<p>Help please I am a high school junior overly stressed about my college education, and would appreciate it if people could provide me with a mix of prospective schools (safeties, matches, reaches)</p>
<p>Please disregard financial need, I will apply to several safeties where a full ride is likely (Bama, Howard, etc)</p>
<p>-3.69 UW GPA (low, I understand, but rising in a steep manner)
-Most rigorous curriculum at my school (highest math placement, English placement, etc) including 8 Honors and 6 AP courses by graduation
-2230 projected SAT, 33 projected ACT
-African American (not using it as a crutch, but I realize it may alter a college's decision)
-Above average ECs (I think) including over 200 hrs community service, 4 years Varsity swimming, club swimming for 25+ hrs a week (team captain), apprenticeship in Neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University, U.S. ambassador sent to Russia to swim with their national team, NHS, 12 academic/socially uplifting clubs, lifeguarding and academic tutoring</p>
<p>-If you could please provide feedback I would greatly appreciate it! I just wish to know if I am on the right track and whether or not I should adjust my college search</p>
<p>P.S. I, as of now, want to major in Biology</p>
<p>Thank you in advance!!</p>
<p>I think the reason no one has responded so far is because you haven’t really provided any other criteria aside from “ignore financial aid.” What kind of environment are you looking for - urban, suburban, rural? What size school? What part of the country? Are you mainly looking at universities or would liberal arts schools be an option as well?</p>
<p>CC is a very self-selecting community, and a lot of people here will have above-average ECs, but I think yours are definitely impressive and above average. Same with your projected scores. Honestly, you’d have a shot at most schools, but I think there are to many potential “match” schools to list unless you refine your criteria a bit.</p>
<p>I would go down the list of the top 15 - 60 school ranked by US News as National Universities. Screen out the ones in locations you wouldn’t consider living in. That should give you a good subset. Then continue weening it down and you’ll have a decent list. </p>
<p>You want to consider the schools location, environment, programs, etc.</p>
<p>Thank you both! </p>
<p>EDIT: I am interested in schools in urban/suburban areas with a fairly small student body </p>
<p>(<15k grad/undergrad). I prefer the eastern half of the US, unless the school is in </p>
<p>California like Stanford, UCB, USC etc. LACs are okay, but I definitely enjoy a university </p>
<p>more. If there is any missing info, feel free to ask. I am new to CC and new to the whole </p>
<p>college planning thing, so please bear with me :)</p>
<p>Thank you for your patience/feedback everyone!</p>
<p>Here are some ideas: Georgetown, Hopkins, Brown, NYU, Columbia, BC, Harvard, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA.</p>
<p>Projected SATs/ACTs are not especially useful. When do you have real scores?</p>
<p>I have not yet taken the actual tests, but from practice tests and the PSAT, I am on track to score around those. I will retest until I get at least those scores though</p>
<p>No one wants to answer a college chance with “projected SATs.” Because no one wants to waste their time helping someone unless they have concrete stats. And to be honest, based on your 3.67 GPA I do not think you will be getting a full ride at Bama. You will get some sort of a scholarship because you are an URM, but I doubt a full ride. However, your E/C are good.</p>
<p>2 suggestions:
1 - Invest in a good college guide book. My favorite overall is the Fiske Guide.
2 - Try using the college search tool here on CC with all of your data. [College</a> Search - College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/)
Be sure to expand the number of results at the top (20 by default) and be sure to select “must have” for any important criteria, otherwise it may come up with some odd matches.
What’s good about this site is that it compares your GPA and test scores against the reported ones for the schools and tries to guess the “fit”. It represents the fit as percentage and when you click on the “why?” underneath the fit number it shows you how you compare.</p>