University of Redlands, University of San Francisco, University of Portland, Willamette, Cal Lutheran. Some of these could give you merit aid.
IMHO, the new University of California at Merced is a true safety school that will not be so in the next ten years. It’s relatively small but growing, along with its prestige. I’d recommend it.
LMU is probably a safety
@theprepkid thank you for putting some stats up. Safety schools in the west that you will without a doubt get into and get a quality education would be Gonzaga, LMU, SMU, and ASU. I could almost guarantee that you will get into Pepperdine, which will probably be the best option for you as a safety. On another note, I’m sure you followed college acceptances at your high school this year and probably saw that the UC’s were very harsh on accepting students this year. I know that your counselor made the college list, but please do not rely on the UC’s as safety schools.
Aloha @theprepkid, your stats are close to my daughters (expect we do have to apply for FA). She has Santa Clara University, Temple University, Drexel, Occidental, Virgina Tech on her list. Because of finances, we are also looking a Western Undergraduate Exchange schools that have Honors Programs, such as Chico and Colorado State.
My sense from reading the responses to your post is that you may be getting undeserved pessimistic advice. Your counselor must have a sense of whether or not you’re in the top 9% of your class. He must also have a sense of your UC weighted average. You can also with your counselor review on Naviance how well previous students with stats like yours from your school have done in their UC applications. If in fact you’re in the top 9% of your class based on your UC weighted average then at least one UC will accept you. So you have the requisite safety.
Your stats are strong. The 5 on the Calculus BC AP as a junior is impressive. Your SAT score is in the median range of some very selective colleges. Unless for some reason you are below the 9% threshold I mentioned above, you have an automatic safety. Focus on matches and agressively explore some reaches. With the exception of UC Berkeley and UCLA the other UCs are likely matches. I’m not sure why you would would pursue Pepperdine. It doesn’t seem necessary.