Rising 12th grader needs advise

Student Lounge Hispanic Students
1

<p>I am a rising 12th grader in a Catholic School in California. I am looking for some advise from the knowledgeable
group here on College Confidential. I just completed my college planning meeting and my counselor told me that
"no college should be off the table for me" (???) because I am a NHRP.</p>

<p>Well I am not so sure about her advise. So I will tell you about myself and some of my college choices and please fire away
with you wisdom.</p>

<p>Catholic High school Santa Ana Ca.
GPA 3.64 Unweighted 3.8 ( Freshman Year a lot of "B's)
AP- Calculus, Anatomy, World History, Art History
Honors- Spanish II</p>

<p>Sat Super Score 2190
Sat Math II 790
Chemistry 680 will take again
ACT 33 maybe take again?</p>

<p>ASB Officer 02 years</p>

<p>Honors- NHRP, National Merit Commended Scholar </p>

<p>Football 1 year
lacrosse 1 year
Crew team 2 years ( UPenn, Yale, Santa Clara, Berkley, and others showing some interest. I do not think I am fast enough though. )
2012 Honors- Bronze Medal National Regional Championships / 5 other Gold Medals</p>

<p>Family
Mother and dad college educated. live in coastal ca. income is 200k +</p>

<p>Now for my school picks....</p>

<p>Reach Schools:
Brown
Columbia
Berkley
Harvard
Rice
Stanford
Notre Dame
Duke
Cornell
Dartmouth
MIT
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
UPenn
Tufts
Vanderbilt
Washington University St. Louis</p>

<p>50/50 Schools
USC
Northeastern
UCSD
Michigan
UNC Chapel Hill
Carnegie Mellon
GIT
Villanova
Virginia</p>

<p>I will not waste your time with safety schools.</p>

<p>Thanks for your help.</p>

2

<p>Sorry… I plan on studying engineering.</p>

3

<p>I am from So Cal as well. I have a pretty good idea of what high school you are from, and that does make a difference. The schools you apply to will know a 3.85 from selective Catholic HS A is equivalent to a 4.2 from public HS B. The high school’s reputation and historic course rigor will make a difference in how many universities will view and calculate your GPA. What stands out, for me at least, in your post is the list of schools you are thinking of applying to. It’s a good list, right off the U.S. News and World Report top 100 universities. They all have excellent reputations and earning a degree from any of these schools would be a great achievement. But they are all SO different, each giving you a COMPLETELY different undergraduate experience. Yes, I think based on the grades and scores you posted you have a good shot to get into any of these schools. But there is A LOT of work that goes into researching a potential college (your home for the next 4 years). It’s as if you stated you want a new dog, and you top choices are Poodle, Pit Bull, Husky, Beagle, St Bernard, purse dog, Char-pei, or maybe even a cat. What do you want to study? Do you want to want to go east coast or stay west? And which is more important? Let’s say you want to make movies and you REALLY want to live on the east coast. NYU looks good and has a great film school, but USC has the #1 film school in the nation. What is more important? Major or location? Which place would be better for a prospective director? The school closer to Hollywood. So let’s you go with major. As a film student you want to start working on movies the day you move into the dorms. At USC you don’t start ANY of your cinema school classes until your junior year. YOU’LL BE OLD BY THEN… You get my point. You really can’t go wrong with any of the schools on your list, but besides being great name brand schools, are they also good fit schools? The Princeton Review comes out with a book every year you can get at Barnes & Noble – the Top 377 college and universities in the country. They develop the list not by admissions data (how many kids they denied) but by surveying and getting feedback from over 15k current and recent graduate from these schools. All kinds of questions focused around – which school gave you the best 4 years of an undergraduate education. Most of the schools you listed are on the list, but #1 this year was Claremont McKenna. I didn’t see any Claremont schools on your list? Why?</p>

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</p>

<p>The OP says they want to study engineering.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The OP has zero LACs on their list; likely linked to the fact that they want to study engineering, perhaps because they want a larger school.</p>

5

<p>OP, please respond to my PM.</p>

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<p>Hi entomom, I did not see your post on Sunday. I love the work you have done on this site; It is very thorough.</p>

<p>I am interested on your ideas on my position for college.</p>

<p>Also, what about merit scholarships for me?</p>

7

<p>I have sent you a Private Message (see the upper R corner of your screen) please respond to it. Thanks.</p>

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<p>I agree but only because your stats are solid. NHRP is probably meaningless at the elite schools because of the large pool of applicants. If you get in it will be because of school rigor/GPA/EC’s, GL. NHRP is more of a state school thing.</p>

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<p>Your counselor is wrong; NHRP doesn’t mean you’re in everywhere, but your stats are good. I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing for any of the schools you listed, but I think your assessments of your chances are fairly accurate. I wouldn’t apply to more than 13 schools because it becomes a drag to do all those essays. Finally, you might want to look at some of my posts regarding my stats and the colleges I was accepted to in order to kind of gauge what those colleges are looking for (I applied to many of the ones you’re looking at). Good luck :D</p>