<p>Hi y'all,
So I need help finding colleges. My dad went to community college and my mom went to technical school like fifteen years after high school graduation, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do and which colleges would make a good fit. Here are my stats:
- GPA 4.0 uw, 4.998 weighted
- Class rank either 3 or 4 (not available until September) of 576
- I'll have 12 or 13 AP's by the time I'm out of high school, right now I've only taken AP World and gotten a 3, but my teacher sucked so I'm not really surprised. I'll take it again in college if I need to.
- I've taken quite a few Pre-Ap (honors pretty much) classes starting in sixth grade, with the first Pre-Ap class available, math. I took that one in elementary, eight Pre-Ap in middle school, and will have seven in high school once I graduate.
- PSAT sophomore year without any prep whatsoever 193; took one from a few years ago this past Monday and got a 210, will prep a lot before this year's
- Took the SAT in 7th grade with Duke TIP, got a 1900</p>
<p>EC's
- Junior Varsity basketball for two years (I won't be playing any more though)
- Academic Decathlon last year and the upcoming two years
- Volunteered with Meals on Wheels for the past nine years, started out with my dad
- Have written two novels, will write two more this upcoming school year
- Played in a garage band for six years
- Play guitar, drums, clarinet, keyboard, piano
- Can speak English (obviously) and Spanish (through school) and am teaching myself Korean, Russian, and Japanese
- NHS (and middle school NJHS)
- Mu Alpha Theta (math club)
- Plan on starting a GSA at my school this upcoming year</p>
<p>What I need in a college:
- An actuarial science program
- An at least decent LGBTQ support base
- An honors college
- The warmer the city, the better</p>
<p>I live in Texas, and I am going to need a lot of aid anywhere I go. My parents own their own business with one employee and they don't have a lot of disposable income.</p>
<p>So yeah, any help would be greatly appreciated. Even just giving me a few ideas on where I might fit in without any consideration of my intended major would be great. Thanks!</p>
<p>I go to public school, and no, 7th grade is not a typo. </p>
<p>My family will contribute what they absolutely have to, but it probably caps off at $10,000 a year. My sister is going to start college the year after I do, so they need to keep that in mind too and not spend so much that my sister has to go to community college.</p>
<p>XtremePower, a lot of kids take the SAT in middle school as part of talent search programs around the country (the OP mentioned Duke TIPS, that is one of them). Others include CTY (run by Johns Hopkins), Midwest Academic Talent Search (Northwestern), etc. Students who score well can get access to academic services for gifted students and can apply to selective summer programs run by the talent search programs or programs like the Davidson THINK program. Some students take the test because they are identified by their schools as candidates, some are registered by their parents.</p>
<p>The scores themselves are generally wiped out of the College Board system when the students reach 9th grade unless the student/parents request otherwise. So those students generally go on and take the PSAT/SAT in high school just like everyone else does.</p>
<p>Thanks intparent for explaining. I really only included the score because I haven’t taken a SAT in high school and figured it would give a little bit of an idea of how I would do.</p>
<p>My advice to you is to get one or two good college admissions books and guides. Borrow some from the library if you don’t want to buy them. Read the chapters that will give you an overview of the whole process and how it all works.
For help in picking schools I really liked the Fiske Guide to Colleges. The same author also produces “Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College” but I haven’t read that one.
Also there are some good websites that will help you get started:
<a href=“Home – BigFuture | College Board”>Home – BigFuture | College Board;
[Prepare</a> for College | Federal Student Aid](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/prepare-for-college]Prepare”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/prepare-for-college)</p>
<p>You also don’t necessarily need an actuarial science major. Few actuaries majored in actuarial science, because it’s not a common major. However, all schools offer various math majors, and many have actuarial tracks or concentrations within those majors to help you prepare for the exams. If there is a school you like that is otherwise a good fit, you should have no problem getting everything you need there to start an actuarial career.</p>
<p>BeanTownGirl, Thanks for the links! My counselor is barely even able to give me information about summer school, let alone college and a career, so the link you gave will be very helpful.</p>
<p>Chardo, I’ve been told that, and I am open to other ways of preparing to become an actuary, but my parents are hard to sell on the idea for some strange reason. I guess they think that majoring in it will make potential employers more interested in me, idk.</p>
<p>AmberDA, once you identify schools you are interested in, then you need to work with your parents to run the Net Price Calculator on the school websites to see what your financial aid might look like from them. That will also help you develop a reasonable list.</p>
<p>By the way, I also recommend the Fiske Guide to Colleges with a pack of post-it notes in hand. :)</p>
<p>While you could focus on schools with actuarial science majors, I will be honest… your stats look very high for a lot of the schools that offer that actual major. If you change your mind about your major, as many students do, you may be disappointed in the other offerings. And even if you don’t change your mind, some of those schools will not give you an intellectually stimulating college experience.</p>
<p>Maybe you have seen this. It echoes Chardo’s post that you do not need to be an actuarial science major to move down that path. There is also a link to searching for colleges.</p>