<p>I'm a junior right now and by the end of the year, I'll have about a 3.6 UW GPA, a 4.5 W GPA, I may or may not retake my 2120 and 31. I have a class rank of 10/~300 at a public school in SC. I'm taking a full IB course load. </p>
<p>I don't have Ivy aspirations, but I'm really not sure what kind of schools I should b looking at. I'm confident that I could easily get into any SC public colleges, Clemson, our USC, etc. but I'd rather not go to those unless they're very cheap. </p>
<p>So, what level should would be a match for me?</p>
<p>What can you afford? Any suggestions that come floating in here are going to be private schools that are more expensive than your state publics. That may be OK if you qualify for FA, but if not…
To get ideas use the college search tool here on CC (Supermatch), put in your stats, majors, and other criteria and see what it suggests. Be sure to expand the number of results beyond 20 (at the top) and use the “must have” option for each important criteria (or else the results get wacky).</p>
<p>Ok, thanks. I’ll be sure to check it out. I’m definitely not focusing on just public schools, I’m open to any type of school really. I’m hoping to get into a few different schools around the country in major cities that are about the same level as Boston College.</p>
<p>Those are some looking schools. I was a bit worried about the UW GPA, but paired with the class rank of ~3%, I’m hoping they’ll see that the GPA is pretty good compared to my classmates.</p>
<p>I know that having a relatively high SAT score and pretty good class rank even though my unweighted GPA is pretty low would normally show that I go to a somewhat difficult high school, but I really don’t. </p>
<p>My school is actually a bad public school in rural South Carolina. We have a very high drop out rate, and even the students who are ranked higher than me do not excel tremendously (they have SAT scores between 1500-1700ish). Chances are that the majority of schools that I apply to will never have gotten an application from a student at my school.</p>
<p>My school is definitely not one of the “tougher high schools,” even though my scores may reflect that it is. Would colleges look into this to see if my school is actually challenging, or just assume it is by looking at my scores/rank/GPA?</p>
<p>Your 3.6 GPA will be viewed more favorably because you are taking IB courses. So don’t sweat your 3.6, though you should stay focused on keeping that up
Since you are a junior you have plenty of opportunities to retake either the SAT or ACT to get an extra boost, though your SAT is pretty high already.
Did you take any SAT subject tests? Do any of your target schools require them?</p>
<p>I haven’t taken any subject tests, but I’ve noticed that a lot of schools take ACT with writing instead of 2 subject tests. I may take subject tests later this year if I find a few schools that don’t accept ACT with writing. </p>
<p>I’m taking APUSH this year, so I may take the US History, Math II, and maybe Lit subject tests. </p>
<p>I don’t want this to be a full ‘what are my chances’ thread, but I’ll probably be applying to schools like Boston College, Cornell, Fordham, NYU Stern, Clemson, University of South Carolina, Villanova, Boston University, Brandeis, Emory, Vanderbilt, University of Florida, and UVa. </p>
<p>Obviously my list isn’t finalized and I’ll be adding some and getting rid of others. I just wanted to make sure that the level of school I’m looking at right now isn’t a ‘drastic’ reach. </p>
<p>I’m hoping that most of the schools I named are in the high match to low reach area and nothing is extremely unrealistic.</p>
<p>Axelrod, I’m really not interested in any liberal arts colleges. I would definitely prefer a mid-size schools 5,000-15,000 near a big city than the atmosphere of a very small school that liberal arts schools tend to be (<2,500 sometimes). So I’m pretty dead-set on a university.</p>
<p>I’d definitely consider USC. Big city. Great school. My parents may have a bit of a problem with me attending a school over 3,000 miles away, but I’d love to go somewhere in California. </p>
<p>I was considering UCLA, UCB, and USC, but I assumed they were mostly very expensive. (2 out of state public schools, and another that I assumed had similar pricing.)</p>
<p>You need to have your parents tell you exactly how much they can afford to spend on your college education per year. After that, you can evaluate schools based on that amount and focus on the amount of merit aid and/or need-based aid you are likely to recieve.</p>
<p>Before you have that information, you really can’t develop a good practical list of schools.</p>
<p>The public UCs would be very expensive as an OOS student.</p>
<p>You really should retest. The best scores help with admittance and merit scholarship awards.</p>
<p>Ask your parents how much they’ll pay each year.</p>
<p>If you need FA, then you need to find out if you’d qualify and GET the FA that you need. Have your parents run the NPCs on a few schools’ websites…try USC (Calif) net price calculator. Have your parents do it since they know more about their financial situation.</p>
