Chance me! Fresh in HS getting advice for ECs. Aiming to go to UCs and Stanford

Because you’re low income, it may be worth it to start exploring meet-need schools. A lot of them are on the East coast and you may not have heard of them so it’ll increase awareness. Just browse and click, no need to focus yet.
It’s too early to know whether you’d qualify but Questbridge targets high achieving lower income juniors to help them prepare their application and seniors to match them with highly selective colleges. You can start looking at each of the colleges on that list but don’t get too attached since you don’t know whether you’ll qualify.

The most important colleges for you though will be safeties you like and can afford. They’re difficult to find because you need to like something about them AND your parents must be able to afford them -they can’t be a throw-away after you’ve written a Christmas list of famous universities. One will likely be your local CSU for a less-impacted or non-impacted major and you may have to commute. If you want campus life, some public universities that are more residential include CSU Chico (good honors program, too), SDSU, Sonoma, Humboldt, and UCM.

For UCs, As in honors, APs and dual-enrollment classes taken between Sophomore year and summer after junior year will boost your chances.

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