Hi! I’m a little behind on making a college list, so I’m hoping you guys don’t mind helping me out!
Demographics
US citizen
Minnesota resident
Public high school (top 10 in state, but that doesn’t say much for MN…)
White female
Intended Major(s)
Economics is my #1, but I’m also considering journalism or poli sci.
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): (5.0 scale - only AP courses are weighted): 4.4
Class Rank: N/A
ACT/SAT Scores: 35
Coursework
8 APs (Have received all 5s as of now, anticipating 5s and 4s for this year’s scores)
Planning on taking 5 more APs senior year
2 college courses
3 honors courses
Awards
Both AP awards
1st place in personal finance decathlon (PFD) state MC comp
2nd place in PFD state case study comp
MN journalism 1st place award for editorial writing
Team captain 12th grade (next year)
Developed financial literacy course and “taught” it at local middle school
~ 30 hours
Focus on preparing kids for financial decisions in the future (i.e. saving for college, buying a house, etc)
National Honor Society (NHS)
~ 100 hours
Volunteer soccer coach for elementary school team
~ 80 hours
Essays/LORs/Other
Essays will probably be pretty good (I have a lot of writing experience and can have my newspaper advisor look over them)
Expecting pretty good LORs
Cost Constraints / Budget
Currently mainly looking at public unis (UMich, UNC, UW-Madison)
Only willing to splurge if the uni is a t25
I’m interested in the military unis as well (mainly the Air Force Academy), but not sure if I could get in. Please let me know if there are any competitive unis you think would fit me well! Thanks
Splurging is great if you have the money and are willing to spend. On the other hand, if you have need, you can apply to any meets need private but mainly not UM.
So you need to give a figure. You can spend $20k or $90k+.
What are your parents willing to spend ?
Would you rather top 25 at $90k or great public at $20k or $40k or private at $35-50k?
Also what is your end goal ? Why do you need a ‘top 25’?
The obvious choice, especially if you want to stay in the Midwest, is Northwestern. It is strong in everything, known for journalism, and has a great alumni network. NU is top 10 overall, #8 in Econ, and #1-4 in Journalism, depending on who is ranking. The downside is that it is an expensive private school.
On the plus side, it is Big10ish, so at least strong football teams will come to play in Evanston. It is a short train ride from Chicago, the campus is beautiful, and Evanston is a nice college town. They sell t-shirts on campus that say, “Harvard: The Northwestern of the East”, or at least they used to.
It’s very late in the game to pursue a military academy; the nomination/admissions process is complex. (Coast Guard Academy has a more “normal” admissions process if that’s of interest.) Are you genuinely interested in a military career? And if so, do you want to prioritize schools that have ROTC?
I assume from your characterization of elite schools as a “splurge” that you would not qualify for any need-based aid, correct? And your family could technically afford up to 90K/year but would only pay that much for certain highly-coveted schools?
Of the most elite schools, Northwestern comes to mind as one that’s particularly strong in all of your areas of interest.
How do you feel about private schools with merit potential? For example, I’m thinking of both Scripps and Claremont McKenna, in the Claremont Consortium. The individual schools are smaller LAC’s, but the consortium has around 7K undergrads and thus has many of the resources of a mid-sized university. The consortium-wide student paper is top-notch (and pays its student staff) and has sent multiple recent grads on to careers at top newspapers. Econ and poli sci are excellent throughout the consortium.
UMich OOS isn’t that much cheaper than a private U, but it would be great for what you want.
The 35 ACT makes me wonder if your PSAT might have qualified you for NMSF. If so, USC could be a fit, and cheaper than UMich with half-tuition merit for NMF and the possibility of competitive full-tuition merit. Northeastern also gives a big NMF merit award, and a double-major in journalism can lead to some great co-op opportunities.
But a lot will depend on outcome desired - is it Wall Street, Law School, DC, or I don’t really know.
If it’s the last three, then it’s really budget driven because there’s likely no advantage for Michigan or UNC vs IU, UMN, or numerous other publics - and that’s what OP stated.
And if private - yes NW but OP said econ first - but Syracuse is a worthy NW fallback, strong in all three but we really need to understand finances and desired outcomes.
Too many say top 25 but too often that gives no leg up, nor would the schools actually fit the student well. Of course, fit is first and foremost.
