hi! I’m a rising senior struggling to make a college list because I’m not exactly sure what schools would be good match/target schools (or even reach or safety schools), and I would like input from more people, especially because my guidance counselor has not been that helpful. I’m doing college research but i find i’m spending too long looking at schools that I end up not even liking. So if you could recommend me some colleges that I could focus on to help narrow down my list, that would be great! Also, any advice for researching colleges too would be so helpful!
Here are my stats:
State: NY
School: public (fairly-competitive)
GPA UW: 3.95 (at my school a 4.00 is all A+'s(97%), so never gotten below an A)
SAT: 1530 (Math: 780 RW: 750)
AP’s: AP Euro (3), AP Bio (5), AP Comp Sci A (5), APUSH (4), so AP Scholar with Honor
SAT II’s: Bio (M): 780, US hist: 750, taking Math 2 in August hopefully an 800 lol, but probably 770+
Rank: school doesn’t rank, I’d guess at least top 20%, but really hard to tell
Senior Year AP’s: AP Studio Art, AP Macro, AP Micro, AP Calc AB, AP Lit, AP French (graduate with 10 AP’s)
EC’s:
-Varsity Swimmer qualified for County Champs (4 years) (most likely co-captain senior year)
-swam on club team and competed in local meets (2 years in hs, 2 years in ms)
-President of charity knitting club (4 years)
-participate in some school clubs like book club, coding club, yearbook club
-National Honor Society, National Art Honor Society, Debate Honor Society, French Honor Society(held officer position)
-Very passionate about fine arts, won a couple of regional art competitions, did an intensive art portfolio program at an art school, will submit a supplement art portfolio to certain colleges (depending if they consider art portfolios or not)
-read to kids at local public library in a book buddies program
-volunteer at local children’s museum
-work experience: swim instructor for children, lifeguarding
Recommendations: my AP Bio teacher who is known for writing great personal rec letters, my French teacher who i’ve had for all 4 years of hs and the advisor for FHS, and my guidance counselor rec will be very generic (both my bio and french teacher nominated me for these awards my hs gives out, so i think they like me)
Now here is some college criteria:
-major: probably economics or sociology (may change mind after I take AP Econ, but leaning toward humanities majors). I’m considering getting an MBA after undergrad, but don’t really want to study business (unless as a double major/minor with international relations/business or maybe marketing) as an undergrad, rather have a liberal arts education, but not confined to LACs. (hopefully that made sense)
-gratefully and thankfully, my parents can pay for college, so financial aid is not a major deciding factor
-preferably a medium to big, but not too big, size school
-okay if some greek life, but not overbearing on social scene
-preferably near or in a large city, but good college towns are okay too
-prestige matters to an extent (like i’m not expecting ivies or anything, but don’t want to go somewhere no one has heard of)
-would like to minor in graphic design, so a college with an art program
-would like to stay on east coast or northwest
-again, i’m not sure i know what i want to study, so a college allows for flexibility, or has an interdisciplinary focus would be ideal. this is also why i’d rather not apply to the business school of a university to study economics.
so far i’ve been looking at schools like uchicago (huge reach tho), washu, nc chapel hill, nyu, vanderbilt, but i’m not great at researching schools (again tips for researching schools are greatly appreciated), so these might not even fit my own criteria. also, i’m an asian-american female so i’m not sure if that helps or decreases my chances. lastly, i’m not sure if i’m too confident in myself for looking at these schools, so if you have any feedback on that let me know!
Thanks for taking the time to read this long post! I really appreciate it!
