U.S.
West Virginia
Public high school
Athlete and artist
I hope to major in sociology and minor in dance or double major in both
4.0 unweighted
4.56 weighted GPA
Class Rank: 5
6 AP classes
Over 15 honors classes
Took two high school level classes in middle school
Was placed in the upperclassmen dance class as a freshman
Girl Scout Gold Award recipient
Published in two Scholastic magazines (front page on one)
Lions Club Community Service Award
Third place in the Rotary Club Four Way Test contest
Varsity track and field for four years: made it to the state competition junior year
Varsity cross country for one year
Varsity cheerleading for 3 years: captain for two seasons and won the PVC championship
Danced at two studios year round all of high school
Almost 300 hours of community service in high school
National Honors Society president
Science National Honors Society
Math National Honors Society
Dance National Honors Society: medaled for service
Rotary-Interact Club secretary
Girl Scout since the age of five
Student Council treasurer
Class president freshman year and class VP sophomore, junior, and senior years
I would say my essay was fairly strong and I have two letters of recommendation
No cost constraints as long as can receive scholarships
No location restrictions
Accepted into Seton Hall (safety), WV Wesleyan (safety), and Towson with direct admissions (safety)
Applying to Penn State (safety), Wake Forest (match/reach???), Florida State (match) University of Tampa (match)
We need more clarity than this. Are you eligible for need-based aid? What’s your actual budget that you can pay each year? Penn State is pretty expensive OOS.
You already have Wake Forest on your list; what does their Net Price Calculator show? Net Price Calculator And is the projection affordable?
If you like Wake and would get sufficient aid there, definitely consider University of Richmond. They have dance-specific scholarships that don’t even require you to be a dance major, although I think recipients have to do a dance minor. Performing arts are terrific and well-supported there. Again, run the NPC.
If you’d consider west coast, Scripps College has a fantastic dance department and has all the academic opportunities you are looking for. (Sociology would be an off-campus major through Pomona or Pitzer, but that is very very easy to do; a dual major with dance would work very well, and you could do a single senior thesis combining the two.) Of course, this is another school where the NPC will show whether it would be affordable.
Dickinson could be another to look at - a little less reachy than the others mentioned, but still meets need.
If you have a clear favorite and the financial aid projection is favorable, applying ED2 could be smart. Wake, Richmond, Dickinson and Scripps all offer ED2, and those are just representative options; I’m sure there are other good ones that I’m not thinking of right now.
How much can your family pay annually themselves for your college education? It’s hard to give you good advice about your schools without knowing whether they will be affordable. None of the colleges on your list give auto merit aid, and many are OOS public universities where merit aid goes to the instate kids as a priority. And none of your schools guarantee to meet full need.
Given your geographical location, the other schools on your list, and your desire to potentially double major I would add James Madison University (JMU) to your list.
Quite a few students in the Dance major double major. Performance opportunities for majors begin in the first year. Upperclass students have the opportunity to audition for the VA Rep, pre-professional company. Strong faculty, opportunities for student choreography, and interaction with guest choreographers and companies.
Although JMU does not have automatic scholarships, there are academic and arts related scholarship opportunities.
PSU will not be a financial match for you, as it awards almost no aid.
FSU is out without test scores. (Florida public colleges require test scores; there is no test optional.)
Wake Forest is a reach for almost everyone.
I’m not sure what this means - you “do not care what the price of tuition is as long as I have some scholarships to use”
Is there an amount of money that your family can pay for college each year? If so, what is it?
And is there a reason you haven’t listed WVU? Maybe you live in Motown and want to leave - I understand this - but it might be a pretty cheap option, and there’s a pretty robust dance offering there (my kid was a theater BFA, graduated this year). It appears from the WVU merit chart that you would get about half off tuition with your stats.
So the cost of attendance at Wake Forest is about $88,000 a year. With $50,000 in aid, your family would need to pay over $35,000 a year. Is that what the net price calculator gave you as a result? And is $35,000 a year affordable?
Loyola Chicago is generous with both merit and need based aid and offers a dance major and minor. I know several people with stats similar to yours who received a large merit scholarship. Good luck!