<p>Hi, I’m wondering if you have any suggestions for backups for me other than state schools.
Weighted GPA is a 4.28
Sat 800cr 800m 700wr (6 essay) 800 Chem 800 US
APs Euro 4 Chem 5 US 5 Stat 5
Senior Course Load: Japanese 4 Honors AP Physics AP Calc AB AP Gov AP Macroeconomics English 4 (normal)
Income Bracket: x<60000
Hooks: Maybe urm? Laotian?
Awards: Nothing significant. National Merit Commended, AP Scholar. Applied for Questbridge
Ecs: I work 15 hours a week
I volunteer 4 hours a week with The First Tee </p>
<p>I’m applying to HYPD, Williams, Stanford, Cal, Ucla, UCSD, UCSB, Davidson, Pomona, Duke and Rice. I consider Davidson (not sure though) and the lower tier UCs to be my backups.</p>
<p>Things I am looking for: I like the feel of a college town, and I love backpacking and the outdoors. I am interested in pursuing either Law or STEM. I need to go somewhere where I’d get help paying for school. </p>
<p>Here’s my concern about your list - you group the Ivies together even though they each have different personalities. Dartmouth is a great “outdoor” Ivy in the middle of nowhere with a very cute college town, Yale is in the middle of a major depressed city. Harvard is often called a tourist attraction. All Ivies are not alike, find the ones that fit your needs. (Maybe look into Brown as well.)</p>
<p>Law school can be done from any undergraduate major. Certain subareas of law, such as patent law, may benefit from doing a science or engineering undergraduate major. “STEM” encompasses a wide variety of majors, so you need to consider which schools have the specific majors you may be interested in (e.g. Williams does not have engineering, and Dartmouth’s ABET-accredited engineering normally takes more than 4 years).</p>
<p>Be aware of the difficult job market for law graduates, and the high importance on the prestige of one’s law school for good law jobs. You can take a look at [Welcome</a> to LawSchoolNumbers.com | Law School Numbers](<a href=“http://lawschoolnumbers.com%5DWelcome”>http://lawschoolnumbers.com) to see what kind of college GPA and LSAT score you need for each law school.</p>
<p>For need-based financial aid, run the net price calculators on each school to get financial aid estimates. For merit scholarships, look at the sticky threads at the top of the financial aid and scholarships forum.</p>
<p>What is your unweighted GPA and UC-weighted GPA?</p>
<p>While the UCs’ use of essay and subjective criteria in holistic review makes it hard to see them as solid safeties (as opposed to 95+% low matches for some applicants at some UCs, or UC Merced for ELC or other students who have assurance to some UC campus), you probably have a good chance of getting into at least one if you apply to a lot of them, assuming you have a high unweighted and UC-weighted GPA (note that UCs tend to favor GPA over test scores).</p>
<p>Where do YOU want to attend college? And why? Find the school which fits your needs and objectives and also your personality/fit/outside interests. Go where you will thrive and be happy, not the most prestigious. There are miserable people at many colleges because it is a poor fit, or too competitive, or people are surly or whatever. </p>
<p>To thine own self be true. Good luck and congrats!</p>
<p>I’m a Fordham person, but you dont apparently want New York City, so I wont even go there with you.</p>
<p>Wow your stats are great. Congrats on all your hard work!</p>
<p>I assume you are going to do match at QB if you get invited to do so? I assume this because you didn’t mention preferences. Your list read more like a rankings list. </p>
<p>Since $ seems to be a factor, you have a few options. You might want to reconsider your strategy, or you might not. </p>
<p>Instead of applying to 14 + schools, do you want to focus in on ones more to your individual criteria (along the lines of ^ post).</p>
<p>Also maybe you want to add a couple less selective but still wonderful Questbridge schools, even consider them for match? (It doesn’t sound like you have had much chance to look at them individually but maybe you have more to tell.) A great thread a couple days ago pointed out that most match students apply to the “big name” universities, but there are some excellent LAC partenrs who would be a great “match” as well. </p>
<p>Do you prefer smaller or larger settings? Is geography a factor? You mentioned possibe future careers, but what have you LOVED to study so far? </p>
<p>Since the OP gives only a weighted GPA, it is somewhat difficult to suggest admission reach/match/safety, since weighted GPA of 4.28 might reflect an unweighted GPA anywhere from under 3.5 to a perfect 4.0, due to all of the possible weighting systems around. If the unweighted GPA is under 3.5, then the OP needs to seriously re-evaluate the list, since the super-selective schools would become extreme reaches, and most of the UCs would become reaches.</p>