I’m a rising senior who doesn’t have the greatest stats but I hope to attend a good (my perspective of good may be lower than most on CC) university that won’t cost an arm and leg to attend since I hope to attend law school. I’m a Georgia resident and I want to major in Environmental Science and minor in Political Science. I come from a family of five that produces an income of $50,000 a year so I’m hoping for some type of finical aid. I’m unsure if most of my list is safety or reaches and I’m looking for help on what other schools should I look into.
RIT (I’m hard of hearing so I’d get more aid since RIT is known for assisting Deaf/HOH students. They have a program to get a masters within five years for environmental science majors) (safety?)
Georgia State University (safety)
UGA (suspected reach)
University of Texas at Dallas (doesn’t have an environmental science major so I would plan to go into geosciences if I went here. I visited recently and apparently my ACT is good for attending.) (Not sure if reach)
SUNY- ESF (unsure if reach)
St Mary College of Maryland (unsure if reach)
Stats:
ACT-26 but I’m going to take it again
SAT(new)- 1220 also taking again
GPA unweighted- 2.9, should be at least a 3.1 by the end of first semester of senior
GPA weighted- 3.1
AP- I’ve gotten all 3s on my exams so far. APUSH, Human Geography, Lang, WHAP, AP Psych. My senior year I’m taking Environmental Science, Statistics, Lit, and possibly European.
EC: no order
Reading Team- we compete in the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl
Science Club- this year I will be organizing a recycling program at my school and last year I helped with our annual plant sell
Pride Club -(president) helped with national anti-bullying month and this year will have volunteer programs with AIDS Walk Atlanta and Lost N Found Youth
Tennis Team- non competitive tennis playing
French Club
Band (6 years) bassoonist
Art Club- raised money through face painting to fund the art program
Toys For Tots and Habitat for Humanity (not a regular volunteer due to lack of transportation but hoping to participate more this year)
Also participated in a Christian based mentorship for young girls for last year. We had meeting every other Saturday for 6 hours.
Feel free to suggest other colleges that I may have overlooked in my search.
What kind of profession are you looking to pursue with your law degree? Does it relate to the environment in any way?
I’m hoping to go into environmental law but I also think the major would be good backup if I’m unable to attend law school for some reason
It is very important that you and your parents review the NPC for each of the colleges that you are interested in attending. It will let you know what they estimate your family contribution, financial and merit aid to be. Very few schools meet full need. The gap for these schools may be very large.
I used the collegeboard net price calculator for RIT and it stated that I wouldn’t have to pay anything but I understand that’s not official. It was the lowest response I’ve got on the net calculators I did for the schools listed
Based just off your test scores and GPA I would tweak your list as following:
RIT: Move High match/low reach (SAT is in the middle 50% for the college of science, ACT and GPA are both below) https://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/pdf/SAT2015_2016guidelines.pdf
Georgia State University: Safety
UGA: High match (SAT is in the middle 50% for the college of science, ACT and GPA (important) are both below) http://oir.uga.edu/uploads/US_News_Main_Statistical_Survey_-updated(5-01-2015)_-_final_draft.pdf
University of Texas at Dallas: Match (SAT and ACT in middle 50%) https://www.utdallas.edu/ospa/files/CDS_2015-2016-FINAL.pdf
St Mary College of Maryland: Low match/high safety (SAT above middle 50%, ACT and GPA in middle 50%) http://www.smcm.edu/ir/wp-content/uploads/sites/60/2015/01/cds-2015-2016-final-4-18-16.pdf
Thank you! With that I’d have two safeties, one match, and two reaches (added UGA as reach since high match). To make myself more competitive should I focus on bringing up my SAT score more than my ACT? Also should I look into more schools are does this seem adequate?
Make sure to run the net price calculator for each of your proposed safeties to make sure that they are affordable. A school can only be a safety if you know that you can afford it, as well as know that you will be admitted to the school and you desired major.
I’ve run a net price calculator and surprisingly SUNY ESF will cost around a thousand dollars less than UGA even though it’s out of state and a couple hundred less than Georgia State. Is paying $15,000/yr a bad deal? Do you suppose the net price may differ from what the actual college may provide since the calculator doesn’t account for all factors?
How much can your parents pay?
Remember that you can borrow $5,500 and work for a few thousand. So $15,000 would be hard without some parent contribution.
My mom would be willing to pay 3-5k. If I work part-time at a minimum wage job then I should get around 10-14k.
Remember that attending college is supposed to take as much time as a full time job, so take care when calculating the hours you would have available to work to earn money. Also, the availability of jobs with hours that can be scheduled around classes may vary from one college area to another.
With that being taken into account, would keeping a job in college be unreasonable? I understand I’d be taking 15 credit hours but I was considering having a night shift (10pm-6am) and scheduling classes in late morning/early afternoon (8am-2pm depending on hours). I know it would really stretch my schedule but I think that would be necessary for the first two years if I intend on attending university.
That would be hard. Your waking hours between classes would have to be rigidly organized: essentially, you’d probably need to be studying when you weren’t in class. Then sleeping from, say, 2:30-9:00pm. Maybe make up some study time on nights/mornings off of work, or try to fit in some fun.
I suppose I wouldn’t be working a full week so I would be able to dedicate off days fully to study/events. Also one of the benefits of working at night is that businesses tend to be slower which would allow time for studying if I have a big exam coming up or something.
Students who work while attending college full time (15-16 credits, nominally 45-48 hours per week of time) would normally be advised to work up to 10 hours per week for pay.
I feel like that would be unrealistic since many jobs don’t take well to someone working that few hours and the money I would be earning would be minimum. I would hope to work at least 20 hours a week and see how I handle it.