Little to idea of where to look for colleges... help appreciated!

College Search & Selection
1

GPA: 4.0 (unweighted) Rank: 2/424 Asian Male, Rising Senior in South Carolina

ACT: 35

SAT 1550 800 Math II 780 Chemistry 800 World History

5 in APHG and APWH, just finished up AP Calc BC, Physics I, English Language. Reasonably confident that I can get 4/5 on those exams.

Planning to take APUSH, AP English Literature, AP Bio, AP Chemistry in my senior year

My school stuffs all AP classes into the second semester, greatly limiting my ability to take AP classes :frowning:

I’m confident that I can get great letters of recommendation from my Calculus, AP English Language, and my Russian teachers as I have great relations with all of them

ECs: MUN (president), guitar, 150+ volunteer hours, tutoring other students at my school in math, member of school’s broadcasting team, Young Democrats

Currently playing violin going on 9 years, I am my school honors orchestra’s concertmaster, played in the state’s best orchestra and was a member of a national high school orchestra last year

I spent 60+ hours, while in Korea, as an English-Korean interpreter at an international clinic

Two-time state winner at HOSA state competitions, and two-time national competitor for HOSA Intl Leadership Conference (5th place last year). I am the Vice-President of my HOSA chapter

Participated in the ACTR National Russian Essay Contest and the Olympiad for Spoken Russian, received gold-level awards in both

Intended major: Public Health, Linguistics, Chemistry (still thinking)

Reach: Brown, Cornell, Princeton, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Rice

Match: WUSTL, Purdue, Georgetown, Wake Forest

Safety: Clemson University Honors, USC (south carolina) Honors, Winthrop University

Still trying to sift through colleges, programs, and the Common App, explaining the lack of a definitive list of colleges above. Any recommendations of other schools would be greatly appreciated!

2

Gtown may not be a match. And WUSTL is sensitive to being considered a match/safety — show interest.

3

URochester would be a great match school. Top-flight music opportunities because of Eastman. Strong in all of the sciences, linguistics, and public health (with undergrad majors in all of these). Instruction in 18 foreign languages. Fantastic research and shadowing opportunities for premeds, if that’s your path, and also lots of non-medical STEM research. Also an accelerated BS/MPH option. Open/flexible curriculum is ideal for combining disparate interests. Fairly generous with merit aid, especially for “renaissance person” type applicants. The education there is not inferior in any way to the most competitive schools.

I think you’ve got a shot at all of your reach schools. But with those, once you’re sorted into the broader category of qualified applicants who have a shot, it’s still a lottery for unhooked applicants no matter how qualified. You’re assembling a good list and you’ll have great options, with some level of randomness making the final determination as to which options they are.

4

WUSTL, Georgetown and Rice are about equally selectivite – WUSTL and Georgetown aren’t matches.

5

With respect to an example of a type of school you appear to have omitted from your list, think about Swarthmore. You could pursue chemistry and linguistics with other brilliant students, while playing in an accomplished orchestra. You could research NESCACs as well for those with programs of interest, or maybe Vassar. With any of these colleges you could consider an MPH for postgrad.

6

Agree about Swat, but it is still a reach due to low acceptance rate.

7

G’town and WUSTL aren’t matches due to acceptance rate.
Add URichmond, URochester, UMichigan for matches.
For safeties, I’d use Pitt honors rather than Winthrop. You could add UMaryland (+ one of the scholars or honors programs)

8

As others have suggested, the biggest weakness in that list seems to be in the middle.
WUSTL and Georgetown are too selective to be considered “match” schools.

Another issue, maybe, is that you don’t mention anything about costs and budget.
Have you run the online Net Price Calculators on some of those schools and discussed the results with your family?
Can you cover the Expected Family Contributions without exceeding the federal student loan maximums?

If your family can afford Purdue’s ~$40K OOS sticker price, then you should have many other “match” possibilities among OOS public universities. Others in the Southeast with similar OOS sticker prices include:

  • University of Florida
  • University of Alabama
  • James Madison
  • Virginia Tech
9

Get a 36 or 1600and UAlabama has a fantastic scholarship package for you. Guaranteed admission both to the university and it’s honors college. The ultimate safety.