What are some colleges that you think I should apply to?

College Search & Selection
1

A few safeties, matches, and reaches would be nice!

My Info:
White Male from Chicago-suburbs (doubt that I will get Financial Aid - high family income)

ACT: 35. I do not plan to take the ACT again. Only took it once.

New PSAT: 1470/1520 and 220 Index

GPA: 4.24 W, 3.6 UW

APs: AP World History, AP Chemistry, AP US History, AP Calculus BC, AP Lang, AP Economics (Micro + Macro), AP Computer Science, AP Lit (senior year), AP Stats (senior year), I’m also taking a course for seniors that have already taken AP Calc BC - highest class in the school (senior year), AP Gov (senior year), AP Physics 1 (senior year).

Total # AP Tests: 13 (not sure if I’m supposed to take AP lit?)

Letters of Rec will be very good. Have one that will be awesome, and likely another for my major.

Essays will be pretty good as well because I will be starting them during the summer, have a lot of topics to consider, and a lot of people who want to help me edit and such (teachers).

ECs:
-Founder and co-leader of current events/charity club
-Dog Therapist at local hospital, hospice, and nursing homes (bring my dog and talk to patients)
-NHS Member
-Spanish Honor Society Member
-Summer work/jobs
-Attending Yale Young Global Scholars PLE this summer (median act of acceptees 33-34, very low acceptance rate)
-Attending Economics for Leaders @ UChicago this summer
-Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth – Award of High Honors
-Leadership and Technology Summit at Stanford University through People to People
-USA Ambassador for Goodwall (online college website)
-Varsity Tennis
-Student Mentor during Lunch for Freshmen
-Tutored middle school students in Math
-Worked a job at a hamburger joint
-Developed social media pages (facebook, yelp, google pages, created manual for use) for a Dentistry office
-Writing a blog about college admissions process

Hooks:
NONE - At best, a D3 Tennis athlete

Preferences:
No location preference (geography).
Prefer urban/suburban schools.
Don’t really care about diversity stats.
Prefer medium schools.
No religious preference.
Not looking for hyper competitive schools.
I’m looking at a major in: Politics, Economics, Law…something like that?

Do you have any college suggestions for me? Did I forget anything?
Please give a good explanation for the colleges that you’ve thought of! I’m hoping for some great answers; thanks ahead of time! Note: My application is probably slightly better than it might seem from GPA (I know it’s low) because I got accepted to YYGS PLE (evidence that my application had merit).

2

Academic interests?

For your setting preferences, these Newsweek articles can be interesting to read through: “The 25 Most Desirable Suburban Schools” and “The 25 Most Desirable Urban Schools.”

3

@merc81 I updated the preferences part. Thanks, I forgot to list major ideas. Also, thanks for those articles.

4

For the serious study of economics, these analyses from IDEAS can be helpful: “Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges” and “US Economics Departments.”

For pre-law, I’d recommend colleges that will help train you as a writer. USNWR’s “Writing in the Disciplines” category is a good reference for this.

For the study of politics, colleges with the availability of a term-length program in Washington can be excellent choices.

At this point, I’d think more about where you would like to go rather than where you will be accepted. Once you find 10 or so schools you like, placing them in categories will be easy. If you find that none naturally fall into the safety category, then you will still have plenty of time to consider more schools. (“Reaches,” in and of themselves, offer little advantage unless you would be inclined to attend them independent of their status as reaches. These schools should also arise organically as part of your search.)

5

Given your interest in politics and law, Washington DC is a great place to be so: Georgetown, George Washington and American University come to mind which offer a range of selectivity.

6

Based partly on your setting preferences, you do appear to be a natural for schools such as GW, Columbia, American and NYU.

7

@doschicos @merc81 Thank you both for your feedback and suggestions!

