I’m currently a junior in high school. I’m pretty stressed about college admissions and would love some college suggestions.
Basic Info:
ACT: 33
GPA: most demanding courses w/ one A-
-3.99 UW
-4.5 W
Strong Extracurriculars (in my opinion)
College Criteria:
-I want a selective college, but I do NOT want to be stressed 24/7 (!!!)
-I’m planning on majoring in psych & being pre-med
-mid-sized
-warm year round
You might want some safeties/matches that aren’t state schools. As it is, all the schools on your list are probably reaches for anyone, besides (maybe) Wake Forest. If you’re willing to go a bit smaller, think about places like Occidental, Rhodes, Davidson, and Washington and Lee. You should have a good shot at all of those schools. Also, consider Barrett Honors’ College at Arizona State - it’s a fantastic program, and it offers a good smaller-sized student body in a big university, which might work for you.
Maybe UCB, UCLA, or UCSD!!! They are very competitive colleges with beautiful campuses and warm weather year round, well maybe not UCB but its relatively moderate weather. Plus if you choose a UC, a lot of them have medical schools so its easy to get advice for your applications as well as recommendations if you’re close with your teachers!!
What is your college budget? If you are not an in-state student for the California UC’s, then you are looking at $65K/year in costs to attend. Although you have very good stats, none are close to being a safety or solid target schools. As a possible Pre-Med, California UC’s are not a good option. Too many Pre-med students and highly competitive for those coveted A grades in the Pre-med pre-req courses.
I don’t have any knowledge about psychology departments, but if we are looking at schools with less than 2000 kids per class in warm (or mostly warm) states, the other possibilities I come up with might be Tulane, Davidson, Washington and Lee, Richmond, Occidental, Trinity, SMU, Pepperdine, Rhodes, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, and the University of Dallas. There are just way more schools of that size in the northeast and mid-atlantic, unfortunately.
If you want a selective, warm-weather school that tends to be “happier” than many of its high-pressure peers, you should definitely add Rice to your list.
If you want to remove some stress out of the college search, add some schools with EA or rolling admissions that are likely to take you. Also make sure you have addressed financial constraints.
The tough part of picking colleges is finding schools that will take you pretty much for sure that fit your needs and you like. Those are the hidden gems. Anyone can go to the short list of well known schools that just about everyone wants and pick from there. The work is in digging up those schools not well known that work for you and are affordable.
You have very similar stats to my daughter. The best advice I can give you is to cast your net wide. Apply to some reach schools (Duke, Stanford, Vandy will be reaches), some slam dunks, and some schools known for good merit. With that ACT score there will be some schools with wonderful automatic merit. Give yourself plenty of options and see what pans out and what doesn’t and then go from there. My daughter got into her reach schools but they ended up being totally unaffordable so thank goodness she had options. Good luck with your journey!
