What sort of Colleges should I apply to?

I’m currently a junior in high school and am looking to find out what colleges I should apply to, as to maximize the amount of time and money I could save during the application process. As of right now I have a 32 on the ACT (no writing component). I also have a 3.7 GPA (unweighted, on a 4.0 scale) in courses of academic substance, extracurriculars in choir (all 4 years of high school) and theater (just for these last two years), five AP courses (will be eight or nine upon graduation), and I plan on taking the SAT with writing as well as the SAT subject tests in U.S. History and English. The summer going into my Freshman and Sophomore years I did full-time volunteer work and going into my junior year I did a full-time internship with an influential local lawyer. This upcoming summer, I plan to go to Boy’s State and complete a full-time internship with the local courthouse. I have aspirations of being a lawyer, but I’m not sure about what I want my undergraduate degree in. The price of the school I’m going to does concern me because my family has indicated that I may not recieve much help from them. Thanks for the help in advance!

Is it that your family cannot afford to pay or that they choose not to? In the former case, you would want to apply to schools that meet full demonstrated financial need, but in the latter case, you should look for merit money. Did you take the PSAT?

Do you have geographic or size preferences?

My family doesn’t want to contribute too much mainly because they feel it’s my responsibility to pay off the debt I incur via my schooling. I did not take the PSAT, and I don’t really plan to.

Schools on the east of the Mississippi River are preferable to those in the west of it. Schools with low student-to-faculty ratios are preferable to those with high student to faculty ratios.

If you can list some of your preferences in addition to your financial constraints as @yauponredux outlined, people can help you a bit better. Do you have any preferences or limitations in the following categories?
-Area(s) of the country
-Size of college
-Urban/suburban/rural
-Religiously affiliated vs secular
-Conservative/liberal/neutral
-Would you like to continue with choir and/or theater as ECs in college?

Thank you! I’m sorry for not giving enough specific info. I’d prefer something East of the Mississippi or in my home state of Louisiana. Furthermore, if i were to go out-of-state I’d probably prefer something up north. I think a smaller college would help me academically, and I’d prefer a suburban or rural area. A secular college is preferable to a religiously-affiliated one, just as a neutral one is preferable to one with any explicit political tint (ideally, I’d like a diverse community that can allow me to challenge my political beliefs and listen to other’s viewpoints). I don’t think I would consider choir, but I would likely participate in theater during my initial years of college. Neither are important to my decision, though.

You have a great start on your college search! Make sure you give yourself plenty of options. I thought I knew what I wanted, I was wrong, and now I’m transferring. In retrospect, my advice is to visit as many campuses as possible so you can get an idea of what big/small, public/private, etc. really feel like. Apply to LSU and Tulane (examples) so you have those close to home options when decision time comes. Look into the private LACs up north. You will find those are typically smaller. Additionally, applying to less competitive schools will generally results in larger FA packages, so don’t discount those. Your stats are great, and they can potentially get you into “great” schools. Those schools, however, may not offer you as much.

Best of luck as you continue your search! This is a very exciting time!

Find out now exactly how much your family will contribute. If they don’t give you a specific amount, better to assume their contribution will be zero. Your ability to borrow as a student is limited to $5500 per year, and you are unlikely to be able to carry a full class load and work more than 15 hours a week.

So you want to look at schools that give automatic merit (and lots of it, as a $15K award is merely a drop in the bucket at a school where annual tuition, room, & board tops $60K) to someone with your stats. Alabama comes to mind as a school where you would be a Presidential Scholar and have full tuition paid, leaving you to come up with enough funds to cover room & board from savings, loans, work during the school year and summers, and any parental monies.

You can also consider schools (Centre comes to mind) offering competitive merit scholarships where your stats put you in the top of their applicant pool.

If law school is in your future, you especially want to minimize incurring a lot of undergraduate debt.

There are a number of helpful threads on the Financial Aid & Scholarships forum; start there.

For your career interests, you may also want to consider colleges that emphasize writing:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/writing-programs

And colleges that tend to produce lawyers in general:

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Top-Producers-Lawyers-Infographic-e1459562437296.png

In terms of your stated preferences, Hamilton and Kenyon would be excellent options (with your home state being a decent, but not guaranteed, “hook” for both), but you would have to make them affordable. Run their NPCs with your parents to see what might work. With luck, you could be pleasantly surprised.

Middlebury too, @PFAnimals.

I’d like to thank you all for your help! I feel like I have a solid idea of what sort of things I should do while going through the application process.