Safety Schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>My daughter has 740 on each section of the SAT's. She has not yet taken the SAT 2's yet. Her average is 3.5/4.0 unweighted--in her school, the only way you can get above 3.5 is to take indendent study/AP classes, which she has. She has taken a very heavy and challenging courseload consistently (e.g. AP western civ, AB calculus, U.S., next year Eco, Eng. lit and environmental--got 4 or 5 on the exams she has taken, organic chem, Intel social science research, independent study Participation in government, has taken extra art/theater/music classes for fun--set design, guitar, piano, next year, photography). Her big extracurricular activity is theater tech--hasn't been much time for anything else...has done it since 6th grade. She has been lighting chief, last play, assistant crew chief. Occasionally, she does other volunteer work--soup kitchen, animal shelter, but nothing consistently...the theater is pretty intense (she has done shows the day before her AP tests). She did the John Hopkins talent search program for three years, including one where she lived on a boat studying oceanography. This summer she is doing the Macaulay Honors Program at CCNY.</p>

<p>For safety or safetyish schools, thinking of:</p>

<p>Macaulay Honors program (if you are not accepted for the Honors part, you are automatically considered for the regular college).
SUNY Binghamton, Geneseo, maybe New Paltz.
Maybe one private, like Bucknell, Villanova or Muhlenberg...but haven't visited any of them yet.</p>

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<p>They sound reasonble, but what’s her rank? Why would you need APs to get above a 3.5? Is money an issue?</p>

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<p>I am not sure of her rank yet…I will have to get that info once school starts. The scale her school uses is that there are lettler grades: E, G, NI and F. E is worth 95, G worth 85…not sure about the others…she has never gotten anything but E and G (only 2 or 3 Gs). The grades in the AP and MILE (Independent Study) classes are different. E is equal to 105. She would have a higher than 3.5 average with the AP and MILE classes except that the school includes the scores on the Regents exams she took in middle school and that pulled her GPA down a little. We can swing a big tuition bill if we need to by taking another loan on the apartment (our mortgage is low) but we are not rich–family income is $120,000 in NYC (high cost of living–enormous maintenance, etc.), family of 3ish…I say 3ish because we are helping out a kid who is in college upstate. He gets financial aid and SSI but it doesn’t go far and he is “independent” in that he separated from his abusive mom and doesn’t get anything from her and he lives with us when he is not in school (like for the summer)–hoping that financial aid will take that into account because he also has additional learning expenses related to his learning disability and ADHD.</p>