</p>
<p>Yeah some are rual and some are urban, but I’ve done research and those are all schools I could really see myself at. NYU a little less. They all have really good, and obviously different qualities. I plan on majoring in international studies/relations. And all those schools have good programs for that. Dartmouth does seem more random but I liked certain things about it and it was started for native americans, so I thought that was nice since I’m really into my familys culture. I’m not like obsessed with a certain setting.</p>