Sugestions on where to apply?

College Search & Selection
1

Hey! I was wondering if your online community could help me out creating a list of schools to apply to. Lol Im a bit on panic mode because im running out of time.

I am a rising senior from northern virginia. I attend a high pressure and high rigor high school in an affluent area that does not rank its students. I do not anticipate qualifying for financial aid but being economical about my college choice is a top priority because there is not a lot of college savings to go from.

I want to go to a well rounded, small or mid sized college, I dont really care where in the United States. Sports and greek life arent important to me as long as the school has a strong and vibrant community but I do want the school to have some name recognition for future networking/resume purposes. Another major thing is that I want to stay away from majority commuter schools.

As for my academics;

My weighted gpa is a 3.7 (if that makes sence to anyone) and i dont know my unweighted. I anticipate graduating having taken 10 ap exams. Iv gotten 3s and 5s on the 4 APs I have taken sophmore and senior year, with decent grades in the classes (B through A-). My worst grades have been B-‘s; I got 2 in junior year in pretty hard classes that were unweighted. Im generally a B+ student and my GPA has stayed pretty consistant the past 3 years.

My sat is a 640 math, 670 reading. Might try one more time. Didn’t take act, sat 2, or any other whatever.

I have a healthy wealth of extra curriculars with a few leadership roles. I have 4 varsity letters. ECs and my craZy family give me good stuff to write about, but otherwise, I dont have other hooks that are particularly catching. Also, Im female and white.

I feel like im on an advanced level tinder hahaha. Anyway, any ideas (reach match or safty) would be deeply appreciated even if they arent perfectly within my parameters. Thanks guys!!

2

College Tinder wants to know your major/career aspirations for optimal swiping. :wink:

3

Check out the Colleges That Change Lives consortium schools. They vary in selectivity but overall a lot of them would probably suit what you are looking for with your stats, and many of them give merit aid.

4

What is meant by a “well rounded” college?

I am guessing that maybe you mean small-mid sized schools that offer professional majors (like business or engineering) as well as liberal arts majors. If so, that could be a limiting factor. Many smaller schools (including many of the “Colleges That Change Lives”, for example) are traditional liberal arts colleges (without professional programs).

If you want smaller schools that offer both professional and liberal arts degrees, then maybe look at Bucknell, Lehigh, and Lafayette, which are all Patriot League schools in Pennsylvania. They all have solid name recognition, strong residential communities, and seem like fits for your stats. Bucknell and Lehigh both have schools of liberal arts, business/management, and engineering. Lafayette has liberal arts and engineering; no business school, but a strong economics program.

5

Bucknell and Lehigh would be reaches with your stats.

6

Pending major/career info… on the first pass I would look at small, public liberal arts colleges.

UVA Wise, unfortunately, seems a little too low-stats to be a good fit - super-affordable though!

UNC Asheville seems to set a good baseline. Your stats are above average there, but below 75th percentile, so you wouldn’t be an outlier at all; but with an almost-80% acceptance rate you could definitely consider it a safety. The out of state COA is around $33K/year. It’s a really nice smaller school (3800 undergrads) in a beautiful town with lots of culture, that bills itself as the Gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. There are some scholarships available, so with above-average stats you might even be able to bring that $33K down a little more. In my view, this school sets the bar for you - it’s relatively affordable (roughly the same as the in-state cost of UVA), you know you can get in, and it offers everything you say you’re looking for in terms of environment - small school, great college town, not ridiculously hard to get to from your home, minimal Greek life, residential campus, and a degree from a public university system with name recognition, and a campus with a good reputation in its own right.

This sets the bar to beat. Yes, definitely look at the CTCL schools https://ctcl.org/category/college-profiles/ and apply to the ones that interest you; but for the most part you won’t know how much merit aid you can get from each one until you’re accepted, and you will need the merit aid to make them affordable. So having a financial safety is key, and Asheville as that safety gives you a point of comparison to ask yourself what the others have to offer that would make them preferable to that baseline.

