<p>Hello,
I'm trying to narrow down my list, but I am having a hard time doing so.</p>
<p>I am a low income, URM, liberal from Virginia. I come from a big high school of 3,000 people so size doesn't bother me that much. I am hoping to either major in international relations, marketing, or communications.
I love warm weather and I appreciate seeing greenery. I also am applying for questbridge and gates.
UW GPA 3.8, ACT 30, and my extra curriculars are pretty good. </p>
<p>I am not worried about the cost of applying because I qualify for fee waivers. </p>
<p>Questbridge: </p>
<p>Stanford
Princeton
Yale
UPenn</p>
<p>Early Decision 2:</p>
<p>Davidson
Emory
Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>Regular Decision: </p>
<p>USC
UNC at Chapel Hill
UVA
Wake Forest
Boston College
Northwestern
William and Mary
U. Richmond
Washington St. Louis </p>
<p>Please tell us how many AP courses you will have taken by the time you graduate, and do elaborate on your ECs. The most difficult schools on your list will have a particular interest in the ECs. And is USC the U of South Carolina?</p>
<p>I do not think that is too many… The QB matches are throwaways, I predict you will not be matched. The problem isn’t too many, it may be lack of a safety?</p>
<p>Good point @BrownParent. OP, go to the Financial Aid forum and look at the pinned threads for some merit aid options. I think you’ll get into W&M or Richmond but don’t know if you can afford it. </p>
<p>I have done financial aid calculations for each school and will end up paying around $2,000. By the time I graduate I will have 11 AP classes.
I run my own non profit mentoring program, am president of Key Club and Spanish Honor Society, class treasurer, and DECA VP. I am a member of NHS, HHS, EHS, and MHS. Additionally I compete with FBLA and have won a few awards. I had an internship last year at a non profit and now I work a paid internship at a museum. I’m president of two county wide youth advisory boards. I also am an adviser for Hispanic families through the PTSA. I also have a Girl Scout gold award. </p>
<p>I agree with @BrownParent What you really need is a couple of safety schools (both financial and academic). You will have a strong application no doubt but you are not a slam dunk for any of the schools on your list.</p>
<p>Richmond is probably closest to a safety but more of a low match. W&M is certainly not since its admission process is so holistic. I do see that they both meet full need for IS students which is good for the OP.</p>
<p>Nice ECs, OP. You’re going to be an attractive applicant to a lot of schools, but not all of these. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I could see you not getting into each of these schools. It’s unlikely.</p>
<p>I’d love that ACT to be a little higher, and I’d want to make sure you get help with your essays. A 32 ACT would make you a very attractive candidate for admission and the FA you need.</p>
<p>I don’t think that anything more than 8 APs will help you, so if you’re carrying 6 APs senior year, you might want to consider that your spring semester after you gain admissions at the end of March will certainly be hell with 6 APs. In addition, all those APs can do a number on your GPA, just when you want the GPA to be going up.</p>
<p>Like @Erin’s Dad, I worry that you have no safety, and it would behoove you to get one–a school that has your major, that you can afford, that you can certainly get into, and that you would go to if the worst happens.</p>
<p>UVA and William and Mary are excellent choices for your said field. Being from virginia makes it more so. I’d definitely look into William and Mary if you haven’t already. Their international relations program is top notch and they have one of the number one programs for marketing (Mason). Currently an incoming student so i’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about the school.</p>
<p>I agree about raising your ACT scores to make you more competitive, but your ECs are quite impressive. Your reaches might be very high and somewhat unrealistic, but that is part of the fun in developing college lists, you can learn about excellent new schools that you hadn’t considered before.</p>
<p>If they didn’t have supplemental questions attatched, I would say there is no harm in applying to all of them, since you mentioned you have fee waivers. But in this case, I’d say narrowing them down early would be to your benefit. I’d start with USC (are you really willing to travel across the coast, what about during breaks, travel costs, ect?) or UNC Chapel Hill which is quite selective an expensive as an OOS school. Wake Forest’s applications (many supplemental questions) can be time consuming, but I wouldn’t take it off just for that reason.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the other schools to comment on them. but good luck to you OP!</p>
<p>Thank you for your feedback everyone! I am not sure if I want to add safety schools because if I have to pay more than $5,000 a year I rather just do 2 years of community college. I am taking ACT prep classes and I am hoping to retake in September. I understand I have many selective schools on my list, but I am ok with taking risks. I am pretty aware that I have slim chance of getting in, but why not apply? I am taking 5 APs senior year. </p>
<p>A safety is not a surrender to the inevitable, OP. A safety is a school that has your major, at which you are happy, your family can afford, and to which you would be willing to go if the worst happens. You might not want to think in these terms, and that’s fine. Go to a community college if the worst happens; that’s a legitimate plan. Or go on a gap year with Americorps or something like that. But have a plan if you don’t get into any of these schools with enough money. A friend’s child did not have a backup plan; that wasn’t going to happen. It did, and it took some time to figure out what to do next. Meantime, this student’s friends were going off to college and enjoying their first semester, some of them at their safeties. </p>
<p>Davidson, Emory and Vanderbilt are Partner Colleges - if you are matching, why aren’t you putting those in the match list? You pick the order, the highest you rank that you get matched to you go. Is your EFC 0 by any chance?</p>
<p>Otherwise you are asking what to knock off in your OP? My picks would be Stanford, Princeton, Chapel Hill, USC (just for the airfare, if you can swing that leave it.)</p>