Where Should I Be Looking?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi, I am currently a junior and have begun the college process. I have a vague idea of where I would like to go, but I’m really not sure what colleges would be considered a match for me based on my stats. I would like to go somewhere in the Northeast, and I want to attend an academically rigorous school, but I wanted to get an idea of what schools would be in the realistic realm for me. Any advice is appreciated :slight_smile:

Info:
White middle-class female from the midwest
Private parochial school of about 600 students. College prep, rigorous course load, nationally recognized.
GPA: W 4.23 (My school only reports our GPAs at the end of every semester, and they don’t report UW. For last semester alone it was 4.56. My freshman and sophomore years there were only a few honors courses offered. Hopefully I can raise my cum. to ~4.3 by the end of first semester next year.)
Rank: My school doesn’t report, but definitely top 10%
Income bracket: upper middle

ACT: 33 (36 English, 31 math, 32 science, 34 reading) I’ve only taken it once with no kind of preparation and I’m taking it again with writing next month. Could possibly raise my superscore to a 34.
SAT: results won’t come out until May, but I got a 1500 out of 1520 on the PSAT and my guidance counselor expects me to qualify to be a National Merit Scholar
APs: my school doesn’t offer any until senior year, but I will be taking AP Calc, AP World History, AP Chem, AP Lit (basically all of the ones I can take)
Courseload: the most rigorous offered all 4 years (all of my classes this year are honors-level besides religion, the same will be the case next year)

Activities:
-played piano 11 years, part of my school orchestra 9, 10, 11, 12
-class president 11, 12
-school service club 11, 12
-school quiz bowl team 10, 11, 12
-Volunteer at an art studio for artists with disabilities, I hope to have about 150 hours total logged by this time next year. also founded the service site for this place at my school if that matters.
-Chinese club president 11, 12 (didn’t exist before then)
-Selected for a NSLI-Y scholarship to study Korean in S. Korea for six weeks this summer
-winner of my school’s essay contest all 3 years (if this counts for anything??)
-young democrats club 11, 12
-women for women (feminist club) 10, 11, 12
-school literary magazine club 9

Job: no longer have one, but worked at a local pizza place for about 6 months between sophomore and junior year, during the summer I worked ~25 hours/week

Recs: Haven’t been written yet obviously, but I would expect them to be pretty strong as both of the teachers I plan to ask have known me for a few years and we have a great relationship.

I will be applying for financial aid and my intended major would probably be Linguistics or Global Studies

2

Can you meet your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) or will you require merit aid?

3

My parents are very supportive in that they say to pick the school I want to go to and they’ll figure out the money. Household income is around $100k/year, so…with loans/savings, yes, but whether or not I receive merit aid would definitely play a part in my decision.

4

Run net price calculators with your parents (on each school website). Supportive parents often don’t realize the actual costs involved, and you need show them actual numbers before applying. Do not accept vague promises.

What is your home state? Linguistics is typically a bigger school major.

5

These colleges offer a linguistics major or minor, would be generally academically suitable for you, and offer excellent need-based financial aid:

Barnard
Boston College
Brown
Bryn Mawr
Cornell
Dartmouth
Georgetown
Hamilton
Harvard
Haverford
MIT
Smith
Swarthmore
UPenn
Yale

From this group, you can evaluate whether the ultra-selective schools would be appropriate destinations for your application.

6

You would probably get merit $ at Ohio State and they have a good language institute.

7

As long time readers of CC, we want you to not make the mistakes that we see people making over and over.

  1. Not having a realistic discussion of finances with parent before starting
  2. Thinking that you “win” by getting into the most prestigious college…when actuality it is getting into one that will challenge you but that is also affordable and “fits” you
  3. Only choosing unaffordable schools
  4. Taking out gigantic loans
  5. Only applying to “reach” schools

Generally as a HS student you are not aware of all the options you have.
Look into your instate options. Do they have honors programs?
Check out the Colleges that Change Lives (google it).

Have you tried using the Supermatch tool (look over on the left of this site)? You put in your scores and what you want in a school, and it gives you ideas:
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/

For Merit scholarship opportunities check: I’m interested in schools where I would be well above average, to increase my financial aid opportunities

If you get into a private school and get no merit, do your parents know that it is $60,000 per year?
I am pretty sure that is not affordable nor do you or they want to take out loans for that.
Read CC this time of the year and you see people who got into elite schools but have found they are not affordable.
Run the Net Price Calculators with your parents at college of interest to get an idea of actual cost for YOU.

Here is a list of automatic full tuition scholarships:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html#latest

Make sure you apply to safety, match and reach schools. Make sure you would be happy to go to any school you apply to.

8

Swarthmore linguistics is great. When I was there, they offered a fairly wide breadth: the theoretical fields like syntax, semantics, and phonetics/phonology plus sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and even anthropological linguistics. That said, there was relatively little depth, but they’re trying to change that by offering more upper level seminars in specific topics. But as an undergrad, you really don’t need more than what they offer. If you’re interested in global studies, they also offer a dual module with languages and linguistics. You can study one of the foreign languages offered at the college in conjunction with linguistics. That might be a good option for someone interested in global studies.

That said, Bryn Mawr is an incredible school that also offers merit scholarships in addition to need-based aid. With your test scores, you stand a chance at getting merit aid there. Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore share a tri-college consortium. The linguistics department is officially a tri-college department, but is based on Swarthmore’s campus. As a student at Bryn Mawr, you can take classes and even major in linguistics at Swarthmore. You can also take classes at UPENN, which is probably the best place for graduate research on sociolinguistics anywhere in the world. Bryn Mawr is a women’s college, but men, especially Haverford men, are pretty much everywhere.

9

Run a search on the name Keilexandra who wanted to major in linguistics. She did a lot of research.

10

Private schools are way over $60000/year. By the time OP is admitted, they’ll be over $70000/year. Some of them already are.