Is this a smart move when applying to colleges?

tkoparent
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 07:02:30 +0000

It seems that you might want to sit back and rethink your approach at this stage, before you hit the critical junior year. First, responding to the specific question you asked, it would be a mistake to focus your attention more towards your clubs and less towards your academics - or, in any event, taking that approach isn’t going to be helpful to you in the college admissions process. Your GPA is very strong and your resume overall is impressive, so there should be a lot of possibilities open to you. You say you want to major in Health Administration, but as others have pointed out, that’s not a major you are likely to find at a T20 school. International relations/public policy you would find at many T20s. If you are serious about Health Administration, you might want to look at larger schools and see if there are schools where you would be eligible for financial aid. If you decide to put off Health Administration until graduate school and focus more on IR/public policy as an undergraduate, the pool of schools would be larger and you might find a great school that also would be willing to provide you with very substantial financial aid. I think you need to study the financial aid issues very carefully at this stage. If you follow your current strategy of doing community college first and then transferring, you may find you are not eligible as a transfer for any merit aid, which can be a very important piece of the puzzle, and trying to pay for even two years at a T20 by yourself and then going on to graduate school could become very expensive and likely impossible. If you can be more flexible in the schools you will consider, you might be able to find a great school that offers the majors you are interested in and provides you with a great financial package. If you have access to a capable advisor at school, that might be a good place to start brainstorming about options. Otherwise, the people here will be happy to help.