A little Help with this thing called the application process!??!!

Parents Forum
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<p>Can you guys please guide me into the process, i am completely lost, just wondering what are my chances ??? and what other schools i should concider applying to
Famale
California
Mexican-American
First Generation
Low Income 15,00 </p>

<p>SAt- 2050, ( i can’t remember specifics)
SAT II, don’t know but i’m taking math and spanish </p>

<p>Frosh year gpa 3.73 and 3.77
classes- English I H, Art/Comp, Algebra II H, Religion I, Pre-Science, Study Hall/Geography, French I</p>

<p>Sophmore year- 3.69 and 3.89
Bio, English II H, Pre-cal, World History, Religion II, Comp, French II</p>

<p>Jr Year- 4.03 and 2nd semm 4.1 or 4.2
Ap Cal, AP U.S History, A.P Art History, English III H, Chem, Religion III,
Problem here, okay so i got 3 B’s will that look Bad? </p>

<p>senior year schedule
AP cal bc ( first class ever in the hist of my school). Gov H, engish AP, French AP, PE, religion IV, physics </p>

<ul>
<li>i have taken all the aps that my school has to offer </li>
</ul>

<p>GPA W- 3.9
GPA U.W- 3.87
Ranking 7/83 </p>

<p>E.C
Prez of Key Club
NHs/CSF Treasurer
varsity track( 9 and 11),
varsity cross country( 11, 10)
varsity, soccer(9)
Ecology Club
Secretary of CSF/ NHS
Lettermen society, lettered in track, xcountry and soccer<br>
Class board ( secretary) soph year
religious Retreat Leader for Freshmen
TEachers aid at local elementary school
weekend job- from 6 am -2 p.m
300 service hours
Beach Clean up
Tutor at elem school
Student Government 3 years</p>

<p>Programs
UC Davis Cosmos
T.O.P.S 4th annual student research conference occidental college </p>

<p>Awards
Religion
History
French
English
Calculus
Geography
Bio
Ap Calculus Ab
Society of Women Engineers Los Angeles Section, (Certificate of Merit 2006)</p>

<p>Schools
UCLA
UCB
UCSB
UCSC
Cal state san luis obispo
Cal State poly pomona
Vassar
Brown
Dartmouth
Colgate
BOston U
Boston C
Pomona</p>

<p>intended majors econ or english
ThAnKs! :)</p>

2

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<p>Well, you’re not serious about college applications season yet if you can’t remember these specifics. (smile)</p>

<p>Seriously, can you phrase what you really want to know in the form of a question?</p>

3

<p>i added the question above just wanted to see what you guys thought .
so here are my scores 690 m 690 and 670 w</p>

4

<p>Advice: Don’t slip from the top 10% Everything else looks great. I don’t have a clue about the specific schools, BUT I do know that colleges love to take candidates from the top 10% of the class.</p>

5

<p>thanks …</p>

6

<p>m8913, You seem to me to have a very strong profile. Although I have no expertise in the “boost” that you get from URM and first-generation status, I am guessing that those will mean a lot of success for you in your applications.</p>

<p>Here is a thought, and it is only a thought. Your UC/CSU schools seem to cover the range of reach to safety quite well. If we hold aside for a moment the URM/first gen factors, the East Coast schools (and Pomona) might be lacking in the safer end of the range. So, if it were to happen that none of those schools came through, would you be happy to choose from among the California public system? If not, we might want to hear a little more about your criteria for choosing schools so that we could suggest some additional safety type privates. Quite possibly, you won’t need to add more safeties to your list. But if you want the extra insurance…</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

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<p>To above: yes i would be glad to attend from the cal and uc system i have seen the campuses and i like them that’s why i’m planning to apply . For privet universities i’d like them to be small and not extremely liberal but not totally conservative, i don’t mind weather and i’d like either a big or mid sized school ./ Thanks :)</p>

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<p>Have you looked at the Jesuit schools? You might like the size, social atmosphere, etc. Santa Clara, U of SD, Holy Cross, Loyola Marymount, Seattle U, Gonzaga…anything with “Loyola” in the name…also Notre Dame and its sister school St. Mary’s college.</p>

<p>Almost all are at least mid sized except St. Mary’s (small, all women) and Notre Dame is biggish.</p>

<p>Your socioeconomic and first generation status would be a huge “hook” at a Catholic university and if you are comfortable with the culture it might be a great fit.</p>

9

<p>Son and daughter (this year’s app and last year’s app) had Catholic schools on their list for a variety of reasons. Since kiddos’ profiles were similar to the OP thought it might help to have some of our outcomes as info. </p>

<p>Some schools are Jesuit (listed in the above post) and some are not, it will be posted on each school’s individual website and inside their viewbooks.</p>

<p>As far as being a “hook” our experience would disagree with that. Kiddos were of the same (as OP) economic status, first generation and Catholic. After looking at the Data Sets there is much higher percentage of hispanics at many of the Catholic schools than at many of their “non-Catholic” cohorts.</p>

<p>Son and daughter were admitted to the “Catholic” schools on their list, but and a BIG but, their financial aid packages were the VERY worst by far. For example, several of those gapped their package from $14,000 to $8000 per year. Only 1 of 5 came close to not gapping but were very, very loan heavy. In comparison, Amherst, Swat, Colby, Wesleyan had no gap, met full need with no loans and an average 0f $500 workstudy. Colby had no workstudy, no loans, no summer contribution and met all need, including personal expenses and travel. Vastly different from Gonzaga’s $12,000 gap and $8000 in loans.</p>

<p>Princeton’s, Penn’s, Northwestern’s, Vanderbilt’s, Dartmouth’s, Amherst’s and Swat’s were fantastic offers. No gaps, no loans, minimal workstudy and reasonable summer expectation (Penn’s was $50).</p>

<p>So my advice from having 4 kiddos go through this in the past 5 years, if I were the OP I would look to schools which might not necessarily be on her radar. As a female interested in econ, with a decent math score she could look to Penn, Chicago, MIT as reaches and maybe some of the LACs with a strong econ department.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>m8913 -</p>

<p>I’d say you’re “in” at most places. Does your school Guidance Dept. have experience getting URMs into competitive colleges? If not you may want to FIND a group of people who do. Success is contagious you know. Also I second the notion of adding a midwestern school or two.</p>

11

<p>You might want to talk to Mills College, up in the Bay Area. They give generous scholarships and they’re very supportive. I don’t know how far you want to go from home.</p>

<p>You seem to have a few CA schools and then a bunch of New England schools, with little in between. What appeals to you about New England? Do you know anyone at those schools? Teachers from your school who went to them? Some of them are in very small towns, some not… </p>

<p>It seems clear you’ll need hefty financial support; with a family income of $15000 you’ll even need money to travel to and from school if you go to a school that’s very far away.</p>

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<p>You are probably among the top 100-200 first-generation, low-income Mexican American applicants in the United States, and can likely get in anywhere you want to go. And virtually every one of the top 50-100 schools can provide you with good-to-excellent econ. and English departments.</p>

<p>So urban/rural? big/small? east coast/west coast? hot/cold? frats/no frats? party school/less so? Athletics/not? Diverse (ethnically or economically)/less so? These would seem to be far more important questions for you to figure out BEFORE putting together a final list.</p>