Which of these are reaches/safeties/matches?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So, I'm an international student from a third-world country in Central America, and I want to study in the US. </p>

<p>GPA: 3.87 uw
APs: Macro, Micro, A/B Calc (my school only offers these 3)
I'm number 6 in a class of 80 </p>

<p>SAT: 1950 -> Retaking in October and studying lots of Math for it
M: 620
CR: 660
W: 670 with an 11 essay (dunno if that matters)</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math2: 590 -> I know, I'll retake in November/December, and I might also take Math1 just in case
Spanish: 800 </p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
- Lots of travels to places in the US, South America, Europe, and some parts of Asia
- Piano lessons for 7 years, produced and sold a CD
- Guitar lessons for 2 years
- Singing lessons for 2 years
- Painting as a hobby for over 12 years (I'm planning on minoring/double majoring in it)
- Debate Team for 4 years
- Dean's List for 4 years (all of HS)
- Junior Achievement program (had to create a company, a product, and sell it, competing against other schools)
- Volunteer at the Special Olympics
- Volunteering Club at school -> over 100 hours of volunteer work
I think that's it </p>

<p>Here are my prospect schools:
- UC Berkley (my top choice; one can dream lol)
- USC
- Rollins (match, I think?)
- American (probably a safety)
- Emory
- UVA
- LMU (match, I think?)
- Fairfield (also a safety)</p>

<p>So, which would you say are reaches, matches or safeties? </p>

<p>Also, if you think I'd fit better in another school, let me know! :D</p>

<p>PS: I want to major in Marketing (or a Business-related branch) and hopefully Minor in Fine Arts</p>

<p>At this time, I'm not really taking into account money; I just want to know, academically, how I stand</p>

2

<p>Unless your family is ready, willing, and able to spend USD 60,000 each year for your education, you do need to think about the money. How much your family can afford to pay will determine where you can attend. For institutions where you can afford the full cost, your chances of admission will be very similar to those of a US applicant whose grades and test scores are like yours. Run the college-matching search engines for that.</p>

<p>If you need aid, there are no safeties in the US and there are not matches. There are only reaches. It really is that simple. There is not much aid available for international students. For ideas about that, spend some time in the International Students Forum and the Financial Aid Forum reading through the various threads on aid for internationals.</p>

3

<p>Reaches
UC Berkley
USC
Emory
UVA</p>

<p>Matches
Rollins
American - they look at interest
LMU (match, I think?)
Fairfield (also a safety)</p>

<p>Assuming you don’t need aid</p>

4

<p>Emory, USC and UVA are among the schools that pledge to meet 100% of demonstrated need… so unless you come from a rich family, you won’t be paying anywhere near retail price.</p>

<p>That is something to keep in mind if you have financial worries. Try the Net Price Calculator on each of these schools for an estimation of what your family would be expected to pay.</p>

<p>The best (overall…) schools on your list for undergraduate education are Emory, Cal-Berkeley, USC, and UVA. Three of those (as stated previously) give really good financial aid – grants, not loans. If you get that SAT over 2000 you’ll have a decent shot at getting into all four (or at least, say, two of them).</p>

<p>Personal note: I love that you hyphenated the compound adjective in the first sentence of your original post. Strong knowledge of grammar/usage are paramount to sounding smarter than you are. hehe</p>

5

<p>^ I"m not sure if any of the three above schools meet need for international students.
[Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)</p>

6

<p>If you’re looking for need-blind merit-aid for international students, try Chapman University. Great Marketing and Business programs!</p>

7

<p>With your test scores, I think your reaches UC Berkley, USC, Emory, UVA are unlikely, even though you are applying from Latin America (from which there are comparatively fewer international applicants). If economics is also of interest to you, instead of the more applied business degree, then the midwestern LACs, especially Grinnell and Macalester, might be good options due to the generous financial aid they provide internationals (both schools are around 11% international).</p>

8

<p>*Unless your family is ready, willing, and able to spend USD 60,000 each year for your education, you do need to think about the money. How much your family can afford to pay will determine where you can attend. *</p>

<p>The above is true…ESPECIALLY for safeties. You may not want to worry about affordability for your reaches and matches, but if you can’t afford your “safeties” then they are NOT safeties.</p>

<p>For a school to be a safety then you have to know FOR SURE that you have all costs covered. If you ONLY get accepted to your matches and safeties and NONE are affordable, then HOW can you claim that you had a safety??? How can a school be a “safety” if it’s not affordable? That doesn’t make any sense. </p>

<p>You’re an international…</p>

<p>Berkeley and UVA won’t give you a dime of money, so if your parents won’t pay the $40k-50k per year to attend, take those off your list. </p>

<p>Right now your stats aren’t high enough for USC or Emory. Don’t know how much aid they give to int’ls. I don’t think they promise to meet need for int’ls. </p>

<p>American, LMU and Fairfield don’t give much/any aid to int’ls. </p>

<p>Again…unless your parents are willing to pay for most/all of the cost ($40k-60k per year), none of these schools will work and you’ll have wasted a lot of hours and money applying to unaffordable schools and reach schools. </p>

<p>Don’t you want to have at least one school accept you and be affordable??? </p>

<p>Ask your parents how much they’ll pay. If they’ll pay a decent amount, then come back and tell us the amount, and THEN we’ll give you some ideas of where to apply.</p>

<p>Right now, with your current stats,</p>