Hi everyone I am a current Junior in high school and I am wondering where i should consider applying to college.
I go to a selective private school which typically accepts students in the ~70th percentile and above. My school does not rank, but If i had to guess, i would put myself in the top 15% of my class. Right now my GPA sits around a 93 overall, but 90 so far this year. My schedule this year includes Precalculus BC, AP Bio, and APUSH. Right now I do not have any ACT/SAT scores available (I have taken the SAT, but scores aren’t in for another week).
Major extracurricular activities I am involved in are soccer (school and club), Boy Scouts (working on Eagle), and various community service (around 100 hours per year).
I have looked at a varying range of schools online so far, but don’t know where to seriously consider. I will certainly apply to my local state schools as safety options, but they don’t appeal that greatly to me. I have also heard that ivy league schools are very generous with their aid, but I don’t think I am quite an ivy league caliber student (correct me if i’m wrong). I have also just begun to look at schools that are a step down from ivies, but still selective (for example, but not in particular, UNC, Boston College, UVA) . Also, my main interests (as far as a major goes) are currently engineering and finance. Please let me know if i am on the right track, or if i should be looking elsewhere.
What is your state of residence? What are your preferences (if any) regarding size of the student body? Urban vs. suburban vs. rural? What part of the country do you wish to attend (or avoid) school? What can your parents afford, and how important is need-based or non-need-based financial aid?
If your test scores are commensurate with your grades, you will likely have some good options available to you; but don’t fixate on the Ivy League.
I live in Ohio. I would prefer to attend college in the midwest, southeast, or on the east coast. However, location is not that important to me as long as my college is within a reasonable driving distance of southern Ohio. (I would consider a reasonable driving distance to be a full day or less). Location as far as urban/suburban/rural goes is much more important to me. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t even consider a college on a rural campus. Urban/suburban is probably a draw, as there are benefits to both. Unfortunately, I will be paying for the majority of college myself, but my grandparents had purchased some stock for me when I was born, which I believe is worth around 25k right now. After taking that off the top, I don’t think I would consider going anywhere that would put me too deep into debt. I remember my mother calculated the EFC for us which ended up being about 15-20k per year, if that helps.
If you are paying for college yourself that means you are looking at $60-80k worth of debt less $25k (check on this - you should consider moving that money from the stock market to a savings account now to fix the amount available so you aren’t subject to short term fluctuations in value right before you need to make college payments). You can’t borrow that much as a student, which means your options are going to be limited to your in-state schools, state schools with reciprocity with Ohio (if any), or places where you can get merit aid. Your test scores will help us calibrate what schools might be willing to consider you for that.
You can’t really pay for college yourself because you can’t borrow much.
5500 frosh
6500 soph
7500 jr
7500 sr
$25k in stock (profit will be taxed when sold for college use)…so maybe this will mean $4-5k per year toward college? maybe?
Ivies are likely out of the question with a 15% ranking. Ivies tend to accept from the top 10% pool, probably more likely the top 5% unless hooked.
Instate ohio.
Once you have some test scores, then we can give better recommendations.
Are you saying that your parents won’t pay any of their EFC?
When your mom did the calculations, did she include the $25k in stock as a “student asset”?? If so, maybe that stock needs to be sold and put into a 529 account.
I appreciate all the help. I included some of the financial information earlier mainly to give you an idea of what my situation was. I should have been clearer with respect to my paying for college. I don’t really know how loans end up working out (other than the federal student loans), but my parents are more than willing to take out the loans themselves if need be- the responsibility will just ultimately lie on me for paying off the debt. So I guess technically I am not paying for college myself as i would be using my parents’ credit, but the point I was trying to make is that one way or another, I will end up paying for my education, and I don’t want to end up with over 100k in loans to pay off upon graduation. So do you guys know of any schools that come very close to or met the EFC? Because I’ve heard that most schools don’t even come close. So far it looks like one of those schools or in state is my best bet. (or scholarship depending on test scores).
Also mom2collegekids,
I was aware of those acceptance numbers for Ivy League schools. I was under the impression that ivies typically accept applicants in the top 5-10% of their classes, but wasn’t sure how those numbers would translate to my high school, since it is selective. Would they be that fixated on a ranking regardless of how competitive the school is? Also the 15% was merely an indication of where I fall in my class for the purposes of this thread; there will be no ranking on my transcript.
You mention that your mom checked your EFC. She probably used the FAFSA website to do this, but that EFC is only used to figure out your eligibility for federal grants and loans. For each college you look at, she is going to want to go to the net price calculator on that college financial aid webpage and run that. It will give you an idea of your expected cost of attendance at each school.
Your test scores are important in this process – you might just want to hold off on this question about which schools for a week until you have them. You should definitely look at your state flagship, though.
I got my SAT score today: 660 reading, 670 math, 790 writing. I plan on taking the SAT again in January because that is the last time the old sat is offered, and I won’t be able to superscore the new and old sat… This was my first standardized test and I did not prep for it. I hope to get my reading and math scores into the 700s in January.
Will the schools are you are apply to accept January scores? Isn’t that too late?
According to UVA’s website:
“The last recommended test dates for Regular Decision applicants are the December dates.”
You should also be checking the Common Data Set, Section C, for each school you are interested in to see how your stats compare to those of admitted students in the last year. It’s the best way there is to chance yourself.