Need help with college list

PrimusSeptumus
Sat, 09 Jul 2016 05:49:02 +0000

Hi. I seldom go on this forum but I really need help with this.

I’m a rising senior living in Texas, and although my parents are married I live with my mom while my dad works in another country and does not quite support us financially, which makes her basically the only source of income for my family. My mom’s income is less than $80000 so I hope I’ll get enough financial aid.

Here are some, if not all, of my stats.

Old SAT: 2360, C760 M800 W800 (78/10)
AP: have taken 8 in total with 7 five’s and 1 three, which I guess I won’t report.
SAT subject: chem and math 2, scores haven’t come out yet, but if they’re not good enough I’ll retest and most likely get perfect scores

GPA: 4.0 unweighted and somewhere around 4.7-4.8 weighted (my school uses a 6.0 scale so idk what it exactly is)
Rank: 12 out of 600 or something
Speaking of which,my situation is kinda weird because I moved to America in eighth grade and didn’t know anything about the GPA system here and the difficulty of the courses offered at my high school, so I took a bunch of regular-level classes that harmed my GPA on the weighted scale (they’re still A+'s but the GPA certainly could’ve been better). After the first year, though, all my courses became AP/Honors so my non-cumulative GPA would’ve made me valedictorian while the cumulative GPA isn’t as amazing. Anyways I’m not sure if colleges will consider my situation and I’m just attaching this information so that the list would be more fair–that’s if they do actually look at single-year GPA’s.

I don’t have many extracurricular activities, but I’m in NHS, Math NHS and will have accumulated around 200 hours of community service by the time I apply (I used to play trumpet and started piano two years ago for pure fun–my parents didn’t make me learn any instruments when I was little for some reason, so yeah idk what to say; btw I practice an hour everyday). My only awards will probably be National Merit Semifinalist or Finalist and AP Scholar with Distinction. There probably are some that I forgot but they would basically be academic and not of enough importance to be attended to by the adcoms.
In a week or so I’ll go visit my dad and other relatives and I might get a chance have an internship at his or his friend’s company.

Now the list that I have for now:

U.T. Austin (my safety, but I’ll go there with alacrity if I get rejected by every other school I apply to)
Rice (Idk if I should count it as a match or a reach)
The rest are my reaches, because I can’t really think of any matches that I really like:
Northwestern
UPenn
(Btw I’m not applying to any of the UC’s)

My mom wants me to go to med school but I’m not sure if I’ll like a medical carrer or if I won’t change my mind by the time I’m about to graduate from college, but I don’t like any other field of study in particular, so… yeah. I’ll most likely major in something that’s chemistry or biology related, and I’m not sure if engineering is a good choice. I’ve considered business but I kinda think I’m not a good business material.

Anyways, I’ll appreciate it very much if you can recommend some good matches. Thanks!