Chance me liberal arts / women's colleges: CA resident, 4.0 UW, test optional, English or Creative Writing & French

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hello! I am a high school senior looking to apply to mainly liberal arts colleges this fall (I included all my top contenders in the tags). I am a US resident in CA, attending a charter school. My intended major is English or creative writing with a minor in French.

My GPA is a 4.0 unweighted and 4.31 weighted (I think my school’s weighted just means up to a 5.0). I’ve decided to go test-optional due to a lack of support/preparation from my school (I was never encouraged to take them so I didn’t feel confident). My class rank is 8/125.

Via cost calculators, all of the schools I am considering are within an affordable range for me.

My school doesn’t offer APs. However, I’ve taken classes at community college for the last few semesters.

Highschool course work (9th-11th grades)
English: English 9 honors, English 10 honors, English 100 (CC)
Science: Biology, Forensic Science, Chemistry honors, Astronomy (CC)
Math: Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 honors
History: World History, US History (CC)
Languages: French 1 (CC), French 2
Extras: PE, Internship/Work Experience, Intro to Arts, Media, and Entertainment, Student Government and Leadership, Ballet 1 (CC), Guitar 1 and 2

Extracurriculars: Library volunteer (4 years, 500+ hours), ASB (4 years, secretary 11th, president 12th), NHS (3 years, president 11th and 12th), magazine internship (10th, 30+ articles published), lifeguard job (summer before senior year), swim instructor job (senior year)

Awards: Presidential Volunteer Service Award (bronze medal, 9th grade)

Schools
Safety:
Lewis and Clark (69%)
Match:
Smith ED (57%)
UC Santa Cruz (47%)
Reach:
Bryn Mawr (31%)
Scripps (28%)
Hamilton (12%)
Bowdoin (9%)

Thanks for reading!

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I am lost. Is Smith ED? Then why do you have “reaches” on the list?

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Yes, I’m applying to Smith ED 1. I have the reaches there because they are still colleges I interviewed with/am considering RD if I get rejected from Smith ED.

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What classes are you taking senior year?

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To preface, the CC classes are semester-long and all the rest are year-long.

PreCalc honors, AP English Language (I know I said my school doesn’t offer them, this one individually just started being offered this year), Astronomy 2 (CC), Career and Life Planning (CC), Ballet 2 (CC), French 3 (CC), Government (CC), Micro Economics (CC), Ballet 3 (CC), Student Government and Leadership, Guitar 3, Drivers Ed

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You need to consider the finances. If your family can afford 90K/yr, you can apply ED to Smith. If your family cannot, you need to run the net price calculator for Smith, and get an idea of how much they would expect you to pay. If your family is low-income, you might get extremely generous aid; however, if your family is middle income or upper middle income, the aid might be a lot less than what you need.

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Take a look at Agnes Scott.

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OP’s initial post said:

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The other question we need for chancing purposes is how much the schools would cost per the NPC (approximate amounts are fine). The reason I ask is because the schools on your list (outside of UC Santa Cruz, which seems like a big outlier on your list) are need-aware. That means that the amount of need you have may affect the decision from the admissions office because the college only has so much money to give.

For instance, if one applicant can pay $50k and another applicant can pay $10k, a need-aware college might take the $50k student if they are otherwise similar. There’s no guarantee of that, but it can influence decisions (and thus chancing).

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But they are also thinking of med school.

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I see. So the NPC (I’m assuming this is the calculation I got from the college websites) for all the liberal arts colleges on my list are between $2,000-$5,000 yearly. UC Santa Cruz (which I agree is an outlier, my family just wanted me to apply to at least one state school) would be around $8,000. Does that answer the question?

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I’m not sure if this was a mistake but no med school for me :sweat_smile:.

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I think your chances at Smith are really good. You may want to throw in one or two more target/match schools to widen your options. If you’re open to the Midwest, Macalester, St. Olaf and Beloit College are all great SLACs that have strong language/study abroad programs. Focus on your essays to let your personality shine through, those SLACs are all about fit.

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Thank you for the response. While I originally hoped for the northeast, I’m not opposed to exploring options elsewhere. I’ll look into those schools!

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Below are my guesses as to what your chances might be at the schools on your list. I didn’t chance for UC Santa Cruz as those are a separate beast entirely for applications, but @GumbyMom may be able to help. You’ll want to include your UC GPAs (unweighted, weighted, and weighted capped). You can use this calculator if you don’t already have those handy: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

Likely (60-79%)

  • Lewis & Clark: 10% submitted SAT and 4% submitted ACT

Toss-Up (40-59%)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Scripps: 26% submitted SAT and 17% submitted ACT

  • Smith ED: 33% submitted SAT and 15% submitted ACT, maybe towards the likelier end of this category

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Bowdoin: 37% submitted SAT and 22% submitted ACT

  • Bryn Mawr: 61% of students submitted an SAT and 24% submitted an ACT, so it definitely looks as though they are test preferred here.

  • Hamilton: 34% submitted SAT and 17% submitted ACT

I will think about some likelier options for you as well and post back later.

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Seconding Agnes Scott (apply to the special programs) as a great safety, Macalester, St Olaf, Beloit (some of these EA) and adding Denison and Dickinson.