There has got to be a better way to evaluate campus newspapers than “based on student ratings of their campus newspaper.” This seems like a terrible proxy for how useful a publication is in launching journalistic careers. And indeed, the list is all over the place in terms of institutions.
Anecdotally, Rice is on this list and the Claremont Colleges paper is not. I’ve had a student on each of these campuses and while the Rice paper is a perfectly fine student publication, I would 100% choose the 5C’s for a budding journalist. I follow several former 5C’s journalists who have impressive careers already, just a few years out of school. The one Rice student I know who is pursuing a journalism career didn’t even write for the Thresher.
Like so many “listicles” and rankings, “garbage in, garbage out” rules the day.
I’d say that anecdote — such as that which you provided — is not logically superior to aggregated opinion (such as that provided by disinterested survey-based information). Both, one, or neither may be of value to the OP.
Thank you so much for your helpful response. To clarify, there is essentially no chance I will receive financial aid. As for the academies, I’m in the process of requesting a nomination, and I know a few people who have gone through the process who are guiding me through that. I am considering doing ROTC in college (kinda considering becoming an intelligence officer for a little while like my dad was) if I am not accepted into USAFA. Hadn’t even thought about some of these schools, though, so I really appreciate your advice!
Bad methodology is bad methodology… and it’s the misrepresentation that’s the problem. I’m not claiming that my observations are anything but my observations. A list like this, that assigns actual rankings based on aggregated bad data, is presuming authority that isn’t warranted, and counting on people to take it at face value because it’s “The Princeton Review”. How many college students do you know that read their own student newspaper, evaluate it critically, and compare it to any objective standard? This is just laziness on the part of the list-makers, who really don’t care as long as they get clicks. They could at least poll journalism professors or something like that… but that would be actual work, whereas adding a single question to a student poll is cheap and easy… but pointless.
Definitely not only military (if I do military, would only do it for the min. 4-6 year “requirement”). For sure looking to go to grad school. If I’m being honest, I am still pretty undecided career-wise, so not entirely sure what I’d do after.
I would suggest then - and I assume you have a budget or perhaps you want inexpensive and that’s why you are looking military?
Do you have demonstrated need? In other words, have your family run the net price calculator for Northwestern and see if you’d get aid. Above you said you likely don’t though.
I would argue that where you go matters little. UMN is a wonderful school - and there’s no reason to attend Michigan. More inexpensive than Michigan would be a UF. IU would be very solid in all three areas. And Alabama and Arizona would also be fine - but more importantly inexpensive. For a bit smaller school, you might look at Miami of Ohio - would be solid as well.
What would you get out of a top 25? Short of wall street, how would a Michigan give you an advantage over any of the others? It would take a lot more of your money though.
Frankly, you can apply to any school in the country - but it’s just a question of what you want to spend.
Talk to your family and find out what the budget is and if there are certain caveats (i.e., we’ll spend X amount for these schools and Y amount for any other school).
If you’re a Minnesota resident, then I believe you’d also get access to to U. of Wisconsin at resident rates, as there’s a reciprocal agreement there. As others have mentioned, U. of Michigan would be much more expensive. To put it in context, UMN would be about $28k/year, UW-Madison would be about $24k/year (assuming you get the in-state rate due to reciprocity), and Michigan would be about $69k, so not quite at the pricing of the Top X private schools, but not that far off. Is your family okay with the costs of all three of these?
What do you want out of your college experience? Some questions you might want to reflect on include:
How importance is class size to you? Do you learn better in small discussion classes or do you prefer the anonymity of larger lectures?
Do you want big school spirit, particularly around intercollegiate athletics, or do you not really care?
How do you feel about Greek life (i.e. fraternities and sororities)?
What kind of climate are you looking for?
Are there states you would prefer to study in (or prefer to avoid)?
How do you feel about urban/suburban/rural locations?
Do you prefer to be one of the top students with prime opportunities handed to you, or do you prefer to have to constantly hustle to keep up with your peers?
How would you describe the vibe at your ideal college?
Once we know more about what you want out of your college experience (including a budget), then you might be able to get some better suggestions from the people on the board.
It looks like U Wisc in state is $11,216 and MN residents are $15,530 - so not quite the same - but much less than the OOS tuition (for others) of $40,612.
So great call there - U Wisc is often a sub for UMICH - but even in state UMN is fantastic.
