Match me - Florida senior aiming for political science and Ivy or equivalent [3.92 GPA, 35 ACT, <$65k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • Florida, USA
  • Public High School (Senior class - ~850)
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: White Male
  • Other special factors: None, upper-middle class

Intended Major(s)

  • Political Science or Public Policy

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.93 (as reported on transcript end of junior year)
  • Weighted HS GPA: 5.12 (as reported on transcript end of junior year)
  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.92 (recalculated with core classes only, not sure if accurate)
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.62 (recalculated with core classes only, not sure if accurate)
  • Class Rank: ~100/850 (based on weighted GPA which is lower b/c of Student Government)
  • ACT Scores: 35 (34M, 36S, 35E, 35R)

Coursework

  • AP Human Geography - 5 (Grade 9)
  • AP European History - 2 (Grade 10)
  • IB Spanish 1 to 5 - Donā€™t know IB grade (Grade 8-11)
  • IB Analysis and Approaches SL - Donā€™t know IB grade (Grade 10-11)
  • IB History of Americas HL - Donā€™t know IB grade (Grade 11-12)
  • IB Biology HL - Donā€™t know IB grade (Grade 11-12)
  • IB English Literature HL - Donā€™t know IB grade (Grade 11-12)
  • IB Business Management SL - taking this upcoming year (Grade 12)
  • Digital Video Production Dual Enrollment Class - Straight As (Grade 9-12)

One B in IB Spanish - Grade 10
One B in IB Biology - Grade 11
Rest of class letter grades are As

Awards

  • X Crew Captainā€™s Award (2024)
  • C-SPAN StudentCam Honorable Mention (2023)
  • X Crew Boathouse Award (2023)
  • Finalist in Best Short Film at X Film Festival (2023)
  • Award Winner at the X Teen Film Festival (2023)

Extracurriculars

  • Summer intern for organization for blind individuals helping with assistive technology (Summer before Grade 12)
  • Club President and Liaison for technology club at school that donates computers to those in need (Grade 11-12)
  • Selected to be a director at Youth Leadership Development Program at City Hall (Summer before Grade 12)
  • Youth Leadership Development Program at City Hall (Summer before Grade 11)
  • Youth Campaign Manager for City Commissioner (Grade 11)
  • Student Body President at High School (Grade 9-12, SB President in Grade 12)
  • Captain for X Rowing Team (Grade 9-12, Captain in Grade 12)
  • Founder of Photography Nonprofit (Started in Grade 8)
  • Volunteer work for Camp Shriver- a special Olympics Camp for kids with special needs (Grade 8-11)
  • Volunteer work for American Council of the Blind (Grade 7-12)
  • Occasional Volunteer work for Ronald McDonald House in my area (Grade 7-12)

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Havenā€™t really started essays yet
  • LOR from math teacher should be good, had her for two years and she is also Student Government teacher
  • LOR from 10th Grade English teacher should also be good, but not as close with her (we still have a good relationship)
  • Will probably ask for an outside LOR from someone at my internship

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • Not a huge concern, but am trying to decide between Ivy (if I get in) or state school at UF (which will be free with Bright Futures program)

Schools

  • I donā€™t know which schools are reaches and which are targets. Help me build my list and tell me what is realistic vs. not:

Love:
Stanford
Princeton
Columbia
Georgetown
University of Florida

Like:
Harvard
Cornell (mom is an Alumni)
UCLA
MIT
UPenn
Duke
UT Austin
UNC Chapel Hill

Eh:
UC Berkeley
Wake Forest (mom went to law school here)
FSU

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Do you have a college budget?

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Net price is ~65k. Iā€™m sure some will be subsidized by parents, and some will be from a loan. My big thing is seeing if I get into any Ivy or equivalent and then going from there. Again, I can go to school for free in-state (at UF nonetheless, which I think is getting up there), but I feel like having the opportunity to go to an Ivy is almost once-in-a-lifetime, you know? Then again, no saying if I would even get in.

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What do you love about your loves besides the name. I think UF is realistic.

Based on rank, I donā€™t think the first three are but as long as you have an affordable school to attend, it doesnā€™t matter where you apply so take your shot.

Not sure why youā€™d apply to UNC or Texas given you have UF (or FSU as a safer choice just in case) - but if you have UNC, a smaller and easier to get into school with similar ā€˜prestigeā€™ is William & Mary. Itā€™s closer to your loves than UNC from a feel POV.

I love your list but Iā€™d add a second likely beyond FSU. A UGA or U of SC (top Honors college) so you can have two or if want the safety in state a UCF or USF.

Iā€™m confident youā€™d get into FSU (and UF although not 99% confident like FSU - maybe 70%) but one likely is one too little. I do suspect youā€™d have a good shot at W&M.

