Maybe look at schools that have a “women in engineering” chapter.
Take the SAT or ACT and start thinking of subjects you’re good at, and plan to take the subject tests in 2 of them.
BTW, is your GC at the high school or at the community college? (This may affect what s/he knows and the information provided to you).
You can still register for the December tests I think.
My GC is actually formally called a college success coach. Gateway to college is a high school completion program through a commuity college so both. It’s a weird grey area funded by the Bill gates foundation.
Yes very few people get in as transfers and I know the odds aren’t good to get into super prestigious schools but its been a life dream of mine so I will try. I’m applying to quite a few other schools all over the country as well ones with great engineering programs. I have a shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the starts life attitude.
Okay, but you are NOT a transfer.
Seriously: some students are homeschooled and take all their classes junior and senior year at community college. They’re still considered freshman applicants.
Email each university if you don’t believe us, but enough knowledgeable adults here have told you the same thing that you should at least email the universities instead of getting stuck on that “transfer” idea.
Now that you have your dream colleges, let’s look at the rest of your list. 
- What’s your parents’ budget? => if they haven’t given you a fixed amount, ask them tonight or tomorrow.
- Run the Net Price Calculators on your Dream School, on UO, and on various other colleges of interest. Cross out any college that’s not within budget based on the NPC.
- If right now you don’t really have colleges of interest, go TOMORROW to your school’s library (and/or town’s) to get a Fiske Guide, a Princeton Review’s Best Colleges, and/or an Insider’s Guide to the colleges. Start reading.
You need
- 2 safeties: colleges you like, can afford, and are sure you’ll get into. Those need to have roughly 50% acceptance or higher.
- 3-5 matches: colleges you like, can afford, and think you’ll get into. These need to have roughly 40% acceptance or higher.
Then add your reaches and dream colleges.
Also, DO take both the SAT and the ACT. Register for the December tests as well as the January tests. Those are your only chances and you need the January SAT “just in case”. Start prepping NOW, on your own, with some books (Erica Meltzer for English, in particular). If you do poorly it’ll be time to apply to test-optional schools, there are plenty of excellent ones. But you need to know where you stand.
Finally, the fact you apply with a freshman status doesn’t mean you “lose” your credits: once you’re admitted, you get “advanced standing”. It means you get all the advantages of applying as a freshman (especially wrt scholarships!) and then once you’re admitted, you get to transfer your DE credits.
So thank you all for all your help I’ve registered for the SAT in January and in March and The Act is February and will do another one. I’m scared shitless for the SAT and ACT as I’m not a tester.
I have plenty of other schools but I was just listing my childhood dream schools.
How many schools should I apply to?
After some prep, do some practice tests, it should help.
I’m pretty sure that all high tier ivy league school require the SAT/ACT. MIT needs SAT and two SAT subject tests.
@elana3142 agreeing with @ucbalumnus. Usually any college courses taken in high school will still allow you to apply as a freshman. In fact, I would go so far as to say it would be most irregular (and contra-indicated) to have the smart/motivated kids start some college courses in high school, only to then make them ineligible to apply to college as freshmen.
For what it’s worth, in terms of the UCs, you can even take college courses in the summer directly out of high school and still apply as a freshman (but only for that first summer). I have no idea if that policy exists anywhere else.
Start with a safety that you know you will be admitted to and know that you can afford. Add any number of other schools, but only if you prefer them to your safety.
Is twelve too many?
You need to decide if (a) there are 11 schools you prefer over your safety, and (b) you are willing to pay 11 sets of fees and write 11 applications and essays beyond those needed for your safety.
Those included my safety.
Can you list your 12, indicating which 2 are your safeties, with the NPC results in parenthesis next to them.
Have you talked with your parents about budget?
Worrying about standardized testing is pointless: prepare, take the test, and assess - give yourself a chance to “retake”, but if you score in the 1600s twice, change your list to the top test-opional schools.
Just checking: when you say “next year”, you mean you graduate HS in 2017, not 2016, right? Because if you’re in your last year of HS, taking the tests in March is too late.
Also, the SAT changes in March, so that, if you’re a junior, you should only take SAT Subject tests in January (those don’t change) and start with the “new” SAT Reasoning in March, but if you’re a senior, you really need to do late registratino/standby testing for the December tests.
