<p>I'm a rising Senior this year. I go to a Highschool with 1000 people in one of the better school districts in North Carolina. I am interested in Classics, History, and Linguistics. I've been looking for schools on the Collegeboard site, but it's hard to get a feel for schools over there.</p>
<p>I have taken the most challenging courses that my school offers. My Extracirriculars are: Eagle Scout, Vice Chief of Administration in my local Order of the Arrow Lodge (basically head administrator for a group with 1000 members), Oboe, Debate, and a part-time job. I am in NHS. I went to the NC Science & Engineering Fair this year.</p>
<p>My Stats are:
CR: 20/265
GPA: 4.35/3.67 (Will go up after this year)
SAT: 2060 (R: 730, M: 680, W: 650) (I will get this up to a 700 in each subscore)</p>
<p>I will take the AP US, AP Environmental Science, and AP Language exams this year. I anticipate a 5, 4, and a 5 respectively. I will take AP Statistics, AP Chemistry, AP Latin, AP US Government, and AP Literature next year. I am taking the World History, US History, and Literature SAT II tests. I expect to do really well on them.</p>
<p>Schools I am thinking about include UNC, Vanderbilt, and Northwestern. What are some other good places to look at?</p>
<p>For Vandy and NU, try to get your subscores beyond a 700. I would think that your M+CR should be closer to 1500 to be more competitive for those schools. </p>
<p>What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year? You need to determine if they’ll pay whatever schools expect them to pay.</p>
<p>If money is an issue, make sure that you have a few financial safeties on your list. These are schools that you know FOR SURE that you’ll have all costs covered. </p>
<p>For Classics, History, etc…are you looking at any of the better LACs? Those would be good for those interests.</p>
<p>Without dramatic improvement, your grades and SAT are probably not good enough for Northwestern or Vanderbilt (reported median SATs of accepted students at 1540 to 1590 this year). Not trying to be mean, just realistic. You do have a solid shot at UNC though. </p>
<p>I assume based on the schools you mentioned that you want to major in the liberal arts, if so try Richmond, Wake Forest, Rochester, and Sewanee (where you might get a scholarship). If you like engineering/math science, NC State is very good and in state, or for out of state look at Case Western, Georgia Tech and RPI.</p>
<p>Unless you are a URM or can improve both your GPA and Scores somewhat (not a lot, but somewhat), but NU and Vandy are somewhat of a reach. Not impossible as it stands, but definately, a reach.</p>
<p>Even with improvement – both those schools have <20% admissions rates, which means that they’re HARD for anyone to get into. A year ago, NU reported that it rejected thousands of students with 1500+ (SAT CR+M), and it hasn’t gotten better.</p>
<p>I think Jaguar has put together a really good list.</p>
<p>*
As for money, I will need financial aid. Is there a list of go-to financial safeties?
*</p>
<p>Well…not really. Safeties don’t usually give much need-based aid. Your best safeties will be the ones that give very large merit scholarships for stats.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay? </p>
<p>Are they low income? If not, then you need to run some Net Price Calculators to see what schools like Vandy will expect. Get your parents to put in the figures on the NPCs on Vandy and NU’s websites.</p>
<p>My EFC is $7500, my family can afford that much. My Grandfather has offered to help me pay my loans, something to the tune of $15,000 when I graduate.</p>
<p>I’d like the thank Jaguar for his list. I really want to live in an Urban area (having grown up in a small town), so Sewanee is off the list.</p>
<p>Will it help that my dad when to Chapel Hill? Other than UNC there are no good state schools here, unless you want to be an Engineer.</p>
<p>Very few schools are better than UNC for classics, and it’s superb for history as well. Linguistics is weaker but still good. Unless you get into a top private with a lot of financial aid (e.g. Yale), you can’t do much better. </p>
<p>UNC Asheville might be worth a look; history and classics are strong for its size. It doesn’t offer linguistics.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for you, good classics and linguistics programs are hard to find, and very few places indeed have strong programs in both. </p>
<p>
Decent starting list but a few problems:
[ul][<em>]Notre Dame - possibly good, no linguistics
[</em>]Brandeis - classics is struggling for survival
[<em>]USC - possibly good. highly selective (reach)
[</em>]Emory - good suggestion. highly selective (big reach)
[<em>]JHU - good suggestion. linguistics only as minor. highly selective (big reach)
[</em>]GWU - maybe. classics and linguistics are very limited. iffy financial aid.
