Match HS Sophomore - 3.9 UW GPA, 33 ACT, Intended Psychology Major (advice for application enhancement appreciated) [MD resident, <$50k]

[DadTwoGirls]

@AustenNut

One doesn’t need to have extracurriculars that relate to their potential major. Many college students change their majors or come in undecided. But a 30+ hour commitment to a discipline is impressive. Depth and commitment to one area is better than a flurry of activities with very superficial involvement.

This is my understanding also. I think that the ECs listed in the original post are impressive.

In seeing “Preferably <$50,000” my first thought is UMD, which is a very good university. My second thought is that most of the most famous highest ranked universities do not have merit based aid. Many other schools do have merit based aid (including ASU if I am remembering correctly), but it is not obvious whether any of them are significantly better than UMD.

The next thing that I wonder about is what sort of need based aid, if any, would be possible at schools that provide need based aid. @tinydancer2 have you run NPCs for a few schools?

And of course psychology is a major that tends to lead to some sort of graduate school (such as either a master’s degree or PhD or both), and many (probably most) students change their major at some point between being a high school sophomore and being handed a bachelor’s degree.