<p>I'm a rising senior, so, like the rest of them, I'm becoming overly concerned with college. Psychology is my planned area of study, and while this could change, I'm pretty set. Also, I might study Pre-Law as well to open up my options when I graduate if psychology does fall out of favor. Does anyone have a prospective school I should be interested in? I'd love to go to Vandy or Duke. My stats are:</p>
<p>GPA: 4.39 W / 4.0 UW
Rank: 1-4 out of 375.
Credits: 8 AP, 13 Honors, 11 Regular (7 being choir) by end of Senior year.</p>
<p>SAT I: M:620 CR:720 W:580 (blehck)
M+CR=1340
M+CR+W=1920
(hopefully they'll like my ACT more)</p>
<p>ECs:
Choir; TTBB for 2 years, SATB for 2 years as well.
Lettered in Varsity soccer Junior and Senior year. Played all four.
Student Council member, though no leadership position held (it's still a popularity contest).
Beta, NHS, blah blah blah.
10 trips to the New Orleans area; all being 60+ hours of work individually. (This by far is my strongest EC.)
Innumerable amount of time working at church with elementary and middle school kids through camps, mission trips, and the like.</p>
<p>I'm sure I'm missing some EC's but it's just for an idea. Obviously HYPSM and the like would be a reach, unless I retake the ACT, which I'm not sure about. Just about every school has a psychology department, but I'm wondering about the pre-law part. Any opinions on a state honors program as well?</p>
<p>There is no ‘pre-law’ major and no required coursework for law school, so major in whatever interests you. </p>
<p>If you describe what criteria lead you to select Duke and Vandy, we can come up with similar schools. Is it the size? Southern location? Popularity of frats?</p>
<p>I was wondering if there were some schools that had a better law-school acceptance rate, if that’s even a stat. Or even a great graduate program that seeped into the undergraduate realm:) Pre-law is usually just a concentration of elective studies that help, unless I’m completely mistaken?</p>
<p>Southern charm is definitely a plus as my home state is Tennesssee(good ole rocky top;)), but I wouldn’t mind a school in the Northeast either. Duke and Vandy though have always stuck out to me, I can’t actually put a finger on why, however.:/</p>
<p>Trig’s not that hard to study for. It’s a pretty limited body of knowledge, so you could probably raise your math score a good deal if you study enough this summer. Then your ACT will look pretty darn good! Rice maybe? I associate it with Vanderbilt and Duke as the three best colleges in the south.</p>
<p>I’m thinking I’ll most likely study and take it again. I took it again just thinking I’d get another decent score this time w/ writing and dropped it to a 29…bleh. But you’re right, if I could raise my ACT it’d be much more appealing.</p>
<p>Money could be an issue. We’re in that range of making too little to pay out of pocket, but too much to get ridiculous aid. I figure I can apply to any school that might be a good college and then see what they offer scholarship wise.</p>
<p>That’s probably not a good strategy. Figure out what you can afford now. </p>
<p>Schools that meet need with no merit are a waste of an application if you can’t afford your EFC and merit aid schools usually make you bend more than you have to if you can.</p>
<p>The formation of every list should start with running financial calculators. Too many kids here in April are living proof that when financial reality doesn’t lead the way, trouble follows.</p>
<p>Realize that most private colleges expect middle/upper middle class families to contribute much more than they can.</p>
<p>Simply put, if I can’t get the financial aid I need, I’ll defer to the State school, where I know a near-full ride will be available. If any of the upper schools offer a pretty decent package, then I’ll consider it. But how will I know what I might receive scholarship-wise if I don’t apply?</p>
<p>Apply: I got waaay more than my parents told me I would. And personally, I’d put forth my alma mater, Brown: we do really well in Law placement, and our psych/cogsci programs are fairly strong, and seem to have good cross-departmental relationships with our CS department.</p>
<p>You know what you will get aid wise at schools that meet need by using their calculators. Merit aid is a known factor at schools that guarantee it for certain stats and a mystery at those that don’t.</p>
<p>Many students waste a lot of time doing applications for schools they would have known they can’t afford had they done their homework.</p>
<p>Some schools keep stats on the job placement for the alums, and that might tell you something about how many decided to become lawyers -but it says nothing about their effectiveness at getting kids into law school. Every school is going to have lawyers in their alumni network with whom you can probably do some informational interviewing about the kinds of legal careers that exist, if that would be helpful to you. You can also check the career placement offices at various schools to see what they can tell you about internships at law firms or legal aid societies.</p>
<p>Preparing for law school isn’t like preparing for medical school where your school’s medical school committee is going to evaluate you against your peers in your year and write a recommendation based on that. Applying to law school is just test scores, grades, recs and ECs-just like applying to college. You can always take a constitutional law or intellectual property class if you school offers it, just to see what it’s like, but that won’t help or hurt your chances of admission-again, unlike medical school, where they have clear pre-reqs.</p>
<p>As above, study what interests you. If there is a kind of law that is especially of interest, take classes that would give you relevant background. But no undergraduate school is especially good at creating lawyers.</p>