You donā€™t seem to like Wake or Berkeley so why apply.

Given your majors, Syracuse, Pitt, Indiana and for mid size Denver all punch well above their weight. In fact for policy/PA, Syracuse and IU are #1-2 ahead of Harvard in the grad school rankings.

Your list is top heavy but if you can handle rejection, itā€™s fine but Iā€™d add a couple more fantastic, but easier admission schools. But if youā€™d absolutely take an FSU over non Ivy, then cull your list and add one more Florida public.

Good luck.

Edit - reading about $65k

So take off the UCs. Not close.

And run the net price calc on the ivies, Stanford etc. these will be $90k plus. Will you qualify for need aid ? If not, sorry - you are wasting time. You canā€™t afford them. Apply to schools you can afford. They may or may not cost $65k plus but if over, they have merit to get you there , etc.

You can only get a loan for $27k over four years. $5500 the first.

And given the major why would you want a loan ?

Have your parents fill this out and fill out others. Google the school name and net price calculator.

Nothing worse than admissions into schools you cannot afford. Those schools are rejections for all.

https://npc.collegeboard.org/app/georgetown

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Wow, thatā€™s great info thanks. Rank is definitely a problem in terms of the first three. Obviously name/prestige is big in terms of the list, but I also think that it opens doors in terms of connections that would lack elsewhere. Iā€™m a peopleā€™s person and I think I could take advantage of a scene at one of the top schools in the nation. That sounds super narcissistic lol.

I love the public policy program at Georgetown, which makes it one of my tops. I had an amazing tour with an alumni at Columbia and that made me fall in love with the school. Iā€™m into technology so Stanfordā€™s proximity to the startup scene and I feel like I could make something happen out there, but I donā€™t like coding so Iā€™m anti-CS.

Texas was me looking for another non-Ivy level school that I would enjoy going to. I just need to keep expanding my list, so I appreciate your help with that. I need to find similar schools to Indiana, as well as the UGA, USC, etc.

This is what Stanford NPC said a few weeks ago -
$64,900 Student and Parent Contribution
$19,600 Need-based Scholarship
$3,500 Student Employment

Youā€™re right lol. It is very unrealistic and Iā€™m definitely leaning more towards UF than before.

I really appreciate your help and guidance, it was super informative.

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Each school looks at finances differently. Great you ran for Stanford but run it for each no merit school - so your four other loves, all your likes (but UT) and dump your Ehs except FSU.

When you say $65k but some of that subsidized by a loan then your budget is not $65k.

Your budget is what they will pay plus $5500.

No matter how many connections youā€™ll make etc etc that is your budget.

Your connections arenā€™t paying back your loans and most in policy will not have high paying incomes.

Budget, more than dreams, is the basis of building a list.

If you get into Stanford but your parents are only paying $35k (I made up a #) of $65k, guess what - youā€™re not going. Avoid that heartache and time waste now.

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Your background/test scores are terrific. Still, as good as your ACT score is, I have concerns about UF. I have been paying attention to UF admissions because (until recently) I lived many years in Florida, I had multiple kids applying to UF and one attended. UF says that they donā€™t consider class rank. Still, I saw no more accurate indicator of who would or would not get accepted to UF than class rank. It is VERY difficult if you arenā€™t in the top 10%, regardless of your test scores. Go look up this past yearā€™s thread on UF admissions. I remember someone with a high SAT score (I think 1550 or better) who had a low class rank because they had moved. They got denied. I hope you get accepted to UF, and wouldnā€™t be surprised at all if you were accepted, but you need more options around that level, just in case.

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For some majors, like Poli Sci, FSU may represent a stronger opportunity than UF given its access to the capital.

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Your best shot is FSU - the rest seem like reaches. If you are good with FSU and would be happy to go there if none of the others work out, then youā€™re all set. If youā€™re lukewarm on FSU, I would start looking for more safeties (both in terms of admission and affordability). Thatā€™s not to say you wonā€™t get into some of these - you might - but it is to say that thereā€™s a chance you will get shut out and end up with no real choice except FSU. Again, if youā€™d be happy with FSU, then great. But it doesnā€™t sound like youā€™d be super excited to go there. So start working bottom up to round out your list. You have a lot of reaches and not enough sure things. Also, take out UC Berkeley - you canā€™t afford it and it would be a whole separate (and time consuming) application, so it doesnā€™t make to sense to invest the effort in that.

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Here are my opinionsā€¦in bold.

