<p>The fact that I have no safeties is honestly making me wig out. I would add on UT Austin or A&M except I just can't stand the thought of a huge class size. Does anyone know if they get smaller when you begin to focus on majors or...?</p>
<p>I'm looking for a small college (less than 3000 students) preferably in the Southwest or West Coast. I have a 3.79 UW GPA and 27 ACT (retaking in June). I am assistant editor for high school literary magazine, president of an animal club, have 5 years of 'collaborative fiction' under my belt, and I volunteer at an animal shelter. Majors I'm interested in are Media Studies and American Studies but I'm looking for suggestions similar to those as well. I have a thing for interdisciplinary studies.</p>
<p>Will be applying to:
Scripps College - definitely EDI
Pomona College
Southwestern University
Occidental College
Willamette University
Hendrix College</p>
<p>Typically, class size gets smaller at the junior and senior level, since most students taking such courses are majoring in it (as opposed to students in many majors taking a freshman level math, chemistry, economics, political science, etc. course).</p>
<p>Make sure that you have one or more safety schools that (a) you are confident of being admitted to, (b) will be affordable even without financial aid (unless you know that you meet their stated criteria that guarantees some type of need or merit aid), and (c) you will be willing to attend.</p>
<p>Note that affordability is especially important because the majors you are considering are not the best in job and career prospects, so you do not want to graduate with a lot of student loan debt.</p>
<p>If you have not yet sat your parents down to talk with them about how they expect you to pay for your education, the time to do that is now. If they have a nice big college fund stashed away for you, and can pay full costs at all of the places on your list, that is great. If they don’t, you need to know now what their limits are. You also need to know what the colleges are likely to expect them to pay, so have them run the financial aid calculators at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) and [College</a> Admissions - SAT - University & College Search Tool](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.org%5DCollege”>http://www.collegeboard.org) Remember that very few colleges guarantee that they will meet a student’s full financial need.</p>
<p>Definitely will use the tools and thanks for the safety school criteria as well as class size. So I am not applying to UT and A&M then. Class sizes are way too ridiculous for me.</p>
<p>Hendrix accepts a high enough percentage of applicants that it’s probably an admission safety for you … or nearly so. At full sticker prices, it’s significantly cheaper than the Claremont schools. Could your family afford it without aid? If not, then you better add an in-state public school.</p>
<p>Nope, my family certainly can not pay for any college except CC without aid.
I see the logic in that but I feel that none of the in-state public schools are a fit for me as one who feels more comfortable in a smaller school.</p>
<p>Your safety may be community college for two years, then transfer to UT/TAMU/TTU/etc. (obviously, you have to do well in community college, so it is not a complete safety two years from now). Community college classes tend to be smaller than freshman and sophomore level classes in big state universities; transferring in as a junior, you should seem mostly smaller junior and senior level classes at the big state university.</p>
<p>Take a look at Oglethorpe (GA), highly ranked, small and flies under everybody’s radar.
It is listed in Princeton Review’s Best 373. American Studies is a major.</p>
<p>OP, if you definitely need aid, then please think carefully about if you really want to apply there ED1. Scripps might give you a great FA package…but you might do better to wait until all of your acceptances and packages are in hand during RD. Getting an earlier acceptance, or getting a slight boost for admissions, isn’t always worth the financial risks.</p>
<p>I agree, there is a lot of hand wringing and woe is me type of stuff going on when the ED financial aid package arrives and it is not affordable for the family. </p>