8

Boston College, Michigan, Georgetown, Northwestern

9

Colleges strong in one or more of your academic areas of interest, you can screen based upon your general criteria, as well as order by selectivity:

American
Brown
Chicago
Columbia
CMC
Georgetown
GW
Hamilton
Harvard
Middlebury
MIT
Northwestern
Notre Dame
NYU
Penn
Pomona
Princeton
Stanford
Wesleyan
Williams
WUStL
Yale

10

Georgetown came to mind, because you seem like a go getter and ambitious. Georgetown is very preprofessional in that the students are career minded. Rice came to mind, because it’s supposed to be a great, friendly environment, it’s in a city and it’s population is very bright, but not cutthroat from what I’ve read. Wake Forest is another one. It’s in NC and it seems like a well-rounded school, and you seem like a very well-rounded guy. ( I believe all of these schools are medium sized and in or near a city)GL

11

Why is your unweighted GPA low?

12

<<<
doubt that I will get Financial Aid - high family income)
<<<

Ok…what are your parents saying? Are they saying that they’ll pay $65k+ per year for college? If you’re not sure, ask them.

13

If cost is not an issue:
American U
George Washington
Villanova
Fordham
Boston College

These are selective (but not hyper-competitive), mid-sized (5-15K undergrads) universities located in/near major cities in the Northeast (DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston). Many other options are available that are bigger (NYU, BU, Northeastern), smaller (Loyola-MD), or more selective (Georgetown, JHU, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Tufts). Out of state public universities (like UMD-CP) typically are larger but also have lower sticker prices than private schools.

Schools in other regions you might want to consider:
Tulane
U Miami
St. Louis U.
U Denver
U San DIego

If cost becomes an issue, but you do not qualify for need-based aid, then the first place to consider probably should be UIUC. You also could look for schools that offer big-enough merit scholarships to meet your needs.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

14

These schools have not yet been mentioned and would be strong for economics in particular: Duke, Cornell, Brandeis.

15

@merc81 lots of great schools, but virtually all reaches! The OP’s GPA isn’t super strong for most every school you list, except maybe American and Brandeis. OP needs match and safety schools. Tulane could work as a match. For safeties, Temple, Fordham, Villanova. Tk27196 above has good suggestions.

OP stick with your ACT, it’s excellent. Work very hard senior year to bring up your grades. You should look at the CDS for colleges you are interested in. That way, you can see where your GPA stands in comparison to others.

16

@Lindagaf : Those are simply schools (posts 8, 13) that offer programs that are exceptionally suitable for his academic interests (whether in econ, politics or pre-law) and for which his ACT score is appropriate. The OP can, particularly with guidance, eventually draw a line somewhere in the list as being out of admission range. However, doing so too early in the process could be counter-productive to his interests. The OP may need quality safeties, that’s true, but a few will often suffice.

17

I recommend applying to Tulane, which has non-binding Early Action. You wouldn’t need to apply to additional safeties or matches if you get in, and you can focus on reaches. If you need more financial flexibility, add some affordable safeties with rolling admissions (you might well qualify for a generous merit package from Tulane). You would almost certainly get into Temple’s Honors program, and they have rolling admissions. Add your own state flagship, and you’ve covered the safeties. Your unweighted GPA isn’t “low” (feel free to cover your ears and say “lalalalala” whenever anyone describes it that way), but might not be competitive for the most selective handful of colleges.
Tufts might be a solid option for you.

18

Pitzer offers some of the qualities of CMC/Pomona, and might be a another option.

19

@texaspg I have had almost entirely AP classes (sophomore and junior year) and sophomore year I didn’t do very well, but Junior year was a really good recovery (almost straight A’s in all AP’s).

@mom2collegekids My parents have done a really good job of saving for me so I’m very blessed. Cost is not really an issue but I will be taking on some of the burden!

Thanks so much for quality responses so far!

20

Look at the books by Loren Pope, “Beyond the Ivy League” and “Colleges That Change Lives”. Many of these are match and safety schools and many offer substantial merit aid.
From experience, Eckerd College offers D3 tennis, merit aid, writers in paradise workshops, a strong professor/mentor program, research, internships, London Study Center, Model UN, spring into summer semester at The Hague, study abroad programs, pet dorms, pre professional mentoring, and honors program.