PLS suggest MATCHES and & SAFETIES for me

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm a Chinese female currently living in Vancouver, Canada. I have Canadian citizenship if it makes a difference, but most likely I'm considered an international student. Will apply for financial aid. </p>

<p>I'm a junior this year...School is very well-regarded and small public school. </p>

<p>GPA: 3.93 (9th+10th) 4.0 (11th) unweighted
School doesn't rank</p>

<p>SAT's: (Projected, taking in Janurary) 2150~2250
SAT II's : Taking Chem, Lit, and Math IIC in May, hopefully 700+</p>

<p>AP's: Schools offers only 1 AP (Calculus), planning to self-study Psychology + American Hist.</p>

<p>EC's: (they basically suck, haven't really done ANY EC's)
-School Newspaper, 4 years, Editor
-Interact Club
-Various Math Contests across Canada (scored in the top 25% of contestants)
-Volunteer @ Vancouver General Hospital
-School Orchestra (9th grade, self-taught violin)
-Taught myself to play the piano</p>

<p>EC's that I haven't completed/plan to do...
-Film Club
-Gay-Straight Alliance
-Help to direct and perform in a school play
-Peer Counselling
-School Golf team
-Fencing (!?! I took a few lessons and loved it, but my mom's dead set against it for some reason)</p>

<p>I know you're all gonna laugh, but my dream schools are Stanford and Columbia. Now I know I have VERY VERY VERY little chance of getting into those two, so can someone suggest some matches and or safeties for me? ANY help is greatly appriciated...</p>

<p>oh, I prefer an urban-ish setting, near a MAJOR city, east coast or Cali...THANKS SO MUCH!!!!</p>

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<p>dead_crocodile:</p>

<p>UCB/UCLA: Slight Reach (out of state)
UCSD: Match (out of state)
UCI/UCD/UCSB: Safe Match (out of state)
UCSC/UCR/UCM: Safety (out of state)</p>

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<p>thx flopsy! i hate being outta state, especially since i lived in cali 4 three yrs. anything outside the UC's?</p>

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<p>guys PLEASE help <em>bump</em></p>

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<p>What’s your take on UBC? It’s west coast, urban, and supposed to be excellent. I’m guessing you want to leave town, but have you considered it?</p>

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<p>As a Canadian applying for fin.aid, applying to most non-ivy colleges without need-blind policy for internationals will be made much harder. If you can’t get in the need-blind ivies, trying to get into a slightly lower-tier school that is need-aware is equally unlikely. The need-aware schools that would take you, on the other hand, would most likely be similar in quality to your Canadian Unis but much more expensive.</p>

<p>Look up which schools are need-blind. Note that while there are quite a few that have this policy, only a handful have it for INTERNATIONAL students.</p>

<p>My suggestion is to apply to your reaches (Stanford, Columbia, Amherst, Cornell, whatever.), and use the excellent public schools in Canada (UBC, McGill, Queen’s) as your matches and safeties. ;)</p>

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<p>000ace000 is right on target. As an international applicant who needs financial aid, you have no safeties or matches in the US, only reaches. Your safeties and matches are in Canada.</p>

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<p>Do you and/or your parents have Green Cards? If you’re a permanent resident of the US, you might be classified as a domestic student and possibly as instate for public CA schools.</p>

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<p>Strictly speaking this may be true. But, for highly qualified students, some schools are quite generous with aid to internationals. Last year my son’s private LAC (Colorado Collge) awarded aid packages, averaging about $45K, to 56 international students. Macalester College awarded aid, averaging about $31K, to 211 internationals. Unfortunately I cannot tell from the Common Data Sets how much competition there was for this money. But there may be good opportunities if you broaden your search to schools that have relatively few Asians or internationals and are hungry for more. These two schools have solid academics and are in urban locations, but they aren’t on either coast, and they’re small. I don’t know how the aid chances would stack up against larger and wealthier (but more selective) schools like Stanford and Columbia, or against selective small colleges on either coast.</p>

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<p>Why bump an old thread? The OP went to USC.</p>

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<p>I think if you get better scores college think of college like Franklin and Marshall and Dickinson college which are indeed very generous. You must utilize ED opportunity. There are some colleges which have very generous with even low SAT scores but they are not worth going.</p>

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<p>Wow, someone mentioned Queen’s University… look into it… so underrated in America.</p>

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<p>You guys, this was from 2006. The person is graduating this year.</p>

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<p>Funny how time flies by so fast huh…</p>