As far as other public LAC’s - there are some nice ones to the north of you, but they’re more expensive - St. Mary’s College of MD and TCNJ both run about 47K/year

SUNY Geneseo, though, would be a match (but I’m not sure if OOS is more competitive) and costs about the same as Asheville.

UVM, as a flagship, is a bit larger, but it’s small for a flagship, majority out-of-state, and has a smaller-school feel with a gorgeous campus and a great college town, and it’s a match for your stats. But it’s expensive, at $58K/year for out of state, and with stats right at median you probably couldn’t get merit. Still cheaper than a full-pay private, but pricey.

There are great bargains to be found in the midwest. Truman State in Missouri, an excellent public LAC, would cost you only $26K/year after $2500 automatic merit for your stats. Your stats are almost exactly at median there, but the advantage of a geographical location that doesn’t attract a flood of applicants is that 80% of applicants are accepted, so this would be another safety even though you’re not overqualified. It’s an excellent school and has the size, residential campus, low-profile-Greek-life (~20%) quality that you’re seeking.

Then there’s U of Minnesota Morris, another top-notch public LAC, which would be even a little less than Truman State, at $24K/year out of state.

Those are your best-fit financial safeties. Now check out the CTCL schools and see how they compare to the publics with a predictable price-point. Hope that helps!

7

Haha i dont know yet so I want to go somewhere that has good programs in multiple diciplines (ie not a school that is super focused on engineering).

8

Thank you so much! Your perspective is so different from the people in my area, I really appreciate your suggestions for being outside the NoVA box and so well thought.

9

Haha, I grew up in the NoVA box so I know of what you speak. (Kent Gardens-Longfellow-Langley, but moved away junior year. And college admissions weren’t quite as harrowing in those days. But we had the 7-point grading scale even then, which was and is just harsh!) Maybe I’m overestimating how inexpensive you need your school to be, but honestly those public LAC’s are every bit as high-quality as many private colleges that cost more than double, so they’re a good starting point. Having a financial safety or two that you know you can get into, afford, and happily attend can make the difference between serenity and abject panic. Once you have a default plan you know can live with, you can always explore other options from there, with a great-financial-value point of comparison against which to evaluate those options. (College debt may feel abstract now, but it won’t when you graduate!) Asheville and Truman State both have rolling admissions, too, so if you apply when the applications open, you can not only maximize your merit potential but also nail down sanity-saving acceptances very early in the game.

FWIW, another point in favor of MN-Morris, apart from its own high quality and bargain price, is that if you feel strongly about graduating from the flagship campus (or fear you might outgrow the small LAC environment), and if you get good grades in the first couple years, a transfer to UMinn-Twin Cities requires just a straightforward internal application. Cost is almost double for Twin Cities vs. Morris, but still well under $50K which is a great deal for a top flagship U. (I don’t know how easy it is to transfer from Asheville to Chapel Hill, but I do know that Chapel Hill out-of-state is $$$)

Good luck, and don’t let the NoVA ambition-inflation get you down :slight_smile:

10

I second looking at the CTCL schools. My daughter liked Allegheny and Susquehanna the best, but she didn’t want to leave the northeast so she only looked at the ones in that geographic area. With the same GPA and higher test scores she got into the Honors program at both of those and received excellent merit aid.

11

Take a look at Muhlenberg and Dickenson in PA. As well as Skidmore in NY. All excellent, small and friendly schools.

12

An unweighted GPA would be helpful, because that’s what colleges look at first. If you have a 4.0, but an unweighted 2.8, they can see you’re padding grades with AP courses. AP courses help you if your unweighted GPA somewhere above a 3.5.

13

If you want to look at a bigger school, look at Appalachian State, also in the mountains of NC. It’s 16k undergrad but in a small mountain town that is very cool and it’s got a wide range of programs and types of students. There’s very few grad students (maybe 2k total?) so it has big focus on undergrads. OOS is $33k/year.

My kids go in top-ranked (read: pressure cooker like NoVa?) public HS and App State is a hugely popular college choice b/c its got a great vibe and reputation for strong teaching and high quality faculty.

They do have sports and Greek but it’s not a large part of the college identity (well, except that year their football team beat Michigan – that was crazy).

Good luck!!