Your grades are fine, but the math classes you’re taking are not rigorous. Most people at my school who plan on going to college (not even a competitive school, but college in general) take Pre-Calculus their junior year or earlier, and AP Stats or AP Calc their senior year.
Safety: San Jose State University (better location than UCR and better bang for your buck), Howard University (You qualify for a full-tuition scholarship with your grades and ACT score, and if you raise your ACT score by 1 point, you would qualify for full-tuition and board. The student body is 92% black though, if you care about demographics.)
Match: Cal Poly SLO, UCSB, UCI (UCD would also be a match, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it because of the 52% 4 year graduation rate)
Reach: UCSD
Most of these colleges are very selective. College of the Holy Cross (MA) is less so than most.
For a family making $40K/y with one child and no home equity, the Holy Cross Net Price Calculator estimates the net cost of attendance at:
~$9,700/y, with ~$7,800 in “self help” (student loans + work study) and ~$,1900 as the parents’ contribution.
The UC Irvine net price calculator, based on similar assumptions, comes out slightly higher than Holy Cross:
~$11,200-$12,200/y, with ~$9,200.00 - $10,200.00 in “self help” and ~$1,469.00 - $2,469.00 as the parents’ contribution.
Reed College (OR) is not listed on the above site, but does have pretty good need-based aid and seems to have a strong philosophy department. Your composite ACT score would be a little low for Reed, but it might still be a realistic reach.
28 equates to about 1880, so your score is definitely above your school’s average, but it’s not out of this world better (if you school’s average had been in the 1300’s it’d have been a game changer).
Beside the UCs, strongly look into Pitzer and Occidental as reaches (and Pomona but Pomona would be a high reach). They meet 100% need and may come out cheaper than the UCs. Other 100% need colleges that aren’t as selective as the others would be St Olaf and Gettysburg. Check out Lewis and Clark, UPortland, USeattle, Willamette as possible matches or safeties. Davidson and Grinnell may not get too many west-coast applications so while they’d be reaches you’d get a “geographical diversity” boost.
I agree that my initial decision to go to McGill University was probably mistaken. I’ve realized that the best path for somebody in my situation is staying in the state of California in order to enjoy the 1) quality of the UC/CSU system and 2) avoid paying extra for out of state costs. Additionally, I find that I would enjoy the weather and atmosphere of cities like Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara (I live in Fresno, so you can imagine I’m not a huge fan of the weather here), so I’m presently looking at those two schools for my choices, as I fall within their ACT/GPA range.
Bucknell is in Pennsylvania, not California. It may be a good choice if you want preponderance of Greek life and strength in the sciences.
Soka is part of the sokkagakkai religious movement (which is to Buddhism what Jehovah’s witnesses are to christianity, roughly), and the college is very small (about 500 students total), so probably not a good choice for students contemplating the UCs.
