Chance my HS Junior - Psychology/International studies [TX resident, 3.67 UW, top 30%, 1230 SAT, <$40K/yr]

Due to the admission by rank system in TX, she’ll probably do best outside of the state.

She’ll need to have 2 colleges she likes and that you can afford - those are the most difficult to find.

College websites have a Net price Calculator: you input financial info (number in the family, income, investment&home/equity value, and sometimes GPA and test scores…) and they tell you roughly how much they’d expect you to pay.
Do this with Muhlenberg College, SUNY New Paltz, Agnes Scott, Mount Holyoke, Clark, College of Charleston, St Olaf, Dickinson, American University, Macalester. The results should be quite different. Are all affordable ? Only some?

She can consider Psychology major/IR minor for now. You 2 can dig into it more later.

If she took French 1 and German 2, she would start in College French 1 or College German 2. It may be worth it (and fun for her because they do a lot of …crafts, not sure how to call their ‘learn by doing’ approach…) to look at Concordia Language villages this summer. They have both languages and they’re very effective - completing a full 4 week session can give 1 year of HS foreign language credit.
Taking German 3 would be useful for college admissions but French may matter more for IR, first because it’s the traditional language of diplomacy (although many many languages are now used, English and French are still expected) and second because it opens up Canada and West Africa in addition to Metropolitan France&its territories.
In any case foreign language mastery is an essential skill for IR, as is study abroad - she’ll need to understand what makes the countries in her area of geographical interest move and change. Anyway… she needs to bring her level in Foreign Language as close to HS Level 3 or 4 as she can.

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