Stanford reach
Princetonreach
Columbiareach
Georgetown reach
University of Florida probably yes
Harvard reach
Cornell reach
UCLA reach and also not affordable.
MIT reach
UPenn reach
Duke close to a reach
UT Austin maybe
UNC reach
Berkeley reach and unaffordable
Wake Forest close to a reach but a better bet than some of the others here
FSU probably yes

You have great academic record, but colleges with 20% or less acceptance rates are reachesā€¦they just areā€¦because they have way more well qualified applicants than seats.

As noted above, the UCs wonā€™t be within budget as they donā€™t give need based aid to OOS students.

Stanford is pretty generous with need based aid, and it looks like that is barely within your budget. Do the net price calculators for the other schoolsā€¦and see what they say.

I personally think this is a reach heavy listā€¦but your FL schools look to be very realistic in terms of cost and acceptance. What level of bright futures do you qualify for?

@AustenNut is much better at assessing chances than I am so Iā€™ll tag.

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This site, for example, placed UF 19th when compared to colleges and universities nationally:

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For UF (and probably other Florida public universities), what is your weighted HS GPA as calculated by the method described at Freshman Decision Process - University of Florida ?

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Do you consider UF a safety? If so, since it is in the ā€œloveā€ category, you can drop all of the ā€œlikeā€ and ā€œehā€ schools from your list, since you would presumably choose UF over the schools in the ā€œlikeā€ and ā€œehā€ categories, and Bright Futures seemingly makes it hard for those other schools to beat UF on price.

However, if UF is not a safety, then you need to find a safety that you at least like. Seems like FSU is not it, since it is only ā€œehā€.

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If the main reason your rank is lower is due to Student Government being an unweighted class, I donā€™t think you will be penalized for this rank as much as others here think you will be. In terms of your rigor, how does it compare to those who are ranked above you?

This group usually preaches that a couple of Bs are unlikely to be the difference in an admission, so Iā€™m not sure why there is so much pessimism given that your rank is what it is because of an unweighted ā€“ but interesting and enriching ā€“ elective.

I agree that you need to run some more NPCs. Your initial post says that your are upper middle class but Stanfordā€™s NPC shows you qualifying for need-based aid. If both statements are accurate, you may only qualify for aid at the reachiest of schools, like Stanford.

Will you apply for any large scholarships, like Robertson at Duke/UNC? Have you considered Vanderbilt, because the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship is very generous.

You may want to look at T20 or so schools like Duke, UNC, Vanderbilt, Emory, etc., that offer significant merit and see if you would be willing to go the extra mile and apply for those scholarships. It will be work, but worth it if any pan out. Of course the probability will be low, and of course you will need an affordable likely, but with your resume they are possibilities.

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As others have said the first thing to do is to pick out at least one and preferably two solid safeties.

We live way to the north and somewhat to the east of you, a long way from Florida. From what I have heard U.of Florida is a very good university. I do not know whether it is a safety for you. Your guidance counselor should have a good sense regarding how likely it is for you.

You might want to however think about what other safeties you will be applying to.

This concerns me wrt to the top ranked schools that you have on your list, such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford.

You have quite a few very high reaches on your list. Applications for these schools are going to require essays, and a lot of specific effort per essay and per application. I think that you should be trying to reduce the length of your list of high reaches. You should be thinking about the extent that each of your high reach schools are a good fit for you, and only apply to the ones for which you can explain why they are a good fit.

As one example, since you have MIT as only a ā€œlikeā€, and given the extent to which it is a very academically demanding school which is a good fit for some strong students but a bad fit for some other strong students, I might be tempted to drop it from the list. Harvard is at least very good for your intended major, which might (or might not) be a reason to leave it on the list, but I do think that you should think about this.

Given how good UF is, and how expensive UCLA and UC Berkeley are out of state, it is not obvious to me why you would attend either UCLA or UCB if you were to get into all three. Also, I would have expected that UCLA and UCB would be less likely for admissions since you are out of state. I think that I would drop them from the list. I do not think that you need more out of state very expensive reaches, even if they are very good universities.

First of all you need to pay attention to fit, which is much more important than ranking.

Also, the word ā€œalmostā€ might be appropriate. Your intended major sounds like one where graduate school is a possibility. The top ranked universities (Harvard, Stanford level) do have many graduate students who attended undergraduate universities that are ranked lower compared to UF. For admissions to top graduate programs, what you do as an undergraduate student (including grades, but also including internships and research and similar efforts) will be more important than where you do it.

Look for a good fit. Pay attention to your budget and try to minimize or eliminate the debt that you take on for your bachelorā€™s degree. Make sure that you apply to solid safeties.

Also, for the reach schools that you apply to, I think that you are better off applying to a short list of reaches for which you can articulate why they are a good fit for you, rather than applying to a long list of reach schools.

