<p>What should I be looking at? I've done a ton of research, I've almost read through the entire CollegeBoard book of colleges and I'm no closer to knowing where I want to apply or where I fit. I was hoping you guys might be able to help me out in suggesting some reaches/matches to apply to? My safety is UO, I'm guaranteed admission there, so I'm okay on that score.</p>
<p>School Type: Public
Location: Oregon
Race/Gender: Caucasian Male
Prospective Major: Dunno, mechanical engineering is a possibility
Unweighted GPA: 3.81
Class Rank: Top 15%</p>
<p>ACT: 33 (Will be sending!)
SAT: 2060 (Won't be sending!)
Math II: 700 (Retaking, took while really sick)</p>
<p>Course work: Plenty of advanced/honors/ap classes </p>
<p>Extracurriculars/AwardsVolunteering (I do what I like, what can I say...):
- 7 years lacrosse (goalie), possible team captain next year, I play year round
- Volunteer at Community Cycling Center, 3 hrs/week
- Self-employed bike mechanic (I dunno if this really counts, but it's legitimate -- it might as well be a business. Despite the fact I'm in Portland, it's almost impossible to get a shop job here unless you're a 'professional' bike mechanic.)
- I do a lot of stuff I don't know if I should put down, like I trained for and ran a marathon, I race XC (mountain biking), I do a lot of volunteering in the biking venue but they are all separate, larger events.
- Honor Roll/Academic Letter, I guess. These days maintaining a 3.5 GPA isn't thaaat special, haha.
- National Merit Commended (once again, not that difficult, but this category is really spare).</p>
<p>Some schools I was thinking about include University of Washington - Seattle and Santa Cruz University. I love California (and the rest of the West Coast), but am open to anywhere. I would like to stay urban, but once again, the right fit might just pull me away from that. Shoot some good matches/reaches my way and I'll forever be in your debt. Thanks!</p>
<p>Is financial aid an issue? If not I suggest looking into the UC schools. Your stats are pretty impressive and UCB and UCLA are urban and in california. Plus I mean both schools are great for engineering.</p>
<p>If you have to send SAT IIs, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to hide the SAT I. But it’s not a bad score and hopefully colleges will only consider your ACT.</p>
<p>A minor reality check. With your SATs, ACTs, unweighted GPA of 3.81, and lots of advanced/honors/AP classes I would expect you to be in the top 10%, possibly top 5% of a normal public school. Was the top 15% a conservative guess, or is your school unusually competitive? Either would improve your chances. Also show your SAT CR and Math scores as those are what most schools really look at. Right now I can’t see you getting into CalTech, Stanford, or Berkeley, but with some minor improvements other top schools, particularly those on the other side of the country, could be reaches.</p>
<p>Are you planning on playing lax in college? If so, and you are a decent goalie you might want to check out some lacrosse schools. Our friend’s son received a full ride to a DIII school. It was given as an “academic scholarship” since they can’t give $$. This was a school that he never would have been accepted at without lacrosse.</p>
<p>I really like lacrosse, and potentially could have a very good year. I’ll be involved in athletics of some kind in college regardless - I kinda want to try swimming or crew. Top 15% was a little conservative, but the thing is at my school all the kids who take easy classes are rewarded with good grades, no weight given to AP students. However, that does make the AP students a very motivated group of students, and interesting people, so I stick with it. Financial is an issue in the sense that my family is just out of reach for real help, so I’ll be working to minimize costs and apply for aid, but for now, let’s pretend it isn’t huge - if I have to discount a school later because I don’t have enough funding, then so be it. Just kickin’ things around here.</p>
<p>nmparents - Could I ask you what kind of minor improvements you think are doable before time for application? This summer I’ve been working my butt off to do community service, but as the school year nears I’ll have more time to do other things and am all for making myself a stronger applicant.</p>
<p>Edit - I forgot to add the AP Scholar w/ Honors or Distinction (I dunno which one at the moment) to the list in my original post, nothing huge, but it helps fill it out a little more, right?</p>
<p>Knowing the 15% is a conservative estimate for a school that doesn’t give rankings, and is based on the unweighted GPA greatly improves my estimate of your qualifications. Universities do their own weighting from the raw grades, and after checking with your GC, should perceive you as effectively being near the top of your class in ability. Be certain you took the “optional” writing section of the ACT. My daughter didn’t, we had something to go to that afternoon, and discovered that most schools she is interested in require it if they are to accept the ACT, so she is going to have to retake it. Consider doing some prep work and retaking the SAT. Its cheap. Get another SAT II under your belt, preferably a science given your interest in engineering.</p>
<p>While some schools offer good FA, merit aid or agreements that help to reduce OOS tuition, neither of these schools do for Oregon residents. So, realistically you’re looking at 45k/yr for UCSC and 35k/yr for UDub. I’m bringing this up because: 1) They are highly likely to be significantly more expensive than UO; and 2) Neither uses the CA which can make them time consuming to apply to (particularly the UCs which require several additional essays and short answers). Just something to take under consideration.</p>
<p>nmparent, I think maybe weighting grades is not very common in the northwest. I had never heard of it until I started visiting CC. My D is in the same position as the OP…GPA 3.875 with numerous honors, AP and college in H.S. courses, class rank 34/412. We’re asking her GC to address it when he sends his rec to schools.</p>
<p>Well, I looked through the WICHE/WUE colleges too, now that you mention them, and none of them really appeal to me. I mention UW because I really, really liked it, and I think the Santa Cruz University I’m thinking of isn’t the same one you’re thinking of – but I was also considering UCSC. The UCs are really tough with the financial aid like you mention. So then let me open this up a lot more – let’s say I have no problem moving anywhere except the Midwest. I could do East Coast no problem, the only place I would have a tough time being is the Midwest. Anything that jumps out at you? I’ll apply anywhere and deal with the financial aid as it comes. I’ll definitely take a couple SAT II’s come October, and improve the math score by a significant margin.</p>
<p>EDIT: I can’t remember the scores for each section, but out of 1600 my SAT is 1390 or 1400. I’ll double check that. I did take the writing on the ACT, though.</p>
<p>In many ways official High School class rank is meaningless. Because of the variations in the ways rank is calculated between schools, and the variations in quality between schools, colleges will use the school, course, and student descriptions provided by the GC in his letter of recommendation to compute their own weighting. The weighted GPAs produced by many High Schools are a closer approximation than the unweighted GPAs to what colleges typically do, but the details of the weighting, which courses are used in the weighting, and how the weighting is evaluated given the perceived quality of the school, vary enough between colleges that there is no perfect way to capture how your grades will be evaluated. Just recognize that unweighted class ranks underestimate how much the student will be valued by most colleges, and in selecting schools to apply to don’t be too discouraged by statistics such as 80% of the admitted students were in the top 10% of their class. In ability both are well in the top 5% of all high school students. But also recognize that there are some majors, such as engineering, that have higher requirements than the school as a whole, and a student wanting admission to the college of engineering at a university may need to meet a higher standard for admission.</p>
<p>allemanau 1400 is a very good score out of 1600. As to minimizing your costs you have several approaches available
Apply in state to a public school. You are the authority there.
