What realistic universities should I apply to?

College Search & Selection
1

Hello everyone.

I am a Junior and I am beginning to look for colleges to apply to. When asked what colleges I am applying to, I always respond with Yale, Brown, Stanford, and the other cliche answers. Though they are certainly my goals, I would also like realistic colleges to apply to.

I will keep everything formatted simply and not in paragraphs so you can easily read through :slight_smile:

Basic Information

Grade: Junior.

Country: Morocco(In Africa btw)

School: I go to an American school.

Race: I consider myself Arab or of Middle-eastern descent.

Languages: English (Most fluent), French (Conversational/pretty good), Arabic(I forgot most of it, but I can still read and use it)

Neither of my parents have been to college.

I will ask for financial aid and probably a lot as my brother, who’s currently a senior, will also go to college in the states and my family will not be able to pay a lot for both of us as universities in the US cost around 60 thousand dollars!!!

Stats

SAT: Taking it in march, and I’m assuming I can hopefully get a +1400.

GPA: Pretty high. I’ve had a A/A- average with an occasional B+. Never got a B or anything lower. I just finished my first trimester of Junior year and I got a 4.1 because of 2 B+'s.

AP Classes:

Freshman: 0

Sophomore: APWH(4)

Junior: AP Bio, AP Lang, AP Computer Science

Senior: AP Chem, AP Calc (Dual enrollment at local university), AP Lit, AP Physics

Extra-curriculars

Speech & Debate. My strongest and most active in. I’ve been doing it since 7th grade and I have over 14 trophies/top 3 rankings. Like speech and debate is the LOVE OF MY LIFE and I am an assistant to the teacher. I just finished a tournament in November where I won 2 2nd place trophies.

School Newspaper. I renewed the school’s newspaper this year after its been on a long hiatus.

I also am pretty good at Badminton, Swimming, and Track & Field.

/I applied to YYGS (Yale Young Global Scholars) and I hopefully might be able to attend the summer of my Junior year./

Recommendation letters

I will ask my former principal/APWH teacher to write one. I was one of his best students and he told me to keep fighting hard and that I’ll become a future President.

I will also ask my other History teacher or my english teacher both of which I am a good student with

Essays

My essays will probably be about discrimination Muslims face abroad, LGBT rights in my country, or some social issue topic.

Thank you for reading. If possible, I would like any tips to improve my profile, reach colleges that I should apply to, my matches, and safeties.

Also I would really appreciate if you guys can suggest some majors that are in high demand I can hopefully take.

2

Forgot to add this in the thread

Colleges I would like

Diverse open-minded colleges.
Colleges that are nice to international students in terms of financial aid/scholarships. Colleges with an occasional party in the weekends.
Colleges that are Co-Ed and not religious.
Colleges in an urban-setting. Maybe suburban but for sure not rural.
Colleges that tend to be left-leaning and politically active I guess.

3

Here are some schools to help you start your list. They are all left leaning, politically active and urban. They all have a wide range of studies as well.
George Washington, American and Boston University.
Good luck to you!

4

What can you afford per year?

5

“Yale, Brown, Stanford,”

To get into schools on the Yale / Stanford level as an international student, you need to be relatively close to the strongest student in your country that applies that year. These are high reaches for strong students, and not possible for other students. Brown is marginally easier to get into, but still a reach.

“universities in the US cost around 60 thousand dollars”

The most expensive universities in the US currently have a total cost of attendance of about $80,000 per year. This does not include travel.

Knowing what your budget is would help a lot.

One minor question is how strong is your French? This will not matter at universities in the US, but there are some reasonably priced French universities in Canada and at least one (Ottawa) that gives a major tuition break for bilingual English/French students.

6

It’s definitely not a safety, but you should look at Macalester in St. Paul, Minnesota.