White Girl From CT low GPA; College Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello! Thank you for viewing/helping with this thread. I’m applying for colleges now as I’m a senior in high school and am very worried about matching my profile to colleges. I don’t have to pay any fees so I’m applying to 20 schools total and I was wondering about my chances of getting into them particularly my reach schools. Thank you! (Focus is on chances for reach)

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 690 Math, 770 Reading (1460 Composite)
SAT II: Didn’t Take Any
Weighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.6 -no unweighted-
Started with 2.8 GPA Freshman year, strong upward trend.
Senior Year Course Load: IB DP - English, Information Technologies in Global Society, Visual Arts, Biology, Mandarin, Mathematical Studies, Theory of Knowledge- ALL IB Classes, 3 HL Exams (Bio, English, ITGS) SITTING FOR IB DIPLOMA IN MAY
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Commended, two published poems. NO OTHER AWARDS

Subjective:

Extracurriculars: Horseback riding (3 yrs), MUN (1 yr), Math Club (1 yr), Human Rights Debate Club (1 yr), Poetry/Dance Club (3 yrs) -President-, Student Advisory Board (3 yrs), Interact (3 yrs), GSA (3 yrs), Library Volunteer (6 years), Peer tutor (6 yrs), Cancer Walk Face Painter (3 yrs)
I take a lot of classes on Cousera and I want to incorporate that into my Application somehow.
Job/Work Experience: None
Volunteer/Community service: 100+ hours, Nature Center, Dog Shelter, and Library
Summer Activities: Harvard Summer School: Biomedical Ethics, Political Philosophy (8 credits)
Essay: Eh, Wrote about my mother’s hospitalization and how I’m a warrior (passionate about helping people and angry) -7/10-

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Undeclared/Philosophy/Pre-Dent
State: Connecticut
School: #2 in State, IB Magnet
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: 100k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): NONE

Colleges:

Safety:
ECSU, CCSU, UMass Boston, University of Rhode Island, UCONN, Bay Path

Match:
UNC Charlotte
UMass Amherst
Howard
Penn State
Syracuse

Reach:
Dartmouth
Cornell
Harvard
Brown (DREAM) ED
NYU -mother making me apply-
Brandies
Northeastern
Carnegie Mellon

If possible if anyone knows any schools that a student with my profile and stats could get very very high merit aid because I will have no family assistance in paying for college. Thank you so much!

2

Your family makes $100K (and you can afford horseback riding) and you don’t have to pay any application fees? You are very lucky if that is true, but I still would advise you not to apply to so many schools. You’ll spread your efforts to thin come fall. Each of those schools is going to want a “why us?” essay, and that alone is a lot of creative writing. I would say you should cut your reaches down to three. Of those, you probably have the best shots at Brandeis or Northeastern.

You should fine tune your reaches and matches too. There is nothing wrong with any of them, but they have very little in common. Some are big city, some are small city, some are in the middle of nowhere. Some are big, some are huge, some are much smaller. Do you know which colleges on your list are research schools and which ones are co-op schools? Do you know which are direct-admits and which are open major (this can have consequences if you aren’t sure what you want to study) and how easy or hard it is to change majors in these schools? Why Howard and UNC? How did those two very different schools make the cut as the only two schools on your list that are not in the northeast? Have you considered affordability? UNC might be a reach seeing as you are OOS, and you will almost certainly be full pay there. Same for NYU at $70,000 per year. Will UMass give you any OOS aid?

You have the makings of a great application (interesting ECs, rigorous coursework, etc.), but do spend more time narrowing down the college experience that is the best fit for you, and is also realistic admission-wise and affordability-wise. Check out the Fiske Guide to Colleges.

3

I dont see you as even close to being a match for any Ivy or CM. Your grades are solid but not perfect and your scores are too low.

4

Your 3.6 GPA is weighted? Also, have you run the Net Price Calculators at any of these schools? Are they affordable?

5

CM?

6

Yes, I go to an IB school and for whatever reason they don’t do unweighted GPAs, only weighted. So it’s a 3.6 weighted.