You have a good shot at Smith ED for these majors and you should consider Bryn Mawr ED2.

UCSC: definitely inquire about
https://honors.ucsc.edu/honors-programs/college-scholars/index.html
For 2025-2026 (it was paused for 2024)
Since it could make a smaller environment for you.
https://honors.ucsc.edu/

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A quick note on applying to UC Santa Cruz. Since the UC application PIQs take a bit of time and thought to do well, and aren’t really in the same vein as other application essays, if you’re wanting to apply to a single state school, you might think about applying to one of the smaller CSUs, like Sonoma State (~5,800 undergrads) or Monterey Bay (~6,300 undergrads). These will feel closer to the other colleges on your list, size-wise, than UCSC (~17,500 undergrads), and — maybe more relevant to you — don’t have any essays as part of the application.

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Several of the schools below are part of the Colleges That Change Lives consortium. If they are, I have linked their profile page. For any school, but particularly small colleges, make sure to investigate the school’s finances before enrolling.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Cornell College (IA): About 1100 undergrads and follows a block schedule whereby students take one class at a time for a month. Cornell College – Colleges That Change Lives

  • Hamline (MN): About 1800 undergrads

  • Pacific Lutheran (WA): About 2300 undergrads

  • Sonoma State (CA): About 5900 undergrads and you may want to check out the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies there, too.

  • Susquehanna (PA ): About 2200 undergrads

  • U. of Redlands (CA): About 2300 undergrads

Likely (60-79%)

Toss-Up (40-59%)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • St. Olaf (MN): About 3k undergrads and students can take classes at neighboring Carleton

Low Probability (less than 20%)

I have heard that UCs can be more affordable for students from lower income families in California than the Cal States, as the UCs will generally includes housing costs whereas Cal States may not (@GumbyMom, @ucbalumnus can you confirm/deny/clarify?). So the Cal States may not be more affordable, though I do think that Sonoma State is a great suggestion (that I had already included on my list!). That said, if the UCs are affordable while the Cal States are not, then I would consider adding more UCs, particularly Merced as it’s the smallest of the UCs.

ETA: Moved St. Olaf down one category because it does meet 100% of need

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Historically, the in-state net costs tended to be CSU commuter < UC < CSU residential for students with high financial need. Not sure of current practice.

Most CSUs for the OP’s majors should be at least likely, or assured if non impacted (most campuses are non impacted). The main possible exception could be CPSLO, due to the bonus points for advanced math (OP has precalculus but not calculus), but the OP’s majors are not the most competitive ones there.

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I gave you a pretty extensive list of suggestions because when applying to need-aware schools when one needs a significant amount of aid…it’s even more of a guessing game. Generally, I move schools down one level of likelihood from what I would have guessed if there was not significant need, but that’s really a GUESS on my part. It will depend on how valuable that candidate is to the school (meeting the school’s priorities, perhaps bringing in various forms of diversity whether geographically, areas of interest, background, the strength of the applicant in comparison with the rest of the applicant pool, etc).

For the schools on your original list, only Lewis & Clark doesn’t meet 100% of need, so I suspect it would be the least likely to defer or reject you for financial reasons.

  • Lewis & Clark: 91%

  • Scripps: 100%

  • Smith: 100%

  • Bowdoin: 100%

  • Bryn Mawr: 100%

  • Hamilton: 100%

Of the schools I added, I went ahead and looked up the percentages of need met, intentionally avoiding schools that met 100% of need, as those are the schools that are most likely to reject/waitlist an applicant because of their degree of financial need (unless they claim to be need-blind). For the majority, I used this aggregator. For schools that were not in the aggregator, I looked up their CDS (section H2, line I). I accidentally did Knox both ways, but it does seem to indicate that the numbers shared in the aggregator is the rounded percentage of need met for incoming freshmen.

Additionally, please note that schools will calculate your need differently, so don’t just base your decision on the percentages as a school that meets a lower percentage of need might still give you more aid than a school that meets a higher percentage of need (for more info, you can read this post).

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Cornell College: 88%

  • Hamline: did not find a CDS

  • Pacific Lutheran: most recent CDS found was from SY20-21; 87.6% for all undergrads, 90.7% for incoming freshmen

  • Sonoma State

  • Susquehanna: most recent CDS found was from SY21-22; 83.0% for all undergrads, 85.9% for incoming freshmen

  • U. of Redlands: most recent CDS found was from SY21-22; 90.0% for all undergrads, 93.0% for incoming freshmen

Likely (60-79%)

  • Agnes Scott: 85%

  • Goucher: 89%

  • Hampshire: 89%

  • Hollins : most recent CDS found was from SY23-24; 87% for all undergrads, 88% for incoming freshmen

  • Knox: 94% in the aggregator (90.1% for undergrads, 93.5% for freshmen per 21-22 CDS that is under the link to the 23-24 CDS)

  • Luther: 92.7% for undergrads 93.8% for incoming freshmen per the SY23-24 CDS

  • Wheaton (MA): From the 20-21 CDS, 83.1% of undergrads and 87.2% of incoming freshmen

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Beloit: 97%

  • Gustavus Adolphus: 95%

  • St. Lawrence: 91%

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • St. Olaf: 100% (didn’t realize this one met full need until after I did this exercise)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

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