What are some good colleges for me to apply to? California Resident

College Search & Lists
21

Using the SDSU net price calculator and the lowest family income I was able to duplicate this estimate. To get this price the OP needs to select living on campus. If instead living at home is selected the price becomes $0.

The OP needs to make a decision. A free college education at a respected school is nothing to sneer at even if it isn’t the entire experience desired. I’m not going to argue against the idea of there being advantages to living away at college, in fact I believe there are. But given the constraints a motivated student could join clubs, take part in campus activities, etc.

22

Okay, so that brings things much more into focus.

There are good CSU options for you academically but they’re not going to be financially advantageous. You must be in the ELC category of guaranteed admission to a UC campus, with your GPA, and so whatever UC campus you like best of the ones you can get into is going to set the bar financially; and then you can look at private colleges/U’s through the lens of cost and value relative to that UC baseline. (Or, the baseline of commuting from home to SDSU.)

Right now your SAT score is the weakest part of your credentials. It’s not terrible, but it’s not in line with your GPA and course rigor. Your EC’s seem strong enough to support your application to well-matched schools, but not strong enough to raise the level of what a well-matched school is, if that makes sense. So I think you may be able to do a bit better with test-optional schools, but I think you would need a more striking EC profile to get into the very most competitive ones (like Bowdoin or UChicago), because withholding test scores just means the rest of your profile needs to be extra-amazing. You’re a terrific candidate for Whitman, though (and yes, flying there from San Diego is a 5-hour trip with a change at SeaTac, but still shorter elapsed time than getting to/from the east coast), and I don’t think you’d be out of the running at Pitzer, which is the only test-optional/full-need-met school in CA. Here’s the list of all the ones I know of. (Leaving the women’s colleges for the benefit of female students who may reference the thread.)

UChicago (IL)
Bowdoin College (ME)
Smith College (MA) (women only)
Wesleyan University (CT)
Bates College (ME)
Bryn Mawr (PA) (women only)
College of the Holy Cross (MA)
Pitzer College (CA)
Mount Holyoke College (MA) (women only)
Skidmore College (NY)
Trinity College (CT)
Union College (NY)
Dickinson College (PA)
Whitman College (WA)
Franklin and Marshall College (PA)
Connecticut College (CT)
Wake Forest University (NC)

Of these, only UChicago, Wesleyan, and Holy Cross commit to no-loan aid for low-income students.

You might also want to look at some full-need-met schools that aren’t test-optional but are a little less reachy stats-wise, such as Occidental (CA), Macalester (MN), St. Olaf (MN), Oberlin (OH), and Union (NY).

Hopefully it’s not too big a project to go down the list and sift out the ones that are 1) better financially than UC, 2) realistic admits and 3) appealing enough to consider in terms of location and other attributes. They’re all excellent schools in terms of quality of education, and they’re all primarily-residential campuses.

23

You biological parents are married, correct?

If not, see http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2083835-faq-divorced-parents-financial-aid-and-net-price-calculators.html with respect to the private schools, since many want both parents’ financial information even after divorce (the UCs and CSUs only want information from the parent you live with).

24

That’s a good list of schools in #21 if you want to find a few schools where you can apply and then perhaps compare to your CA options once all’s said and done.

I think Holy Cross is an excellent choice–really outstanding academics. At least in theory, financial aid should be generous. U Mass Med School is also in Worcester, and not far from campus, which would provide great shadowing/internship opportunities, which are important. Connecticut College might also be a good place. An excellent NESCAC LAC, it used to be an all-female school, and still has a high % of female students, which I can think can be an advantage for a strong male candidate in the application process. Dickinson is a terrific school. I kinda doubt you’d get enough aid but do not take my word on that–run the NPC. Everything said about Whitman on this thread seems true to me–great LAC experience, small town, far from much, good area for outdoorsy activities.

You seem to be asking the right questions and doing diligent research, which itself indicates you’ll do well in college.

One unsolicited tip: get a tutor at the beginning of the semester for your intro science classes (especially Organic Chem). This is a sign of academic strength, not weakness. We went to a pre-med info session at a top national university. Head of pre-med advising said they had given 6 A’s in Organic Chem the previous semester. 5 of those students had gotten a tutor at the beginning of the semester. Only a few others in the class had done so. That works much better than bombing the first test and then getting a tutor. Most schools you are considering or that have been recommended here will offer this service. And you’ve already paid for it.

Good luck!

25

How many total students were in that class? For a typical size organic chemistry class, that seems to be very harsh grading.

26

About 40 or so, and the grading is harsh, very much of a weed out dynamic in freshman science classes at the school.

27

40 seems unusually small for organic chemistry enrollment (which would mean 15% A grades if there were 6 A grades); seems like the school is small or has few biology majors, chemistry majors, or pre-meds, like Caltech.

28

@mikemac
Based on what knowledge of Earlham College are you saying this? So they have a committee letter. That doesn’t mean no one gets it. At all. At. all.

Rather, it means that the Earlham pre-meds who want to go to med school are very well supported by the school!

Earlham has one of the highest percentages in the nation (#36… in the nation out of around 1,600 schools) for the percentage of Earlham grads who go on to successfully complete a doctoral degree.

That means Earlham gets more of their kids in and that more Earlham grads successfully complete doctoral programs than almost every other school.

That is a positive. Not a negative. Did you have a bad experience with getting into med school? I am sorry if that is true. And it is one of the reasons I am recommending Earlham. Because Earlham grads have the benefits of an outstanding premed education at a top-notch school and of a prestigious life-sciences program at a well-respected school helping and supporting their application.

29

^Any idea on what percentage of Earlham students requesting a committee letter are denied one? I assume it isn’t an automatic or their acceptance rate would be lower.