Names Not Numbers (Basically an organization/group that recruits student at schools to learn how to interview and subsequently document Holocaust survivors and their stories, which I did)
Moviemaking Club
Track team (eh - for a year, not sure if this really counts so ignore it)
Founder of the Israel Club at my school
Part of selective (15% admission) StandWithUs High School Internship (apolitical org. that educates about facts about Israel)
Founder of SnarkyDeals.com (unsuccessful online business - still working at it
I might be missing a few things.
33 ACT
GPA: 3.7 (4.0 point scale)
4 APs (Gov. - 5 ; English Lang. - 5; APUSH - 4; Macroeconomics - didn’t take it yet)
SAT Subject Tests: History - 770; Literature - 690
Note that max number of APs you can take at my school is around 7 or 8 (I think, but that’s stretching it).
Mostly Honors classes, Chemistry, Physics, and Math (4 years) in Average/Grade Level (Not great at math - physics and chemistry were affected). All others were highest possible including dual curriculum (Jewish subjects [x4] - often more difficult than AP classes, believe me).
I’m in the Northeast, but I don’t mind traveling. I’m hoping to get into business, law, or potentially something else. As you can tell, I’m still undecided, but I am honing in. I’d prefer to ignore the prices until I get into a college and take it from there.
That is not a realistic approach.
Unless your family is rather wealthy, net price should be one of your first filters, not one of your last.
Do you have any idea what your family can afford?
Have you run the online net price calculators on any schools that interest you? Have you and your parents assessed whether you can cover the Expected Family Contribution?
A good cost-management strategy typically will focus on one or more of the following:
relatively low sticker prices (which you can find at in-state public schools, or at a few low/no cost institutions such as the service academies)
Different kinds of colleges tend to be best at 1 or 2 of the above. For example the Ivies have very high sticker prices and little or no merit money, but tend to offer excellent need-based aid (as long as you fit their qualifying “need” formulas). State universities usually have relatively low sticker prices, especially for in-state but even for OOS students too (compared to private schools) … but they usually don’t offer much FA to OOS students.
Suggestion:
run the online net price calculators on your state flagship and on some of the less-selective colleges cited under #2 above. Talk to your parents about the EFCs. If they can’t come close to covering EFCs for any of the so-called “full need” schools, then you probably need to focus on in-state public colleges or else less selective schools that offer adequate merit scholarships to students with your stats.
Your qualifications are strong enough to have many good options but you need to constrain your search-space to affordable colleges.
I honestly appreciate your looking out for the financial situation, but I have enough leeway that I feel comfortable applying to Brandeis, for example, at $70,000 a year. Debt would incur, of course, but for a seriously good college (Cornell, Penn, etc.) I would accept that.
You can only incur $5,500 of debt your first year. Anything beyond that, someone else has to pay, borrow, or cosign. So your parents either have $260k, or are creditworthy enough to borrow that much? And they’re willing to pay?
This is a very bad strategy. With this approach you can end up with lots of acceptances but nothing that you can pay for. You cannot take out enough loans to cover the full cost of a $70k college—that is, no bank will loan you that much money.
Here’s what you need to know before you start selecting colleges:
How much can and will your parents pay toward your COA (cost of attendance) each year?
If they can or won't pay the full amount out of pocket, how do you or they intend to make up the difference?
Undergraduate students can only borrow a very limited amount of money. Here's the maximum you can borrow: $5500 freshman year, $6500 sophomore year, $7500 junior year, and $7500 senior year.
Will your parents be taking out loans?
Might you be eligible for financial aid? If so, your college application strategy will have to include targeting colleges where you can get the most need-based aid. Not every college meets students' financial need for aid.
If you are not eligible for financial aid and your parents do not have enough money to pay out of pocket, you will have to look for colleges that give merit awards. Again, this affects your application strategy. Not every college gives merit awards.
Bottom line, you are very, very mistaken to not consider cost. Don’t wait until April to learn that none of the colleges you applied to have any money to give you.
You also need to think about what size of school you want? Public vs private? Location? You haven’t given anyone enough information to make recommendations because there are hundreds and hundreds of colleges that fit your stats.