Please help me find colleges

College Search & Selection
1

I’m a junior beginning my college search. I’m looking for a medium sized (i.e 5,000 to 12,000) school located in or near a city. I really want a sense of community and something that feels like it has a separate campus. I’m not big on partying and I’m really looking for a quirky/nerdy student body. Sorry, this is a big ask.

Here are my stats:
GPA UW: 3.94ish (my school doesn’t show unweighted GPAs)
GPA W: 4.35
Class rank: top 10%
AP/honors course load:
9th grade: 3 honors
10th grade: AP World (4), 3 honors
11th grade: APUSH (expecting a 4), AP Calc AB (expecting a 5), AP Spanish (who knows), AP English Lang (Probably a 4 or a 5)
12th grade: AP English Lit, AP Comp Sci, AP US Gov, AP Physics 1, dual enrollment at a fairly prestigious university (hopefully) taking a math course but if not I will be taking AP Stat, 1 honors
SAT: 1440 (750 reading/writing, 690 math). Taking again, aiming for 1500
ACT: N/A

Extracurriculars:
Varsity Softball (3 years) (probably captain next year)
Piano (About 10 years, I’m nothing special though)
Video Club
Girl Up (2 years)
NHS (2 years)

Awards:
-A couple film awards
-Was invited to a prestigious film competition
-A short story of mine won a competition

Other
Hooks: Health issues as a kid (including difficulty walking and a speech impediment)
Race: White
Large urban public high school
My passions are writing/film/math (probably going to focus on writing, I know my extracurriculars don’t really reflect that)
Haven’t decided on major yet.

Thanks for any suggestions!

2

What can your family afford? If you are going to focus on writing you will want to keep borrowing at a minimum.

3

Look at Smith College. It has about 3,000 people but access to 30,000 through a consortium. It’s free to apply to! Super awesome students

4

I know you haven’t decided on a major but what sort of things are you considering? If you go the LAC route, you won’t have business majors which will mean you can’t get the major you want (if what you want is business).

5

Check out Johns Hopkins and UPenn.
Both are urban universities, are in your size range, and have good writing programs.
You might also like UChicago and Columbia/Barnard.
These are all reaches. For many good students, the state flagship is a good “target”.

Cost is a big factor for most families. Unless your family is able and willing to pay up to $70K/year, run the online net price calculators on any schools that interest you. Do this early in the process so you don’t waste time on schools you can’t possibly afford.

6

Thanks for chancing me! I would suggest Boston College, Harvard, MiT, or Brown, Boston is the best city!! These are all great schools located very close to or in the city, but still have a campus and are relatively quiet. It’s harrd finding a city school that has a campus feel. but these are very close. Your GPA gives you shots anywhere :slight_smile: