What colleges should I be looking at?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hello i'm currently a junior entering his senior year. I have no idea what colleges i should be applying to because of my
unique situation with my grades. I got all of my B's during my freshman year and since then i have gotten straight A's. During freshman year i was taking all the honors i could and the APs i have taken since are</p>

<ol>
<li>AP biology (took it junior year)</li>
<li>AP calculus AB (5)</li>
<li>AP calculus BC (took it junior year)</li>
<li>AP US history (took it junior year)</li>
<li>AP european history (5) </li>
<li>AP computer science (took it junior year)</li>
</ol>

<p>i got an 2240, 2190, and a 2290 for the SAT I and a 780 on both Bio e and us history Satii
My unweighted total gpa 9~10 is 3.68/3.78 because, as i have mention previously, of my freshman year grades, so i have
a very steep upwards trend. I am probably going to get straight A's senior year too with 5 ap classes. </p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Guitar
Cross country 11th grade
Mock trial 11th-12th grade
JSA treasurer 11th- 12th grade
Grand cross forum debate club treasurer 11th-12th grade
Key club all 4 years
volunteered for the city last summer
volunteered at red cross last summer
Internship with a pediatrician this summer
300~400 volunteer hours and 150+ internship hours.
taekwondo for 5 years
Varsity debater? (our school doesn't have a debate program, but i competed in a varsity tournament) </p>

<p>Awards:
National Academy of future physicians and medical scientist award of excellence.
Best speaker award at two JSA conferences.
Wrote the bill that got passed in JSA winter congress.
typical principle's honor roll, dean's list, student of the month.
Most valuable participant award presented by the Constitional Rights Foundation for the mock trial case people v concha
got a gold medal during my 10th 11th grade for poomse and sparring in the International taekwondo tournament.
competed in the varsity division for a national circuit debate tournament and got to the quarter finals. </p>

<p>Additional information:
i am a pacific islander.
divorced parents, mom makes 10~15k per year and i haven't seen or had contact with my dad for 5+ years
only child
will be the first to go to college(mom only has a nursing license, no degree of any kind and father never went to college)</p>

<p>I'm looking for a school with some sort of medical program as I probably will want to go to be a doctor/ pharmacist/ or something along there. I will probably need financial aid, but if i get into some big name college my cousins could probably pay for my fees as they are rich.</p>

<p>I was looking at USC, UC Berkeley, John Hopkins, Stanford, but i'm not really sure what college would even be completely feasible for me because of my fresh man year grades. I'm afraid i'm being over ambitious with my college options here. ANY suggestions for schools i should look at will be well received. (: thank you</p>

2

<p>I don’t think you’re being overly ambitious. You’re an accomplished applicant. A couple questions:</p>

<p>When you say you’re a pacific islander does that mean you’re an American citizen of pacific islander descent? </p>

<p>What’s your backup plan if your rich cousins don’t come through? what would your rich cousins expect your family to contribute to your education and can you afford that? Have your rich cousins any idea what else they could do with a quarter million dollars besides spend it on your u/g education (esp since you have designs on med school, a very expensive endeavor, too)? Have you run the net price calculators for your family (you might not even need your cousins’ help)?</p>

3

<p>I’m a first generation pacific islander immigrant. My rich cousins will contribute a big chunk to my college education fees if we ask for them to.</p>

4

<p>Another question is if i should be looking at the quest bridge program as a way to get into colleges.</p>

5

<p>Are you a CA resident? I think your chances of getting into most UCs range from pretty good (Berkeley, UCLA) to excellent, if so. They do not use freshman grades. If you aren’t a CA resident, they might not be the best options for you - they aren’t very generous toward out-of-state students, and you wouldn’t qualify for merit awards in most instances. Stanford is a reach for everybody, but I think they’d give your application fair consideration. I’d say the same about JHU.</p>

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<p>If you’re not a US citizen, most colleges will not offer you any financial aid. Fortunately, some of the best schools will. Here’s a couple of sites where you can learn more:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2013/09/19/colleges-that-give-international-students-the-most-financial-aid”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2013/09/19/colleges-that-give-international-students-the-most-financial-aid&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.desperateguide.com/us/top-25-financial-aid-colleges-in-us-for-international-students-need-aware”>http://www.desperateguide.com/us/top-25-financial-aid-colleges-in-us-for-international-students-need-aware&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I know little about QB, so I’ll leave that to others. Your mother’s income should make it likely that if you could get into one of these schools on these lists you would have most of your costs taken care of. Don’t tell the schools of the rich cousins because it is not the cousins’ responsibility. Your parents’ divorce could make things complicated, but not insoluble.</p>

<p>So I’ll make a list of possible schools out of the two url lists:</p>

<p>Reach: the ivies on the list, Stanford, Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona; there’s no one born of woman for whom these are not reaches. Oddly enough, your financial and immigrant status might make you more attractive to some of these colleges than others, perhaps enough to make you a match.</p>

<p>Matches: everyone else</p>

<p>Academic Safeties: Trinity College, Bates, Colorado C, Dickinson, Union, Hamphshire, Union, Macalester</p>

<p>You can major in anything and still apply to med school or pharm school as long as you’ve had the prerequisites. You can major in biology or chemistry or any of the liberal arts, pretty much, anywhere. However, if you want to pursue engineering on your way to med school, some of these schools will not have in-house engineering. The med schools will care little about the prestige of your alma mater or your major.</p>

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<p>Yes i am a CA resident, so i’ll for sure be looking into the UC’s
Thanks for your suggestions jkeil911 (:
I read all about questbridge on their website and am very confused with that application vs the common app and which to submit. Another question about questbridge is if it really boosts an application that much.</p>

8

<p>bump any more suggestions / info?</p>

9

<p>bump</p>

10

<p>The divorced parents situation can make financial aid problematic at schools that consider the non-custodial parent (your father) for financial aid purposes (i.e. if he has high income and wealth, they will expect him to pay, even though he may be unwilling). Fortunately, UCs and CSUs use only FAFSA forms for financial aid, which means that they consider only the custodial parent (your mother). You can run the net price calculator on each college’s web site to get a financial aid estimate, but be careful about the non-custodial parent issue.</p>

<p>Calculate your UC/CSU GPA as described here:
<a href=“Cal State Apply | CSU”>Cal State Apply | CSU;
(Note: 9th grade course grades are not included, and you can get +1 points for up to 8 semesters’ worth of honors and AP courses.)</p>

<p>If it is 3.9 or higher, sign up for <a href=“New Students | Apply | Undergraduate Admissions | UC Riverside”>https://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/gap/index.aspx&lt;/a&gt; to make UCR a guaranteed-admission safety when you include it in your regular UC application later. You can use <a href=“http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/FinAidManualCalculator/”>http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/FinAidManualCalculator/&lt;/a&gt; to get a financial aid estimate from UCR.</p>

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<p>Large merit scholarship lists:
<a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - #46 by ucbalumnus - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-p4.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I don’t think the price of the university will be a problem as my mother could always ask for help from our cousins. I just need suggestions as to universities that i should realistically look into for some sort of medical degree that i could get into with my terrible freshman year grade. I’m just afraid my freshman year grades will hinder me when applying to colleges or any merit scholarships programs like questbridge. I’ll look into the links though thank you(:</p>

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<p>I think the sense here is that your freshman grades will not be a deterrent to your admission to a very good school. Your GPA since freshman year and your SAT scores will satisfy the expectations at schools below the ivy/near-ivy tier. At any of these schools you can get excellent preparation for pre-med/dent/pharm. You might worry about this or that admission, but you can get into excellent schools. </p>

<p>So ordinarily you could if you want rule out the ivies, except maybe Cornell, and Amherst, Pomona, WashU, Bowdoin, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Williams, JHU, Northwestern, Michigan, Harvey Mudd, North Carolina, Swarthmore, Duke, Caltech, etc. But you’re NOT ordinary and you may have a compelling story to tell. So even with these schools there might be one or two who would latch onto your story and want to have you. This may be where Questbridge comes in; you need to do some research on QB. </p>

<p>Certainly at the schools just below this first tier, there are going to be those that will want to have you for your academics and your story. Emory, Georgetown, Haverford, Claremont McKenna, UCLA, USC, Rice, Notre Dame, etc. You have many reasons to be confident.</p>

14

<p>Ah, Thanks for the reassuring words. Seems i have a lot of options then. I was just being paranoid about colleges. I will definitely look into questbridge. Thanks for all the suggestions guys.</p>

15

<p>Note that medical school is expensive. Tuition and fees at a private medical school may run $55,000 per year; adding living expenses can mean a cost of $75,000 per year, or $300,000 total for four years (usually funded by student loans). While physicians can eventually pay that back, that can be an uncomfortable amount of debt, particularly if you are interested in a lower paying specialty (e.g. internal, family, or pediatric medicine) but feel debt pressure to choose a higher paying specialty that you like less. Only about half of pre-meds who apply to medical school get into any medical school, so do not count on being able to compare costs between multiple acceptances to medical school.</p>

<p>Will your wealthy cousins help you with medical school costs if you choose a low cost undergraduate school?</p>

16

<p>My mother and I just spoke with my cousin this afternoon. He told us not to worry and that he will cover the any education fees that I have. I firmly believe that he will because he had done so for 3 of our relatives. Things may change though as nothing is for certain, but I don’t think i should worry about costs.</p>

17

<p>I hope your cousin knows how much colleges and medical schools can cost. Sometimes, parents or other relatives make promises about funding college, but are then blindsided by costs that are higher than they ever thought they would be.</p>

18

<p>I just want an idea of where i stand because of my relatively low total gpa, but my high 10-12th gpa (4.0). Would a school like John Hopkins be that far of a reach for my stats?</p>

19

<p>I can’t stress what @ucbalumus has said enough. So many students claim that they can be full pay, but don’t consider how huge of a commitment college will be. </p>

<p>OP, you should not rely on your wealthy cousin to pay for your education. You need to have a back up plan. A real one too. Ask your cousin to calculate the costs for all four years of undergraduate school and then the 8+ years of med school combined. If your cousin can afford all of that, for your other relatives, and you, you should consider having him donate money to your desired schools so you don’t have to worry admission as much. </p>

<p>OP, usually, I do not advocate looking at finances first, but with your income, I highly reccomend you look at need blind schools that will meet full need above anything else.</p>

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<p>That’s great news, OP. That must be a huge load off your mind to know your family will come thru for you like that. </p>

<p>And you’re right that nothing is certain. It is best to have a Plan B. One Plan B might be that you go after grant money (which you’re sure to get if all you have is your mother’s income), sometimes called financial aid, and that you not ignore the merit opportunities that are available to someone with your stats and biography. Think of this as lifting some of the burden from your family by getting what your hard work in school has earned you. Your cousin will no doubt appreciate this, and you will have the self-satisfaction of knowing that you paid some or all of your way thru college. That means running the net price calculators at each school of interest to see what they will cost you, and checking out any merit money for which you might qualify. You should also plan on filing FAFSA forms that the feds and most colleges require. That means pulling your mom’s tax returns and recording any savings, etc. that she has. Schools will require xeroxes of these papers. You should anticipate some problems because the schools are going to expect your father to pay his share of the burden, so get in touch with him to get the process started.</p>