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The OP has a really good chance at UF, but UF canā€™t be considered a safety for anyone (except maybe an athlete who gets a nod from the coach). UF uses a holistic approach, and every year we read stories of someone who SHOULD have gotten in but who did not.

Iā€™d be a little concerned about the rank of 100/850. UF doesnā€™t consider rank, but they really do. They arenā€™t going to admit 100 students from the same school, so it may come down to how many other students from the same school want to go to UF and what their grades are.

If OP is okay with two or more other Florida schools being safeties, then I think it is okay to apply to fewer schools. Just donā€™t have UF as the only safety, because it isnā€™t a safety.

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Iā€™ll reiterate OP needs a budget.

He says the budget is $65k, some of which will be subsidized by the parents.

That means the budget is likely not $65k.

Itā€™s whatever theyā€™ll pay plus $5500 the first year.

Many of these no merit schools may already be impossible gets based on budget alone.

I hope OP comes back and shares the actual budget.

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So having attended an Ivy, and knowing lots of other people who did, I can tell you they are in fact just colleges. They are certainly well-resourced colleges, and if you can comfortably afford one and it otherwise fits your needs and preferences, it can be among your good options. But there is nothing magical or unique about them, they are just colleges.

And for the record, they do not have a monopoly on kids from important families to network with. More than average proportionately? Sure. But there are kids from those families also going to a variety of other colleges.

OK, and then what does ā€œequivalentā€ really mean? The Ivies themselves are pretty diverse, and so a college ā€œequivalentā€ to Cornell is not necessarily ā€œequivalentā€ to Dartmouth, or vice-versa. And so on.

And then some people would assert Georgetown is not ā€œIvy+ā€, but then Georgetown is often the top choice of kids who specifically want to be in DC, say because they want to be plugged into the DC political and public policy scene. It is indeed also one of those non-Ivy colleges where lots of kids of important families will be attending. Iā€™d suggest you reflect on how liking Georgetown, quite reasonably, just shows letting a regional sports conference like the Ivy League dictate your sense of what colleges would be best for you does not make much sense, even by extension.

So I would take a step back and think in more fundamental terms. If you in fact get into Florida and it is free, what would you really be looking for out of a college that might cost a lot more? Just using Georgetown as a model, is it some specific locational ties, like Georgetown with DC? A smaller college with smaller departments and smaller classes? A specific sort of academic program (like would you be looking at SFS)?

Then this can guide you to interesting options to consider. Like, a lot of people who are interested in Georgetown, particularly SFS types, also end up interested in William & Mary. Despite being a public university, it is a smaller college than most publics, it is extremely strong in political science/public policy/IR sort of programs, and it is also very plugged into the DC scene. It also has a really cool dual degree program with St Andrews in Scotland, where you spend two years in each place, which could be a huge attraction if you are at all interested in the idea of international networking (St Andrews being a great place to meet the kids of important families from all over). SFS types would probably do International Relations both places, enhancing this effect.

Of course you can go to William & Mary without an interest in St Andrews. But my point is if you are looking for things Florida does not do that might be worth considering as special opportunities, you can look for things like that.

But to be blunt, I donā€™t know a lot of kids doing a thoughtful application list who end up looking at both Georgetown and, say, MIT. There is very little overlap in strengths. So understanding why Georgetown could also help you understand why maybe MIT isnā€™t a very logical choice.

And so on.

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You need to recalculate your weighted GPA. Your School is adding 2 pts for AP etc.
No schools will use that GPA

The formula below is from UF but it will give you a very good idea where you stand at any school that uses weighted GPAā€™s

The above range represents the core, weighted GPA on a 4.0 scale that UF calculates as part of the evaluation process. Dual-enrollment courses in core areas and any AP, IB or AICE classes receive an extra 1.0 credit weight, meaning that an A is worth a 5.0 on a 4.0 scale. Pre-AICE, pre-AP, pre-IB and Honors classes receive a 0.5 credit weight, meaning that an A is worth a 4.5 on a 4.0 scale.

University of Georgia does not add the .5 for Honors and UCā€™s donā€™t as well unless they are certain California Honor classes, but the above formula will give you a realistic GPA to use as a starting point to compare to the accepted student profile for admission

Your list is all reaches with the exception of FSU which even this year only accepted under 25% of applicants

You need to build a list with Safeties ( schools with over 50% acceptance at a minimum ) that you would be ok attending
and targets schools where your stats are above the 50 percentile in student profile
This should be your starting point

You live in Florida and with your Stats 100% Bright Futures makes any Florida Public University basically Tuition free except fees So UF or any other Florida Public COA is under 20K a year actually closer to 15K a year.

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Just remember staying in-state saves money thatā€™ll fund your study abroad, give a good cushion for graduate degree and probably allow you to do all of it debt free.

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