It seems that you would like to explore colleges that might be more selective/academic than your state schools options, which isn’t an unreasonable basis for establishing a preliminary list of schools to consider. If it would help you to narrow your search, then an analysis such as this (even if a few years old) can be useful: https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9.
What are your parents willing and able to pay each year for your college? You need that info from them along with enough financial information to get an estimated FAFSA EFC and NPCs for some schools
You have a few schools on your list that interest you. Run the NPCs on them and see if they are even affordable. Yes, there are some kids who come during $200k income families that get some Fin aid, but not all of them and not likely $70k+. Is Dartmouth even doable for you? If the NZpC say your family needs to come up with $60-70k a year towards it, would your parents ante up and pay? Should they, if it means breaking open retirement accounts or borrowing?
The financial part of this is important. You are lucky enough to be living in a low state college cost state. You can easily cover your safeties affordably and then go to town on the longer shots . All schools are long shots if you need merit money and they do not automatically give it out according to stats you have.
Right now, IMO, with the info you have given, you are s very long shot at the most selective schools. I think you know that. Look at who gets into those schools from your highschool and see how you compare. Naviance is a good start at that if available. Unless you have some hook that puts you into a tagged pool at top colleges, your chances are lower than the already low chances that kids with near perfect numbers have.
You’ve gotten some good advice and school suggestions already. I second looking at schools like Richmond, Conn College, and JMU. Gettysburgh is another very good one. They have a semester in DC program that might appeal to you. Given the imbalance between test scores & grades, you’ll want to apply rolling or EA as many places as you can to get an early read on how your application is received. You’ll certainly want to apply to several SUNY schools. Bing offers EA with results generally coming in on a rolling basis (as opposed to on specific day). Buffalo also has EA. For several students I know, that was the first school they heard back from. In addition to SUNYs and select LAC colleges, you might apply OOS to a few other state flagships such as UMass-Amherst, UVermont, and as previously mentioned UDelaware. Yours should be an interesting journey to follow so I hope you’ll keep us up-to-date on your list and the results.
Thank you so much everyone. I figured I would give further specifics on my grades. I used an online gpa calculator (https://gpacalculator.net/high-school-gpa-calculator/) so here are my results.
formatted as unweighted/weighted
Cumulative 3.81/4.20
8th grade 3.22/3.39 (I had three classes that counted)
9th grade 3.92/4.15
10th grade 4.18/4.66
11th grade 3.90/4.61
Ok, so you’ve narrowed the geographic scope to the Northeast, especially New England & the DC area. And you have narrowed your major to something in the international studies & poli sci area. Good. Some thoughts:
It’s good that you are starting to narrow your focus, but still remain flexible. The bad news is that a LOT of students want to study that stuff in those geographic areas. So you aren’t going to get much leverage regarding financial aid. It’s great that you have the SUNYs as a backup, and if you are ok with attending one of them, then you can feel free to apply to other schools in addition to a few SUNYs.
I have a kid who is in grad school for International Affairs, and from what I’ve seen, lots of different undergrad degrees are ok if you want to get into that field. Poli sci, history, economics, foreign languages, area studies, sociology, philosophy, theology, cyber security, etc. The most valuable skills right now seem to be foreign languages & cyber security. Also be aware that the terms International Affairs, International Studies, & International Relations all pretty much mean the same thing ( as has been discussed multiple times on CC).
Keep in mind that AP exams can significantly lower the total amount you will pay for colleges, & that at some schools ( especially the elite ones) your excellent AP test scores won’t lessen the # of courses you will have to take very much. For example, Dartmouth won’t count any AP test results towards the # of classes needed to graduate, whereas at other schools you might be able to graduate in 3 years due to AP credit.
Keep in mind that just because your parents CAN pay a certain amount for college, there is no rule that says you MUST spend that amount. You and your parents will be delighted if there is money left over for grad school, relocation expenses, travel, etc.
If you are still open to foreign colleges, the U of Ottawa & Carlton U. are in the Canadian capital. Also, if French is one of your languages, Canada has some bi-lingual colleges, including U of Ottawa & Glendon College ( a branch of York U which has its own beautiful small campus in Toronto).
Could you verify your your 10th grade UW GPA? It appears not to comport with a typical 4.0 scale.
@merc81 I have no idea… I just plugged all the numbers into an online calculator.
@moooop I agree. AP credit is important to me because I could definitely benefit a lot from it. I’m not opposed to foreign schools- I went through a phase where I obsessed over the London school of economics and political science- nor am I opposed to the west coast; I’m interested in the Claremont consortium and potentially UCs (I have some family out there in the LA area)
@merc81 Not sure what happened there. Manually calculated- 94.75 UW numeric for 10th grade
Note that GPAs are typically reported on an established scale, @historypenguin. As an example, an unweighted GPA of 3.81 out of 4.0 would make sense. However, a 4.18 out of an unknown upper limit offers little meaning. You are not obligated to report everything on your thread, of course, but you may want to play around with your conversions until you arrive at a consistent result.
I know you don’t want a school as big as Michigan State, but just to give you an idea of how huge the differences in AP credit can be, MSU will give you 16 credits for a 5 on the AP exam in Spanish, French, or German. That’s an entire semester’s worth of credits. At the other extreme is Dartmouth, which will give you zero credits toward graduation for a 5 on any AP exam.
Be aware that colleges might have a maximum # of AP credits they will grant to an individual student. And there might be other restrictions, such as AP credits can’t be used to fulfill distribution requirements at some colleges.