<p>I'm a Junior, and I have plenty of safeties (universities in the Philippines, Penn State) and reaches in mind (UChicago, Brown, Penn, Columbia, some elite liberal arts colleges). Unfortunately, I have no idea what schools would be a good MATCH for me. Care to offer some assistance? I'm looking at majoring in business/marketing, publishing/editing, french language/studies, international/global studies, or a bunch of other humanities/social science stuff. I prefer small coed schools that give LOTS of financial aid, and nothing west of Minnesota. If you'd like to suggest reaches and safeties too, that'd be fine. I'm always looking for new schools to research. Thanks for the help!
-School
So-so Pennsylvania suburban public school
I'm probably ranked in top 10%, maybe even 5%
- GPA
4.0 UW (I've gotten 2 Bs in APEH, but my school doesn't count marking period grades)
- PSAT (10th grade)
185 (CR = 61, M = 65, WS = 59)
- Courseload
9th Grade
Honors Humanities Social Studies
Honors Humanities English
Honors Biology I
Honors Algebra II
College Prep French II
10th Grade
AP European History (Exam Score = 4)
Honors English 10
Honors Chemistry I
Honors Geometry
College Prep French III
11th Grade (now)
AP U.S. History
AP English Lang & Comp
Honors Physics I
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors French IV
12th Grade
AP U.S. Gov & Pol
AP Comp Gov & Pol
AP English Lit & Comp
AP Physics C or Biology
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics
AP French
- ECs
DECA (since sophomore year, secretary, made it as far as states and medalled)
Newspaper (since freshman year, on-again-off-again student life/world news staff writer)
Invisible Children Club (since freshman year, fundraising director)
French Club (since sophomore year)
French Honor Society (since sophomore year)
National Honor Society (since sophomore year)
HOBY Ambassador (picked via essay contest, parents didn't let me go to actual seminar)
JHU CTY (haven't really done anything with this, trying to take class next summer)
Speech & Debate (starting this year)
Ecology Club (starting this year)
Cultural Heritage Club (starting this year)</p>
<p>bump?</p>
<p>you don’t have to read everything I wrote up there. you could just skim it and give me suggestions. i would really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Top 5% at a so so school and your current scores make ivies unrealistic reaches, so realistic reaches need to be considered. For lots of aid they would mostly be schools without a business major, LACs in the range of Bates (if you raise scores) and St. Olaf if you don’t for matches. Colby, Trinity level schools for reaches.</p>
<p>A person with a 185 PSAT could end up with a 1400 on the SAT which could make top 10 LAC’s possible. Maybe take the ACT and take some SAT II’s because if you do well on SAT II’s, some schools (i.e. Middlebury) will accept them instead of SAT I. Your more likely matches will be in the 10 - 30 range on the US NEWs liberal arts school list. I think some in Pennsylvania do have business classes although it’s true that most liberal arts colleges don’t. Look at Lehigh, Bucknell and Lafayette. For the international stuff maybe Macalaster? Clarkson in NY has a business program as does RPI but those would probably be safeties or likely. I second Bates, St. Olaf, Trinity and Colby but there you would have economics and no business/marketing classes. You can get those in grad school, though.</p>
<p>@Redroses My so-so school isn’t that awful, and a handful of top students usually make it to HYP, so I’m sticking with my reaches. And my PSAT score is so low because I was feeling sick and lethargic when I took it. I’m aiming and studying for a higher SAT/ACT.</p>
<p>@Hitch123 I’m definitely taking some SAT IIs (probably Math II, French, English) plus the ACT, so maybe they’ll offset my SAT score if it’s not high enough. I’m not too concerned with becoming a business major, so if a school doesn’t have that, I’ll just stick to social sciences. I really like the schools you mentioned, especially Middlebury and Macalester.</p>
<p>From a non top school, without a hook, plan on being top 2 for a good shot at ivies. And as for scores, plan on a 400 point increase for a real shot.</p>
<p>You have a decent chance of increasing your PSAT next month to be a NMSF.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year?</p>
<p>If they won’t pay for all of Penn States’ costs (about $26k per year), then it’s not a safety. A safety is a school that you ALSO know that you have all costs paid for.</p>
<p>Do I really have a shot at the NMSF? I thought PA’s cutoff was like 230 or something crazy like that. My parents plan on paying $0 each year at a US institution. So the only real safety I have are Philippine colleges, and I really don’t want to go down that path. I know somebody who’s now studying at Cornell whose parents refused to pay her tuition unless she went back to the Philippines too. I’m okay with that - well, mad ****ed at my parents for being so freaking unsupportive - but what can I do? I’m trying to just figure out my best bet acceptance-wise, and then try to wheedle a couple bucks from my parents when they realize that they’re making a big mistake by just dropping me penniless at school. I just don’t understand my parents’ financial fickleness.</p>
<p>Your best chances for merit money are probably going to be at your safety schools, where you will be at the top of the applicant pool (though not at PSU, which is not known for generous aid). I would try to find a few more safeties that look appealing and take great care with those applications. You should be able to find last year’s NMSF cutoffs online somewhere.</p>
<p>Okay, I guess I need to work on safeties within this country. It’s just hard, even if there are a lot of schools in my area that are go-to safeties, i.e. Temple, but without my parents providing some sort of financial help, I can’t really qualify anything as a total safety.</p>
<p>But as for matches, should I be looking at mid-ranked liberal arts colleges? Like Macalester and Trinity? Would Vassar or Oberlin be too much like reaches? I really like those schools.</p>
<p>According to the following post, the NMSF cutoff for PA was 216…</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/986427-cut-off-scores-semi-finalist-announcements-40.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/986427-cut-off-scores-semi-finalist-announcements-40.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for that. I could do that. I have a month to study some more. Are there any testing-optional schools that I could match with? I just feel like there’ll be this weird disparity between my grades/coursework and my standardized test scores. I don’t think that the SAT is a very good tool of measurement, although the ACT may be different.</p>
<p>bumpity bump bump?</p>
<p>There are many test optional schools listed here–
[Optional</a> List | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]Optional”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)
Look and see if any might be of interest.</p>
<p>Thanks for the list! It was really helpful. I didn’t know that some of those schools were test-optional, like Ursinus.</p>