7

I can’t afford riding, my friend’s family owns a farm that I ride at for free. I pay no fees because my entire school district gets free lunch. I’ve written almost every essay already so I don’t have much to worry about there (did almost every school on my list months ago). I’ve researched every school on my list and their programs, the reason they’re so vastly different is because I’m very much a free floater and have little to no preferences as to campus size, environment, etc (visited many types and enjoyed them all). I love the states of NC and DC from previous experience -specifically the areas Howard and UNC are located in- so that put them on my list.

The biggest (#1 of everything) concern for me is affordability. UMass likely aid but I didn’t know that about UNC so thank you. NYC as I mentioned I’m being forced to apply and would not like to go to.

8

Cross out all current reaches except de Brandeis and Northeastern.
Penn State won’t have any merit for you except 5k (off 45k) IF you get into Schreyer.
Apply for philosophy rather than undeclared.
Apply to Honors college whenever possible to increase odds of merit aid.
Add Temple, UVermont, App State, UNC Asheville + Colleges that change lives that Appel to you.

When you say “no family assistance” do you mean your family refuses to pay its EFC? Anything at all? Or can only afford part of their EFC and will pay that part?

9

The Ivy League schools offer zero merit aid. CM, Northeastern, NYU and Brandeis do, but I don’t think any of them offer nearly enough for what you say you need. Penn State will also be unaffordable as merit is minimal.

I am not familiar enough with the other schools to comment, but I suspect that most or all will be unaffordable if you are relying on massive merit.

Have you run the NPCs at these schools?

10

Will you be able to live at home and attend ECSU, CCSU or UConn? With your profile and the statement that your parents will not contribute, the rest of your list is highly unlikely.

11

Have you run the NPC on your safeties and matches?

12

Carnegie Mellon

13

UMass Boston is a commuter school, similar to CUNY for NYC. You’re better off applying to Simmons and have a better shot at financial aid/merit from Simmons.

You get automatic near full tuition at UAlabama for this GPA/score. You’d have about 16k remaining.
UDel, Temple, Fordham, SUNY Geneseo, UNC Asheville may offer some merit to bring costs to 20-25k.
American may be possible if your family agrees to pay about 25-30k.

14

Calculate your unweighted GPA for core classes using the conventional method, A=4, a-=3.7, B+=3.3, B=3. A 3.6 weighted suggests you have grades below A. In cores- and especially related to your hoped-for major- this is an issue for the reaches. They look at the transcript and see the letter grades.

MYOS, won’t UA look at unweighted?

If you’re counting on UMass discounts for a CT resident, you need one of the majors they approve for this. Only those.

15

No, UA uses whatever’s on the transcript, typically weighted.

16

That won’t pay anything whatsoever. Why should I take out those reaches? It won’t hurt me to apply and I figured I might as well shoot my shot.

17

It’s not a lottery. Each ticket does not have the same odds as everyone else’s. You said it yourself in the title of this thread: “low GPA”. You asked us to chance you, and we did.

18

I definitely understand that and I appreciate it I was just wondering if there’s a harm in sending it off anyways if I wrote the essays already and don’t pay anything.

19

You should them out FOR NOW because you need to focus on finding universities that are both likely and afffordable.
Throw in a few “hail Mary’s” once you’ve nailed afffordable options that you like.
My guess is that you don’t really want to commute to CCSU. So, you need universities where your odds are good AND that are a better fit than those AND will be affordable.
For example, Simmons is better academically than Bay Path. Keep Bay Path but add Simmons, apply EA and to all scholarships they offer.
UAlabama is much better than CCSU or ECSU and is likely to cost the same. If 16k is too much then you need to devote all your time to finding colleges they provide full rides for your stats. There are some but many have deadlines between Nov 1and Dec1st.
Your key issue is:
If your parents won’t pay anything, how will you pay for college?
And can you find colleges that you can afford AND like - a college that (minimally) will challenge you and offer the major you want + a good honors college.
It means a very different list than the current one.
If you get into, say, Brown, you’re looking at 25k. You can use your savings, perhaps adding more hours now at your job. Then you have a 5.5k loan you can take as a freshman. THAT’S your budget if your parents can’t or won’t pay anything.

20

The biggest “harm” is that you are focusing on schools you won’t get into. Meanwhile you have a haphazard list of schools you CAN get into, but are unsure whether you can afford. You are on track to let fate make the decision for you instead of mastering your own destiny by doing more research and more soul searching.