Yes I’ve talked to my parents about budget and they told me not to worry about it. I graduate high school summer of 2016 at the end and I’m trying to figure out what to do. I missed my entire junior year because of leukemia and now I’m just figuring things out. I’m at a community college doing my high school diploma so I thought I would be a transfer. For the Act i cant get into the december test date unless I’m a standby, will I get in?
Can you NOT do your summer session at the community college and simply take classes in the Fall of 2016 and Spring of 2017?
If you “missed junior year” because of leukemia, you’re stronger than the disease, and you are a junior NOW.
It’s like you’re trying to “skip” junior year… the most important year for college admissions. If you keep in mind that, due to the disease you beat down, you didn’t have a junior year, it’d make sense if you did junior year now, senior year next year, applied to college next year, and started college in Fall 2017 after a full year of preparing for tests (2015-2016) and one semester preparing applications (Fall 2016), instead of trying to fit everything in a couple months.
It’d give you time to prepare, take tests, etc. It really sounds like you’d do MUCH better, you’d get better outcomes and it’d be less stressful, if you didn’t try to start college this Fall.
Financial aid:
“don’t worry about it” in the Fall turns into “we didn’t realize it’d be that expensive” or “we thought we’d figure it out but in the end we didn’t” in the Spring. Your parents mean well but you need to know how much they can afford to spend each month.
Can they afford $2,000 a month? Then it’s a $20,000 gift they make you, to which you can add $5,500 in federal loans, and if you can work in the Spring and in the summer, perhaps $4,500. That means you need to find colleges that will cost $30,000 once all grants and scholarships have been deducated (“net price”, which is typically VERY DIFFERENT from “sticker price”.)
Can they afford $5,000? Then you can apply about anywhere.
Can they afford less than $1,000 a month? Then you need to focus on “100% need colleges” and colleges that will give you scholarships for your test scores. There are deadlines coming up, which is why you really should consider applying for Fall 2017, preparing tests in Spring 2016 and applications Fall 2016.
If you applied for Fall 2017, it’d also mean no tests in December and January - you could start in March, May, and June after preparing thoroughly.
No sense in applying to unaffordable colleges. Sometimes, OOS private colleges are cheaper. Sometimes, instate public universities are cheaper. Sometimes you apply to both instate and out of state colleges where you rank in the top 10% or top 25% or where your stats qualify you for automatic scholarships, and hope for enough merit aid. You need to have a strategy. Run NPCs on different universities (public and private research universities, regional private universities, directional public universities, LACs) and show the results to your parents.
If you don’t know where to start, run the Net Price Calculator for these colleges:
UPortland
Lewis&Clark
UOregon
Western Washington University
Southern Oregon University
Occidental
Scripps
Cal Poly SLO
Humboldt
U Washington Seattle
Willamette
Pacific Lutheran
You’ll quickly see that the “net price” is very different from one to the other!
“I’t’d make sense if you did junior year now, senior year next year, applied to college next year, and started college in Fall 2017 after a full year of preparing for tests (2015-2016) and one semester preparing applications (Fall 2016), instead of trying to fit everything in a couple months.”
OP- this ^^ is the BEST advice anyone can give you at this time.
DON’T try to rush your preparation for applying to college. You are better off doing all of that in the next 9 months- researching colleges, getting your parents financial information for the FAFSA and PROFILE online forms, running the NPC’s to see exactly how much it WILL cost your parents, and finally having a realistic $$ talk with them.
Private colleges cost $60,000 per year- without room and board, books, transportation, and misc personal expenses-.
Can they comfortably afford AND are WILLING to pay THAT? For 4 years?
NOTHING is worse than getting into a college you love and discover you CAN’T afford to go to.
Take the time you now have to make sure you have crossed all the "T’s and have done the college application process correctly- and that wont happen if you are rushed.
We will be here to help you through the process.
What I decided to do is since I cant control when I graduate is that I’m just going to continue to go to either Psu or Portland community college and than I’ll start over. I found out today that my high school Gpa took a hit and i can’t meet fall deadlines anyways. So I guess I’m doing a different path. As far as how much my parents can afford. My dad says he like with everything included that keep it under 60 grand a year. My moms pays half so I’m going to try to keep it under that or who knows maybe I’ll be one of the few who gets a scholarship for being sick to help out a little
What kind of high school and college GPA do you have so far?
High school is apparently 3.45 which isn’t accurate but it won’t change that much. College all A’s