I don’t see anything unconventional. Maybe I missed it. These are all reaches/ extreme reaches IMO. Everyone applying has similar stats (usually higher GPA and lower test scores) and similar activities. I’d expand the list. A lot.
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Based upon the nature of your related interests, you may want to research colleges with an available major in public policy, which relies on the fields of political science, economics and philosophy for its foundation.
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HisPol is one of the most competitive courses at Oxford, in part because there are only ~50 places available across the university, and both departments have to select you. Have you taken a look at the HAT exam?
Here is the 2021 paper: https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/media_wysiwyg/HAT%202021_v0.3_PV4.pdf
You would have a great shot at other UK unis, but my bet is that you would have to really hit it out of the park on the HAT to overcome the 4 in USHx for Oxford.
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That is why my kid didn’t want to attend UIUC either - too many kids from her high school.
I know someone from Massachusetts whose child thought that U.Mass Amherst was too boring and too many students from their high school went there so they went to UVM. I also know someone from Vermont whose child thought that UVM was too boring and too many students from their high school went there so they went to U.Mass Amherst.
Both students got a great education. Both sets of parents paid an extra $80,000 to send their child out of state – and this little only because both students got a very good merit based scholarship.
Employers here in the northeast know how strong UIUC is. So do employers everywhere else in the country. So do graduate admissions staff all over the country. Given the size of UIUC, you might need to make an extra effort if you want to ever see someone from your high school there on campus.
Your list of intended majors covers a rather wide range of subjects for which some form of graduate study is a real possibility. You would be far better off if you can avoid debt for your bachelor’s degree, and even better if you can leave money in the college fund for graduate school.
How big is your high school? How many students from there go to UIUC? For argument’s sake, let’s say that there are 2k kids in your high school, 500 students per class. If half the class goes to UIUC, and you knew all the students from the preceding three years when you went to high school (and the three grades under you), then maybe there are 1000 students from your school attending UIUC at any one time (and I’m being super generous on these numbers on your behalf). There are more than 33,000 undergrads at UIUC. So, maybe 3% of the students at UIUC would be from your high school, but then 97% of them would not. When you add in the number of grad students on campus (an additional 19k) then your chances of having the high school students have much of an effect on your life are even slimmer.
Just want to give you a little more perspective to how the number of students from your high school might impact your life if you chose to attend UIUC. And if the numbers of students attending UIUC are smaller than I generously estimated, then the impact is that much smaller.
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With respect to environmental studies, some of these colleges may be of interest:
Best analyses I’ve seen of current state of admissions for that type of student.
Things were much, much different for students applying in the mid 70’s. College Board Student profile from 1975: (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED124847.pdf) A student applying with mid 1500s and a 3.66 or so GPA was a match at HYPMS.
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Scores and grades were very different too. SATs have been recentered. According to an article in the NY Times TimesMachine: S.A.T. Increases the Average Score, by Fiat - NYTimes.com “The S.A.T. score of the average American high school student will soon be going up 100 points. However, that doesn’t mean that anyone is getting smarter. Beginning in April 1995, the College Board, based in Manhattan, will be recalibrating its scoring of the Scholastic Assessment Test. The bottom score will still be 200 and the top 800, but it will be easier for everyone to get higher scores.”
A verbal score of 730 on the original SAT was a 800 after the
recentering. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563025.pdf
Grading was very different too.
I’m not claiming it was as hard to get into top schools in the 1970s as it is now. However, you really can’t compare scores and gpas in the 1970s with current ones.
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I think OP has a shot everywhere, but there are no guarantees.
For a safety, if you don’t mind a Catholic college, I’d suggest the honors program at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire. See especially New Hampshire Institute of Politics
Adding a reach, I think Williams College is a good match for your interests and–while a reach–is more likely than Harvard or Oxford. In general, I think SLACs are more likely to admit you than the tip top American universities.
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Interesting… it also has tables regarding parental contribution and parental income starting at page 35. The highest bracket for parental contribution was $4,800 (equivalent to $26,535 today) and up, which 14.4% of all college bound students’ parents could contribute. The lowest bracket was under $625 (equivalent to $3,455 today), which is where 38.5% of all college bound students’ parents could contribute. Differences by race and ethnicity were considerable in this table (all minorities were poorer than White students’ parents by this measure).
The table of SAT scores by parental income has its highest bracket at $30,000 (equivalent to $165,846 today) and over, and its lowest bracket at under $6,000 (equivalent to $33,169 today).
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