<p>Hey, sorry to be asking this here, but my college counselors are useless.
I'm a junior at a small, elite private school in Northern California. My SAT scores are 670 Critical Reading, 680 Math, and 710 Writing (2060 total), and I have a 3.4 unweighted GPA. I've been in advanced jazz band (trombone) all years of high school, served on Diversity council, taken two APs so far (5 by the end of senior year) and taken Latin for 5 years. I plan to apply as a Classics major. I'm interested in the following: All UCs (except Riverside and Merced), Penn, Northwestern, Stanford, University of Chicago, Brown, Pomona, Scripps, Oberlin, and Barnard. How would you rank these, and do you have any additional suggestions? (I feel like I need more safety/target schools especially) Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Im not sure about the others, but I wouldnt even apply to Stanford. My classmate had a perfect score SAT (2400) and 4.0 unweighted(along with his brother graduating from there), and did not get in. So just trying to save you some money on application fees</p>
<p>Saw your post on Classics in Other Majors…</p>
<p>Since you’re obviously willing to travel, consider adding a couple of the big state schools outside California that are not Michigan. I have a soft spot for Ohio State (where I went back in the 70s) - basically all the “Big 10” schools are possibilities. </p>
<p>Cincinnati has an excellent department and since you mention Penn (and Barnard), consider Bryn Mawr as well (yeah, another elite school). Vanderbilt (the one in Nashville) has an excellent program and an up-and-coming “feeder masters” program (as does Arizona).</p>
<p>If you do attend a small elite private school in N CA and you can’t get the help of guidance counselors you should talk to your parents. They aren’t getting their money’s worth out of your school.</p>
<p>Impossible: Penn, Northwestern, Stanford, University of Chicago, Brown.
Reach: Pomona, Barnard, UC Berkeley, Oberlin, UCLA
Match: Scripps, other UC’s
That unweighted GPA is going to hurt you, your ec’s are not competitive, and your SAT’s are okay, but not good enough. You should scrap the impossible list altogether find colleges that would be more in your range. Right now, you have little chance of getting into any top college with your stats. Find a college where they would give you good merit aid since you’re not going to get financial aid because I assume your parents are rich enough to send you to private school and since classics majors don’t require college reputation, get an uber-high GPA, and go to grad school.</p>
<p>Is your interest in classics strong enough to consider a school like St. John’s College? For those who fall in love with the school, it can be a safety or match, but it’s not to most people’s taste. Reed might be another possibility, though it’s more reachy.</p>
<p>Also check into Dickinson ¶, Skidmore (NY) and Drew (NJ).</p>
<p>Here is a link for the “great books colleges”. I’m sure you would be a match for several of them.</p>
<p>[The</a> Great Ideas: Great Books Colleges](<a href=“http://www.thegreatideas.org/schools.html]The”>http://www.thegreatideas.org/schools.html)</p>
<p>“All UCs (except Riverside and Merced)” I would get very interested in those schools if I were you.</p>
<p>UCs (except Riverside and Merced), Penn, Northwestern, Stanford, University of Chicago, Brown, Pomona, Scripps, Oberlin, and Barnard</p>
<p>To put it rather bluntly, then only school you have chances at are UCI, UCSB and UC Santa Cruz . Maybe UCD but its a reach, along with Barnard and Scripps.</p>
<p>The rest are pretty much completely out of the question and not worth the app fee.</p>
<p>Technically, nothing is impossible, but given your elite education, your GPA and SAT scores are going to be considered low. I am not trying to be negative, just realistic. I think you need to readjust your selections, every school you mentioned is a reach. UC Riverside is a school that would give you some great opportunities and if you boost your GPA a bit you could be eligible for honors college. Also, there are many fine CSU’s throughout CA.</p>
<p>If your parents can afford a private school education, places like Santa Clara, Villanova, Fordham, University of San Francisco, Depaul, etc.</p>
<p>I disagree with vinnyli about those schools being “impossible”. They aren’t impossible – but they’re VERRRY high reaches. If I were you, I’d pick one or two of those schools to apply to. Realistically, your GPA and SAT scores are on the low side for these schools, but you never know. Do you have hooks anywhere? I would also DEFINITELY pick one or two safety schools. It doesn’t appear to me that any of your schools are actually completely safe (the schools that aren’t from California, at least. I’m not familiar with many CA schools). Around here, you can try University of Maryland, Rutgers University, Penn State, Villanova University, UMiami, Fordham University, Boston University, and UConn as low matches or matches. You can also try NYU. The George Washington University is a great school that you could probably get into. </p>
