<p>I am a African American Female from California my school is in the top 200 for the best schools in the nation. I started going there my sophmore year so my grades dropped that year so it brought down my gpa a bit. Also i had some medical problems that year. Also i am from a single parent household
GPA: 3.6 uw 3.8w
SAT: 2180
SAT2: 750/740/700
Extracurriculars:
Medical Explorer
School Newspaper
Cancer research center volunteer
Drama tech crew
track and field
teaching internship
dance
Hospital volunteer</p>
<p>I want to go to a school in California, New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts or Washington D.C.</p>
<p>For North Carolina, you probably have a pretty good shot at UNC-Chapel Hill, Davidson, and Wake Forest. Duke would be a reach but as an URM, you have a better shot than others with those stats.</p>
<p>UCLA would roll out the red carpet for you. They want and need to increase Af-Am enrollment and you have top-notch qualifications. If you post more info about what programs you're interested in, what type of social environment you prefer, what activities you want to pursue in college, what kind of weather you like, how close or far away from family you want to live, whether you have a major in mind or want to stay flexible, whether you're looking for significant financial or merit aid or not....those kinds of detail would help people give you more specific advice.</p>
<p>I want to do either pre-law, pre-med, or business. Also i am willing to go to a college in Connecticut or Virginia to addition to the other states i said above.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that while your stats are high, the top Ivies and Lib Arts colleges are reaches for everybody now and your list should not be totally comprised of those. Also, financial aid packages can really vary and there are elite colleges that have full-ride scholarships aimed at attracting minority students. </p>
<p>You should start visiting colleges to help narrow down what could be a pretty long list since you really do have a wide range of choices. If money is an issue, email the admissions departments of the colleges that are far away and ask if they pay for minority applicants to visit. While you're at it, ask them to send you the applications for any scholarships they earmark for minority students and tell them you're areas of academic interest. Some scholarships are geared toward areas of study. </p>
<p>There are people in the Parents Forum who could advise you better than myself so I'm going to suggest that you post your inquiry over there. The more details you're willing to give about what you want to experience in college and where you want to go after will allow people to respond with more helpful advice.</p>
<p>What's with the limitations by state? You have a shot at just about any school in the country if you maintain and improve your GPA. The top 200 school thing isn't very useful. The rating system on that is so absurd that no college will be impressed. They will be impressed if your school consistently send successful candidates to the top schools in the country.</p>
<p>Your job, at this point, is not to figure out where you can get in, but what you want in a college. If geography is part of that, then fine, but limiting yourself by geography from the start is not wise, in my book. I can't imagine why, say, North Carolina is inherently better than Michigan, Virginia better than Ohio, or New York better than Illinois.</p>
<p>The reason why i picked all the states above is because i have been to them and i loved them. Also my school sends more than 50 people to UC Berkeley evry year. They also they send many other students to other tops schools such as Stanford, Harvard, and Yale.</p>
<p>Ahm. OK. If geography means that much to you, it means that much to you.</p>
<p>So, the next question you should ask yourself is, "What do I want out of an educational experience?" For instance, you say you are African-American. There are many campuses in this country where there is very little race/class mixing, so you would might feel isolated and confined, by practice, to socializing only with other AAs. Others campuses mix well. Politics might matter to you.</p>
<p>Here's a link you might find interesting.</p>
<p>princetonreview.com</p>
<p>They rate schools on several factors. The research isn't methodologically sound, but it does tend to be a reasonable way to assess probability of certain aspects of college life. For instance, if a school is ranked as the #1 party school, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually #1 or even #20, but it does indicate a high probability that the school has a substantial partying culture.</p>
<p>I kind of want to go to Duke but they have little race/class interaction which sucks. Though i like the idea of going to school in North Carolina or some college on the East Coast i want a change from California.</p>
<p>jazzymom, if you have been looking around, you will have realized that starting with the litigation in Michigan, afrimative action has been outlawed in public schools.</p>
<p>dreams, i really dont get the states, you should be more open minded. i have never been to Missouri, but i am looking at WashU. I have never been to Rhode Island but I am looking at Brown. Just because you've never been somewhere doesn't mean you wont like it as much as somewhere you have been, if not more.</p>
<p>Cal: Anything in the UC schools except Berkeley and UCLA, all the CalStates, USC, Pepperdine
D.C.: Georgetown, GW
NC: UNC-Asheville, NCState, Elon
NY: NYU, Ithaca, SUNY
Conn: UConn
Virginia: UVA (reach), Gettysburg</p>
<p>If you can up your GPA .25 or so, then i think that the sky is the limit.</p>
<p>Other schools that you should really look at:
Michigan-Ann Arbor
Northwestern
Illinois
Indiana-Bloomington
Penn
Penn State
Swathmore
Vandy
Rhodes
Dartmouth
Providence</p>