I’m applying to two in-state safety schools (FSU and UF), however I need 8 additional, out-of-state schools to apply to. I want to have a list of schools with a wide range of admissions so they’re not all high-reaches, however most of them will be reaches. My interests are mostly english, political science, and law. As of now, my 8 schools are NYU, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Tufts, Brown, U Penn, Dartmouth, and Columbia. Are any of these not suited for my interests, or are there any comparable schools better suited?
Stats? Extracurricular interests? Financial aid?
Well I’m currently a junior so my stats are subject to change, however based on my plan, by the time I’m applying I hope to have:
3.8 gpa,
Top 10 class rank of 508,
Taken ~13 AP classes,
Sat scores ~2120,
Active dual enrollment student,
Founded a non-partisan political discussion club at my school,
Member of nearly all the honor societies at my school with leadership positions in one,
I’ve worked a job since sophomore year at an animal hospital as well as a volunteer job at an animal shelter with well-over 100 volunteer hours logged
You don’t have much in between the state schools and the privates. Maybe add something like Boston College or Northeastern as easy targets. Otherwise, that is a decent list.
3.8 would not be good enough for Berkeley, I think. That’s below the average GPA of the enrolled students.
I would think my sat scores, class rank, and rigorous academics would make up for my gpa being 3.8.
Cost constraints?
At least a certain amount of financial aid is needed, I’m okay with taking out a reasonable amount of loans.
Just fyi, your SAT score, while nice, is actually also below average accepted (at least from my kid’s high school, which is in-state) for Berkeley. Their average is 2175, avg. unweighted GPA of 3.9. Not that you can’t get in, but I agree with a previous poster that you should find a couple of schools in the middle.
Your 2120 is also below the average SAT for Berkeley admits last year (which was 2171 and an admit rate of 14.1%), and to think there were fewer applicants last year than this year. And if you’d look at the trend, then you can expect that there will be more applicants to Berkeley in your year.
What I’m trying to say is you really need to raise your stats more. You’ve got to work really, really hard if you aspire to get into Berkeley given your OOS status. The good side though is Berkeley’s admissions are holistic in approach and there’s a chance that your low SATs would be overlooked due to having really impressive ECs and a wonderfully written essay.
Sit down with your parents and run the Net Price Calculator at the website of each of the places on your list. That will let you determine whether or not they can easily be made affordable for you.
Would national merit status affect a school like Berkeley’s decision even if they don’t offer specific merit aid?
Just make sure you have some safeties. Berkeley will be over $50,000 per year for OOS and they will not give you much, if any, FA bacause you are OOS.
UC Berkeley will cost your parents 55K out of pocket (no financial aid).
NYU has lousy financial aid so don’t expect much there.
Loans = $5,500 for freshman year so you can’t just “take loans”. (You can make your parents take loans on your behalf, called Parent PLUS, but even if they agree, do you really want to?)
For English, two top choices where you may have a shot are Emory, Kenyon, and Hamilton.
For political science, Georgetown, GWU, Tufts, American.
You need to read the Fiske guide, because right now it looks like you picked random famous schools that have nothing in common (Columbia and Dartmouth, Penn and Brown).
If you’re interested in merit aid with those stats, you could look at Tulane, Rhodes or Emory.
Wofford College
Belmont Abbey College
Washington and Lee University
U of Alabama-Tuscaloosa
U of Mississippi
Vanderbilt U
U of South Carolina
Beloit College
Macalester College
I’d add George Washington to the list, in place of Dartmouth. They’re very strong in the field you’re interested in, as well as an academic match.
@minorpoliticker , unless you really want to go to FSU or UF, I have a serious problem with this list. For context, my kid had a 2200 SAT, SAT2s of 760 and 770, 11APs, and a 3.85/4.25 GPA at a rigorous HS. He did not get into the following schools – Rice, Tufts, Penn, Cornell, and Vanderbilt.
NYU – has terrible financial aid, which has already been mentioned.
UC Berkeley – will give no financial aid and as others said, you probably won’t get it.
Georgetown – you have a shot unless you apply for SFS, then probably not much of one.
Tufts – Tufts is NEED AWARE. As I understand it (after a bit of research), they rank students in 4 or 5 levels, and sort through the top two levels of students to meet their desired class demographics (sports, URMS, legacy, etc), and fill in the rest with students who can pay sufficiently to meet their financial aid budget.
Brown – its an Ivy that is harder to get into than Cornell (see my kid’s stats above).
U Penn – see above
Dartmouth – see above
Columbia – it is 4th or 5th toughest in the country to get into.
Our list looked like the following:
6 reach schools (Tufts is reach due to financials)
3 match schools (Rochester was our favorite match – decent FA and $14k merit)
2 safety schools, which you have already.
You can keep the 8 reaches if you want (though I would toss 2 or 3), but you need to add 3-4 “match” schools. All of our matches had 30% or greater admission rate and son was around the top 25% number for stats.
BTW, we pretty much threw out all the OOS public schools because they give little financial aid to OOS students. You could research that, though, because there are exceptions, but Berkeley is not one of them.
Good luck.
@daddio3 this is a preliminary list so I’m sure most of these will be different in 9 months or so when I’m actually applying. I’m thinking I should replace Columbia, Dartmouth, and NYU, with Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and Emory. I may replace UC Berkeley with a school like Rochester.
“I want to have a list of schools with a wide range of admissions so they’re not all high-reaches”
Unfortunately those schools are all high reaches (with the possible exception of NYU, but that is just one school). These are some of the most competitive colleges in the country, even for the most accomplished of kids - having good stats doesn’t change that. If you really want a wide range of admissions, you’re going to need A LOT more schools with >20% admissions rates, preferably >30%.