Can anybody suggest some colleges that fit to my stats?
Im 18 years old and from Germany, my Abitur average grade is 1.5 with is roughly translated a gpa of 3.9.
I’ll receive my sat scores next week, I think it will be around ~2000. I will also take to subject tests, us history and world history, I’m sure I’ll score high there. My extracurricular activities are very good, and my teacher recommendations will be awesome! Also I won’t apply for financial aid, the price doesn’t really matter.
I plan to major in political science, and I want to attend a university that’s close to a big city…
Can you recommend me some reaches/matches? I don’t need safety schools, these are gonna be the German universities
Let’s be polite and respond in an English speaking forum in English. Although I could understand what you two said, and your dialects came through as well.
If you want, you can take advantage of the PM (private message) feature to continue the discussion on how to convert your German GPA to US GPA, little envelope icon up top.
In addition to Georgetown (big reach) and George Washington, consider American University (which is located just inside the Washington, DC city limits).
Other urban possibilities:
Boston College
Boston University
Northeastern (another Boston school)
Fordham (New York City)
NYU (New York City)
Villanova (Philadelphia)
Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh)
University of Pittsburgh
University of Miami
Tulane (New Orleans)
University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
University of Washington (Seattle)
University of Denver
The larger American cities with an “international business/political footprint” clearly would seem to be your options, but do not overlook colleges in small cities or rural areas. Two liberal arts colleges that have a history of great appeal to students interested in politics or international affairs are Beloit College in Wisconsin and Ohio Wesleyan University in Ohio. OWU is just outside of Columbus, Ohio, the largest city in that state. President Obama’s former Chief of Staff is an alumnus of Beloit. Beloit is 2.5 hours from Chicago and 1 hour from Madison, the Capitol of Wisconsin (a town high in political activity).
The political science departments at these schools have excellent reputations. I know staff people at the U.S. Congress who are alumni of some of these schools. With the exception of Columbia, Barnard and U of Wisconsin, I would SPECULATE that these schools are matches for a potential political science major with your profile;
Macalester College, 1 hour from Minneapolis
Columbia University (Columbia College) in New York
Barnard College in New York (if you are female)
Washington University in Saint Louis
U of Rochester
Willamette University, 1 hour from Portland, Oregon
Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
U of Minnesota-Twin Cities
U of Wisconsin-Madison
Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)
George Mason University in Virginia (Washington DC suburbs)
Also look into Tufts, Hamilton, Dickinson, Middlebury, Occidental, American University, UMD-College Park, JHU, Goucher, Bryn Mawr (if you’re a girl) as well as Smith (especially if you’re already politically involved).
I strongly second Macalester and Barnard.
The D-A I in Heidelberg is correct about your GPA conversion.
My suggestions in post #9 focused only on match and reach research universities, in or near large cities, all over the USA. If you’re also interested in small liberal arts colleges, or suburban/rural schools, you’re getting some good suggestions in the last couple of posts.
Macalester is in St. Paul, which is adjacent to Minneapolis. It is one of relatively few liberal arts colleges (LACs) located in a large city. Your stats may give you a decent shot at Macalester, which is an excellent small college that enrolls a relatively high percentage of international students (~13-14%). Kofi Annan (former UN Sec. Gen.) went there.
Be aware, though, that Minnesota winters are bitterly cold.
LACs have no (or few) graduate programs. They offer consistently small classes (often averaging < 20 students) and total (or near total) focus on undergraduates. A disproportionately high percentage of American college professors send their kids to LACs. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/where-professors-send-their-children-to-college/
@MYOS1634 I always thought the British GPA conversion is another thing? I was talking about GPA conversions for US colleges… Also how did you get 3.85 as conversion of my GPA?
Yes, the US and UK scales are different but they’re standard, so that the grade bands indicate the boundaries for each and by comparing with the German boundaries you find the equivalencies. With 1.3 = 4, there are only incremental differences up to 1.5. So 1.4 = 3.95, 1.5 = 3.85, 1.6 = 3.75 (threshold between A and A-), 1.7 = 3.65, 1.8 = 3.55, 1.9 = 3.45 (B+). Generally speaking the D-A I know what they’re talking about so you should trust them more than strangers on the internet.
