Help Me Build A College List! Bay Area High Schooler [CA resident, 1530 SAT, 4.0 GPA, undecided/pre-medmaybe?]

Congratulations on your great high school record! You will have great options… but you can’t trust CollegeVine. Boston University and UCLA are reaches, not targets, and your chances of getting into Columbia or Yale are NOT 25%. You could get in to one or all of those - but very well might not. And University of Georgia is not a safety. I don’t now enough about the others to have an opinion.

There are hundreds of schools that could fit into each category. If you are not eligible for need-based aid, you should research colleges with merit aid (others may have suggestions). Assuming you’re in-state in California, the UCs or Cal States should all come in within your $40 K budget - listed cost of attendance may be a little higher, but you can waive insurance, and the personal costs vary. UCSC, Riverside, and Merced would likely be safeties or close. UCD, UCSD, UCSB, and UCI are probably targets - but all (and all UCs) can be unpredictable. UCB, UCLA are reaches. You can see data for your high school, which will give you a better sense of how you might fare, here: Admissions by source school | University of California

Best of luck

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