[<em>]Georgetown - good suggestion. highly selective (big reach)
[</em>]American - no classics or linguistics
[<em>]UVA - maybe. not sure it’s worth consideration over UNC
[</em>]CMU - no classics. adequate linguistics.
[<em>]NYU - iffy financial aid
[</em>]Tulsa - no linguistics, virtually nonexistent classics (one professor)
[<em>]Rochester - possibly good. classics is weak and linguistics is ok
[</em>]Wake - possibly good, iffy financial aid[/ul]</p>
<p>Other suggestions:
[ul][<em>]Tulane (highly recommend)
[</em>]UGA (highly recommend if you get the OOS waiver + scholarship)
[<em>]Pitzer
[</em>]Reed
[<em>]Boston U (iffy financial aid)
[</em>]Maybe Tufts?[/ul]</p>
<p>Higher test scores would open up more options - WUStL, Penn, Rice, Chicago, Swarthmore, etc. Consider trying the ACT.</p>
<p>In-state public universities.
In-state community college followed by transfer to public universities.
Schools offering big merit scholarships for stats, like University of Alabama campuses in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville.</p>
<p>Run net price calculators on each school’s web site.</p>
<p>You are in a bad situation since your stats makes most of the top 15 ranked, financially generous schools, high reaches/out of reach.</p>
<p>Applying to Boston, American, GWU and other private $50-60k schools with poor financial aid would pretty much be a waste of time.</p>
<p>1) Improve your SAT drastically to a 2300+ so an unhooked applicant like you can become competitive at top 15 schools.
or
2) Apply to NC state universities. Work on getting into UNC because that is the best and the most plausible scenario, both academically and financially.
or
3) Apply to low tier schools offering full ride merit scholarships for someone with your stats</p>
<p>It seems unrealistic to say that I could get my SAT up to a 2300.</p>
<p>Assuming I get up to around 2100+, would I have a shot at getting into Vandy or Northwestern? Tulane says that my SAT score is good enough for them right now (at the 50% it looks like). I would be safely in the top 25% at UNC Chapel Hill with a 2100+ score.</p>
<p>Beyond my leadership, which is already good, what else could I do to make myself stand out to Colleges? Is being an Eagle Scout not a big plus to colleges?</p>
<p>What a lot of people here don’t realize is that your Eagle Scout is worth a 4.0. It is the ONLY award that has been correlated to success. In fact, the Army automatically promotes Eagles that enlist to the rank of Corp.</p>
<p>Schools want someone who will work hard and succeed. Grades are used to show that. Your Eagle shows the same. Congrads. Go for the top. You have a chance</p>
<p>Thanks Princess’dad. I know that for me, my eagle project was like an AP class and a sport combined. I spent 10 weekends in a row on it and wrote countless letters as well as the essays. It’s something that I’m glad I did, but it took away from my school work. I hope admissions staff know a lot about it, especially places with no interviews. </p>
<p>Might look at Holy Cross(don’t have to be religious) which has a very good Classics major. HC has nice campus 1 hour from Boston and the school meets 100% of demonstrated financial aid. The Holy Cross website is very informative.</p>
I’m an Eagle Scout and a former Vigil member of OA myself and would love for that to be the case, but I am not sure it is. Scouting is an excellent activity, for sure, and showing a lot of dedication and leadership in it like the OP has will reflect well in the admissions process. More people get Eagle than you realize (56,000 in 2010), however, many of them applying for top schools. When you factor in the numbers of equally impressive achievements from other areas (e.g. a dedicated musician with state or national level awards), being an Eagle remains extremely impressive but much less of a “hook.”</p>
<p>I recommend that Lupy314 consider focusing on Scouting in his essay(s), and details about an Eagle project make excellent supplementary materials. The number of “quick and easy” projects has unfortunately been rising in recent years, and admissions officers have thus become somewhat jaded. A large and difficult project like yours apparently was should be emphasized.</p>