Hello everyone, this is my first time on here and I had a few questions as to whether I’m putting what I can achieve on my list…
GPA: 3.8
SAT: 2330 (M:800, CR:760, W:770)
I volunteer at my church every Sunday, Varsity and club swim, and am currently doing a paid internship.
I plan on majoring in Political Science, although that may change
UChicago
American University
Boston University
Columbia University
Duke University
Brown University
UPenn
WUSTL
USC
Stanford
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Where do you live? Do you have financial constraints?
I live on the West Coast and I’d say that my family is middle-class
Are you in-state for CA? If not will your parents pay $50K/year for the UCs?
If “middle-class” means that you are not looking for financial aid then your list has one possible safety (American University). If you are heavily dependent on financial aid then you need to rethink your list.
I’ll assume that financial aid is not a major issue for you.
You should be able to do political science at any of the universities that you mention, as well as the universities I suggest below.
You will need other safeties. Best is to look at your in-state publics and identify 2 universities that you are “sure” to get into. Assuming “west coast” means California, then the safeties for you are likely to be UCs such as Santa Cruz and Riverside. UCLA and UCB are unpredictable. If “west coast” means Washington and Oregon then the same thinking applies to those instate publics.
Your list needs at least one other “match”. Boston University is an example of a match. Assuming that you are California resident the match can be UCSD or UC Davis.
You have a large number of high reach colleges on your list. Perhaps you can replace one or two of them with a low reach college.
Some of your high reach colleges offer ED (e.g. Penn, Brown, Columbia, Duke). In practice these colleges select 40-50% of their class during ED. So if one of these universities is your top choice apply ED.