Should I apply to Selective Colleges>

entomom
Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:06:21 +0000

What are you going to be doing to increase your SAT & ACT at your next sitting? Have you seen the Xiggi sticky thread on the SAT Prep forum? It has excellent advice on using the Blue Book and other resources to increase your score.

You may be given some leniency on standardized testing since you are a relatively new immigrant and low income. However, colleges at the level of D and UChicago want to be sure that students can succeed in their very competitive environment, so they won’t usually accept students with very low scores. Are your scores pretty even with about 600s across the board?

About SAT IIs, you really only need 2 unless you plan on applying to Georgetown as it is the only college that still requires 3. I would recommend taking the Math II and World History.

As far as recommendations of other schools, what are you looking for in a school:

Is FL your state of residence? If not, what is?
What size school are you interested in: small LAC (less than 2k), mid sized (3-15k), large?
What geographic area: South, NE, midwest, West?
Urban, rural, suburban?
What do you want to study, do you know?
What kind of environment: large Greek scene, big sports, liberal, etc.
What is your financial situation: assuming you will qualify for need based FA, but that could include large amounts of loans. How much can you/your family afford to pay per year?

Have you checked out Questbridge yet? There’s a QB subforum under the FA & Scholarships forum.