GPA: 3.6 UW/5.85 W (7pt scale)
SAT: 1230
My intended major is political science and am looking to go to law school in the future. I would love to be in proximity of washington DC or go to a school that has a program that sends students to washington DC as a study abroad opportunity. I’m from a competitive public hs in NJ with a 100% matriculation to college and it’s pretty highly ranked in the nation. I do have financial restraints as my mother is a single parent, however she makes a very small salary and our EFC is 3,000 so we should get hooked up with good financial aid especially from private instituatuins. My current list is below and I’d love to hear any suggestions.
drexel
tulane
syracuse (tied for my fave)
Rutgers
American
GW (tied for fave)
Towson
rowan
pitt
DePaul
UMiami
SUNY Binghamton
Quinnipiac
Penn State
*institutions wow i can’t spell
Most if not all of the schools on your list do not meet need. For example, Penn State gives lousy aid (even to PA students) and out of state cost of attendance is over $45,000. I think your instate schools (Rutgers and Rowan) are the best options on your list for affordability. You should probably add a few more NJ public universities, where you will be eligible for federal and most likely state grants.
Unfortunately, with this SAT, you can forget GW and Syracuse is a reach. Anyway to improve the SAT?
Do you have another bio parent who is still alive? That could affect your aid.
How about Dickinson? They meet 99% of need, and have a great DC semester option through The Washington Center.
You need to run the net price calculators on the websites of all the colleges on your list to see if they are affordable. Penn State is out of the question financially, don’t even bother with their calculator.
Dickinson is a great school but would be another reach, as a 1230 SAT is below the 25th %ile of the most recently admitted class.
Denison could be a good addition to your list. (Although, per the common data set, they tend to meet 100% of need for freshmen and slightly less in subsequent years, so you’d need to have a little bit of buffer affordability-wise relative to what the NPC shows. )
https://denison.edu/academics/lugar/about
https://denison.edu/academics/philosophy-politics-economics
Dickinson is test-optional as well as full-need met. As noted above, your SAT is bottom quartile, but you can apply without submitting it. Of course, this means the rest of your application has to be stronger in order to be accepted, but your GPA is solidly above average so you have a decent chance if your essays and EC’s are strong.
Franklin & Marshall is also full-need-met and test-optional, with very similar admitted-student stats to Dickinson, although their admit rate is lower making it more of a reach. Still worth a shot though. They participate in American’s DC semester programs. If you’re female, Bryn Mawr is another test-optional/full-need-met school in this competitiveness range - higher average stats than F&M but also a higher admit rate. Other test-optional/full-need-met possibilities include Wake Forest (probably a long shot unless if not early decision), Holy Cross (MA), Mount Holyoke, Trinity (CT), Union (NY), Skidmore, and Connecticut College. The last two have higher admit rates for men, which could make them particularly good options if you’re a guy.
Also URochester is test-flexible (and meets need), so if you have high AP/IB scores they’ll consider those in place of the SAT.
I amin applying to GW test optional