Apply to a school with a large endowment that guarantees to meet “all” financial need for admitted US students. Competition at such schools is very strong, and your chances of admission at any one is low. Cooper Union comes to mind.
Apply to a less competitive school in the expectation of getting merit scholarships. Merit scholarships tend to be small, so this works best if costs are not outrageous, i.e., the school is a public school with “reasonable” out of state tuition. I have the impression that the best out of state tuitions on the east coast are for the SUNY system (Binghamton and Stony Brook are very good technical schools, Albany and Buffalo not quite as good and perhaps more likely to have merit aid) and Delaware.</p>
<p>We’re taking the third route. Applying to Alabama, Santa Clara, U Washington (our state school), Pitt and maybe U Rochester and Kentucky. Tulane also has some full tuition scholarships, but D assures me she will not attend college in New Orleans.</p>
<p>First off, I’d like to say thanks for the help. Secondly, my apologies, entomom – we weren’t thinking of the same university. What was going through my head was Santa Clara University, but what came out on the keyboard was Santa Cruz.</p>
<p>So, I did a little more research and I hopefully came up with a well-balanced list. Bearing in mind there are a few modifications that will be made to my resume, I’m certainly not confident on a major, but also that 09 is supposed to be an incredibly competitive year, I would hope that this is a reasonable range of schools to be applying to. There are some major reaches on there, but hey, we don’t get anywhere without dreams, do we? Let me know if there’s anything that strikes you that I should add. Cheers!</p>
<p>University of Oregon
Oregon State University (in case I really get married to the whole engineering thing, and don’t get in elsewhere…)
University of Washington - Seattle
Purdue University
University of California - Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara
Santa Clara University
Northwestern University <— I think I’d really like to be here, from what I’ve heard about it.
Duke University</p>
<p>Reasonable list. I thought you said you didn’t want to be in the midwest. Schools you might also look at include Cornell, Rochester, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western Reserve. An extreme reach where geographic diversity might help you where it wouldn’t help with the best west coast schools is MIT.</p>
<p>nmparents, what I’m really worried about are Honors programs that require students to be in the top 5% of their class. That really will put D at a disadvantage for admission.</p>
<p>jaf1991 look carefully at those programs, how they are defined, and their implications. We have looked little at this, but we have looked at the UVM honors program, [Frequently</a> Asked Questions : About the Honors College : The Honors College at UVM : University of Vermont](<a href=“http://www.uvm.edu/honorscollege/?Page=FAQnew.html&SM=aboutmenu.html]Frequently”>http://www.uvm.edu/honorscollege/?Page=FAQnew.html&SM=aboutmenu.html). (Its on my daughter’s list as her current preferred safety, i.e., the school where she is most above the average student and hence the most likely to get merit aid or get into the honors program.) UVM admits those honors applicants <em>IT</em>, not the high school, ranks as about the top 5% (100 of the applicants out of about 2000 students) of the admitted freshman class. After the first year it admits those applicants roughly corresponding to the top 5% not already in the program. Note however that the top 5% of their freshman class is likely to be about the top couple of a percent of a typical high school class.</p>
<p>“Entering freshmen having a combined SAT I score above 1350 and ranking in the top 5 percent of their high school graduating class are automatically qualified to take any UHC course whose particular prerequisites have been satisfied.”</p>
<p>This is the only one I can remember off the top of my head, but it seems pretty plain. :o(</p>
<p>Of course at Pitt, you can still petition to take the honors classes, but what a pain!</p>
<p>If the website is correct, and not a simplified version of the true program, then Pitt’s honors program is doing itself a disservice by in effect excluding students from schools that do not rank, using high school ranking procedures that do not match Pitt’s priorities, and not taking into account the varying quality of high schools that do rank. After checking a few state schools in the east several did not have an honors program in the sense we are talking about here, Binghamton and UVM use their own criteria based on the standard admission information, and Penn State’s Schreyer Honors program requires a separate application with additional essays and information.</p>
<p>If Pitt is of interest to you I would contact them directly and ask them it they would use your schools unweighted ranking in determining entry into the honors program.</p>
<p>Thanks, I probably will if she decides that it’s something she’s interested in. She can’t decide. She wants to have plenty of time left over after classes and studying to write…she wants her first novel published either before she graduates or soon after. Her thinking does not allow for failure.</p>