I was wondering about small scale schools like Merrimack and Stonehill… They would definitely be safety schools for me, but with my stats I think I could get good merit packages. Are these schools worth it? And do these schools have good reputations or are there any other similar schools?
SAT: 1250 (taking ACT in June)
GPA: 95 unweighted, all APs and Honors
Major: Biochem w/PreMed, Double Major/Minor in Italian
Extracurriculars: Theatre organization (Crew chief next year), Italian Honors Society (President next year), Yearbook (Editor next year), part-time job, various volunteering
You might also look at the majors available at schools such as Wheaton and St. Lawrence.
Siena (upstate NY) is another good one. Siena has an added bonus of giving very fast admissions decisions (a few years ago my S was admitted by late October).
Check out Marist College in upstate NY - they have a branch campus in Florence with multiple options for studying there, including a first-year freshman experience https://italy.marist.edu/ffe/ It’s a formerly-Catholic college that no longer has any formal religious affiliation. It could be a great place to combine an Italian major/minor with a STEM/pre-health major, and they do offer merit aid, for which you’d be well qualified.
@aquapt I actually live 15 minutes from Marist!! It’s an awesome school and beautiful, but I don’t want to stay home/near home. Can you think of any schools comparable to Marist?
Merrimack and Stonehill are both Catholic. is that what you are looking for/ Emmanuel College in Boston would be another good option and a safety. Not Catholic but Simmons in Boston would be a match is female.
I often hear Fairfield referenced as similar to Marist.
I don’t really know which small schools have sufficiently robust Italian programs, which seems to me like it could be the first filter to look at if that’s important to you. I knew that Marist did because of their Florence campus.
You might want to look at URI. It’s small for a state flagship - around 15K undergrads - and their website states they have the largest undergraduate Italian program in the US: https://web.uri.edu/languages/academics/italian/ I believe you would qualify for Honors as well as merit money, based on your weighted GPA - that would tilt your experience even more toward the qualities of a small school.
Rhode Island has a proud and vibrant Italian heritage. I know one of the professors and it’s a good program. URI is still one of the public flagships that is accessible for students without having to have published research to get in. And it’s in a beautiful area near the beaches.