What are my chances of getting into NYU, Northeastern, Boston University

Hi I’m a first generation Hispanic college student my gpa is 3.95/4 UW and 4.8/5 W my sat is a 1300. I do a lot of community service like being an ambassador for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and I also volunteer playing flute for children at the library. I’m first chair flute in two orchestras and also help my parents run our family business doing about 20 hours a week during the school year and 65 hours a week in the summer. What are my chances of getting into these schools

I think that your chances are pretty good. Your SAT is a bit low for Northeastern, but your GPA is very good. I would not call any of them safeties but in terms of admission I think that they are well worth the applications.

Whether you can afford them is an entirely different issue. Have you run the NPCs or are you fine with being full pay? For us the NPCs were not encouraging for these schools, and reality when the offers came in for two of them matched the NPCs exactly. Of course you might get entirely different results.

The issue whenever I run the NPC for me is that it doesn’t take into account that we have a small business and most of our income is reinvested back into the company. Worse case scenario though I don’t think we would necessarily mind paying.

All the prestige in the world won’t mean anything unless you can pay for it. Prestige always comes down to cost, and the wealthy are always the ones who can pay for it. Here’s a little secret. It’s really a myth. The accreditation works the same whether it comes from NYU or Rutgers, for instance. Just find an affordable school that works for you. You’ll be surprised how little attention employers give to college brand name.

“it doesn’t take into account that we have a small business”

With one exception, every small business owner that I have ever known could not have afforded to send their child to NEU, BU, or NYU. The way that financial “need” is computed is very harsh towards small business owners.

My best guess is that you are very likely to need to find more affordable options.

You definitely should try to minimize or avoid debt for your undergraduate education.