School Suggestions?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am a high school junior, and have been researching different schools for a very long time now. However, I'm still not sure which are within the range of possibility for me. It has been very difficult for me to gauge where I fall on the spectrum of Ivies to competitive liberal arts colleges/universities, etc. I'd really appreciate some help!</p>

<p>UW GPA: 4.02ish as of last year, but it's going up
W: 4.99, I think?
PSAT: 72CR, 68M, 80W (220, so approx 2200 predicated SAT score)
My math score will probably (well... hopefully) be higher, because the 68 is mainly due to the fact that I accidentally left two problems blank (for some reason I didn't notice that I did this during the test... hmmm... =) )</p>

<p>Rank: 3/387 as of last year, but I switched from CP to Honors band, and am getting only As and A+s this year, so I think that I have a chance to be valedictorian</p>

<p>My school is a competitive public HS. This year, 5 people got into Ivies ED, and I know of several others who got into top schools such as MIT.</p>

<p>My course load is the most challenging at my school. I'm taking the maximum number of APs that I can - AP US History, AP Chem, and AP Envi Sci</p>

<p>Awards:
First prize at school science fair, 9th grade
Laureat National recognition in Le Grand Concours (National French Exam)
9th Grade: Outstanding Achievement in English Award (1/3 recipients)
9th Grade: Outstanding Achievement in Biology Award (1/3 recipients)
10th Grade: Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry Award (only recipient in school)
Hopefully Nat'l Merit Semifinalist or Commended, because PSATs were in the 99th percentile... although I'm not sure if this would qualify me or not...?
Short story published in school literary magazine
High Honor Roll, blah blah blah</p>

<p>ECs:
Town Council (will run for President next year)
Habitat for Humanity
Student Council Representative (Freshman year)
French Club (will run for President next year)
DJ on HS radio station
Cross Country (hopefully Varsity next year), indoor/outdoor track
9 years playing the clarinet (seated as a first clarinet all four years of high school; will try out for Senior Districts, etc. next year... I have a fear of playing my clarinet in front of people, but I'm going to overcome that =) )
Will conduct piece next year in band
Pep Band
Will help to run pep band next year (it's always run by seniors)
In the process of founding a Film Club (will be President)
National Honors Society
National French Honors Society
I love to ski (12 years), but I've never wanted to compete/ join the school ski team, because it's something I do for fun</p>

<p>Community Service:
Habitat for Humanity, Town Council (we volunteer and hold workshops for the school), painting a mural at local elementary school, tutoring, offering clarinet lessons, multiple town events w/ school band, helping out the Council on Aging</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I want to major in biochemistry, but I have no evidence of this interest... except my school awards for bio/ chem. I'm going to ask my Chem teacher about any research/job opportunities at local universities, though.</p>

2

<p>First of all, you are clearly mistaken...an UW GPA can't be more than a 4.0, as an UW GPA means no +'s nor -'s are taken into account. Neither are honors or AP credit. But, I'm going to assume your grades are good.</p>

<p>Prepare some for the SATs. But what will help you more is doing your math homework, doing all the reading for classes at school, read for fun outside of class (note: Crime and Punishment is not "fun"...something like Harry Potter) and stuff like that. In otherwords, don't freak out and do your work.</p>

<p>Your EC's are fine...if not excessive. Be yourself, figure out what you love, and start focusing on that more so than other stuff.</p>

<p>Yeah. I could babble on...but you should be going to a nice school next year. So don't worry about it too much.</p>

3

<p>Well, when my guidance counselor showed me my GPA, he showed it to me first on a 5.3 scale, including Honors and AP classes, and then on a 4.3, not adding extra points for H or AP classes. But I'd probably have a 4.0 GPA, because the only B I've gotten was in a P.E.-like class, and my guidance counselor said that P.E. grades aren't factored into GPA. Sorry for the confusion, confused_student! (that sounded a lot funnier in my head... Actually, it never sounded funny, but I'm going to post my cheesy little pun anyway =) )</p>

<p>I'm definitely trying to concentrate more on music now, as that is my true passion. My guidance counselor probably wants me to drop these ECs and become involved in other science ones, as I'm a good clarinet player, but not good enough to actually major in music. But I don't care- well, I want to seem as strong as possible on my application... but not enough to abandon the things that I love in order to seem stronger in a different area (I'm such a rebel... haha)</p>

4

<p>Hey LesOs
I am kind of you though i am from outside America. I mean i am also doing a researh on American universities. I can suggest you about Texas A&M and university of Arizona.though UA is middle class university but their endowment is quite healthy which means you can get a good amount of scholarship. In addition they provide full free scholarship for intl students( sorry don't know wheather they provide it for americans or not)
Texas A&M is just cool if you want to study in business or engineering.Specially for engineering TAMU is even better than cornell or columbia.Source USnews enginnering rankings.tey have lot of researh opportunities also . Only the problem is the weather.</p>

5

<p>at many schools you can have a 4.33 UW GPA, if A+ is the highest grade and not A, and this appears to be the case at his school</p>

6

<p>Yep, at my school we go up to 4.3/5.3... And, I'm female. Sadly, I always seem to sound manly in my writing...</p>

<p>Thanks for the suggestion... my only problem w/ Texas A&M is that I would prefer not to leave the NE area... I probably should have mentioned that before. =)</p>

7

<p>You're qualified to apply to Ivies and top LACs. Forget about the University of Arizona unless you're interested in their honors program. You can do way better.</p>

8

<p>LesOs,</p>

<p>Have you taken any SATs? If not, take it twice, probably March and May, and take two SAT Subject tests in June.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/calenfees.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/calenfees.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

9

<p>Almost any of the NE Ivies and LACs are worth a shot and not a waste of an application fee. I guess if I were you, I'd look for something with biochem, strong sciences in general, a good band or wind symphony or orchestra, maybe somewhere you can get scholarships...think about the kind of environment you want and what else you might want to do with yourself in college to help narrow it down.</p>

10

<p>Thanks for all the suggestions! I feel a lot more confident now in my list of possible schools =)</p>

11

<p>hey LesOs, you sound very intelligent and interesting... definitely apply to any school you like. i had some ecs that were pretty similar to yours, and i also love chem, and i chose princeton ed :D</p>

<p>have you heard of the chemistry olympiad exam? i think the local one is held in march. if you do well then you can take the national exam, and if you do really well on the national exam you get to go to some competition/camp thing over the summer.</p>

<p>hmm 220 is kind of on the border for commended/semifinalist. you will definitely be commended, but semifinalist status depends on the state in which you live.</p>

<p>PS i have to disagree with confused_student... crime & punishment is an amazing AND fun book :D</p>

12

<p>Thanks! =)</p>

<p>The Chemistry Olympiad Exam sounds very interesting. I'll look it up/ ask my teacher about signing up.</p>

13

<p>You definitely have a shot at pretty much any school you want. As for school suggestions I would suggest looking into MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins</p>

14

<p>I think you'll do very well applying to schools in the Duke, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn, Amherst, Williams, etc range. HYPSM might be tough but its totally worth applying. I personally believe schools like Rice, Northwestern, Cornell, and company are very solid bets.</p>