<p>As soon as you said “classics”, I instantly thought of Wake Forest. My tour guide was a classics major 
Do you know what your class rank / percentile is? </p>
<p>In Pennsylvania, there are lots of small schools to look at, ranging from very high reaches to low matches. If you’re interested in the small LACs, Pennsylvania is practically a gold mine. (Swarthmore, Haverford, Lafayette, Dickinson, etc etc etc).</p>
<p>Swarthmore and Haverford ain’t happening, maybe Lafeyette and Dickenson and Wake Forest (high reach), but agian they are reaches.</p>
<p>CSU Longbeach might be a good safety. Also check out occidental for a good LAC California High Match.</p>
<p>Try looking for schools that accept around 50% of applicants with your SATs in the 75th percentile or higher for Safety/Matches</p>
<p>I think you should check out Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. Great school, and unlike many places shrinking their Classics department, TU is expanding.</p>
<p>
St. John’s is a horrible choice for Classics majors. The language offerings are rudimentary, and the ancient section of the curriculum (only 1-1.5 years long) is similarly inadequate.</p>
<p>I also disagree with the suggestion of LACs for the OP. Most LACs will not offer enough courses in Latin to satisfy her. Bryn Mawr, Holy Cross, Franklin & Marshall, Oberlin, and Haverford are exceptions.</p>
<p>WilliamC’s suggestion of Cincinnati was an excellent one. Boston U would also be worth consideration as a match. Within California, I would strongly recommend SFSU as a safety. Slightly farther away, U Arizona has a very strong department and would be a safe match. NYU and Tufts would make good reaches.</p>
<p>Reed college for classics-tough school but not as tough to get into. All those schools on your list appear to be reach schools.</p>
<p>I would place Reed as a reach as well. DD1 was waitlisted with a 3.9+ GPA and 2200+ SATs. I didn’t read her app but I’m sure it was good because she is such a good writer.</p>
<p>hah… not trying to exclude those colleges (Merced and Riverside) for any reason other than they don’t offer the major that i’m interested in (Classics). Therefore, they are ruled out. </p>
<p>So I’ve revised my list quite a bit since then. Hopefully it has gotten more realistic.
Reach: Berkeley, LA, Chicago, Tufts, Bryn Mawr, Barnard (I know…kinda reach-heavy)
Target: UCSB, UCD, UCI, Oberlin (not sure if this is a reach or target), University of Michigan, Scripps, Pitzer, Lawrence University
Safety: U of Oregon (guaranteed admission), Santa Clara University</p>
<p>Things I failed to mention: I’m biracial. (This is why I’m hesitant to add a lot of schools in the Midwest.) Also, I know I will be able to write essays that will blow the admissions committees out of the water, and have good recs. I have a full resume, which I didn’t include-- none of it is particularly outstanding, but it’s full nevertheless. The one spot where I think I’m lacking is in awards, though (like AP Scholar, National Merit, etc.) Anyone know how important these types of awards are for admission?
thanks for all the help so far!</p>
<p>Hey, your stats are similar-ish to me! (SAT wise, they’re pretty much exact) Anyways, you should click on my profile and look some of the threads I’ve launched to get a good idea of general safeties/matches/ reaches if you’re willing to go about2000 miles from home.</p>
<p>Anyways, to my next point. Unless you really don’t want to leave Cali (and I can see why, especially beautiful N. Cali), go to the midwesern LAC. Basically all of them have stellar reputations and will give your degree a great reputation (again, no fear of obtaining a “back-room” degree in a lackluster program from a large uni) For a general idea, look at about 40-70 in USN&WR on the “top LAC’s” list. Most all of those would be great. Also, I would suggest running a parallel thread in the “other majors” forum on this site to get better answers.</p>
<p>OHKID is right about midwestern LAC’s - there are plenty of excellent ones where being being biracial would not be a problem at all. Schools like Oberlin, Grinnell, Denison, Kalamazoo to name a few. Check out Colleges That Change Lives - [Colleges</a> That Change Lives](<a href=“http://www.ctcl.org/]Colleges”>http://www.ctcl.org/)</p>