I am currently a rising senior in high school and I am just beginning my college application process. I’m sort of clueless on where to begin to look in terms of colleges and what would be the right fit for me. I live in the Bay Area in California. Some of my details include:
-3.7 unweighted gpa
-35 ACT (19 writing)
-Several Leadership Roles (Student Gov., Lifeguard/Camp Counselor for 4 years, Lead classes teaching freshmen, Captain of Track Team, etc.)
-Going on 4 years of shot put/discus
-Completed AP Bio, AP Spanish (5 and 4 on AP tests, respectively)
-Will have completed AP Econ, AP AB Calc, and AP Physics 1
-Money isn’t really an obstacle for me, and I think a medium-sized, suburban school would be the right fit for me. I am also interested in majoring in bio/pre-med and traveling abroad for a semester and internships.
Hopefully you guys can think of some good suggestions with all this.
Thank you!
What is “money isn’t really an obstacle”? Your parents can afford $60K+/year for private schools? Or are more comfortable with UC’s at $30K+/year?
Medium size: 20,000 or less? Pretty much all schools offer study abroad and internship opportunities can be also found depending upon preferences.
Have you visited any schools? If so, which ones and what did you like or not like about them?
Yeah my parents can afford any college, including $60K+ private schools.
I’m not so sure about size but I’d prefer to not go to a huge school such as Michigan or ASU, preferably >25 person sized classrooms?
I visited Brown, Harvard, Georgetown, Boston University, and George Washington. I really liked the suburban closed campus feel of Georgetown, and I really disliked the super-urban BU and GW campuses. Harvard was sort of weird, I didn’t like the on-campus shopping mall, and I sort of liked the small-town feel of Brown.
My GPA this year was 3.83, however I don’t currently have access to my past grades. I believe 3.75 would be a good estimate.
Cal Poly SLO is probably a stretch with a 3.83 but, I’d apply anyhow. UCSC, UCR and SDSU look like matches for you (though UCR and SDSU are a little bigger than you seem to want). LMU, USD and maybe Santa Clara are also worth a look.
Though not Brown or Harvard, since you are in the bay area, take a look at Sonoma and Chico States. Their campuses are both neat in very different ways. They are both relatively small and have a high % of student that live on or near campus.