What Colleges can i get into with these statistics?

Question

GPA: 3.7
SAT: 1950
Extracurriculars: moderate amount
Volunteer work: tons
class rank: top 25-30% (400 students)

**NOT LOOKING TO GO TO A COMMUNITY COLLEGE/STAT COLLEGE. I AM LOOKING FOR A 4-YEAR, PRIVATE UNIVERSITY.**

Answer 1

First the good news: There are a lot of very good universities that would love to have you. You will get into some excellent colleges.

Now the bad news -- 75% of the students who enter the very top colleges (Ivy League, MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Etc) have SATs over 2100 and are in the top 10% of their classes. I won't go so far as to say you can't get into a top school -- but the odds are against you.

You have to think about what kind of college you want to go to. Let's look at a few alternatives:

1. Top private national universities:

This group doesn't look good. The Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, etc will all be tough for you to get into. You will get into some if you go down the list. Schools like Vanderbilt, Boston College, Auburn, Wake Forest, etc are possibilities -- but not slam dunks.

2. Top State Universities.

I think you have an excellent chance here. You will probably get accepted to the top university in your home state (for most states). In California, you might not get into Berkeley or UCLA (though you might) -- but would probably get into a UC school. There is a good chance you could get into the top university in a different state. Berkeley, Michigan, UNC and Virginia might be tough to get into if you are out of state, but you could probably get into most of the other public Big Ten schools & several other good state universities.

3. National Liberal Arts Colleges.

If you are interested in the liberal arts, this might be a good choice for you. Williams and Swarthmore might be tough to get into, but you might be able to crack the top ten -- places like Vassar or Haverford or Colgate may be within your reach.

4. Regional Universities (US News calls these Master;s Universities because they offer few PhD programs).

This is the type of school where you could almost certainly get in. Schools like Villanova, Trinity, Creighton or Gonzaga are very good and offer a different type of environment from big universities.

To help you make your decision, I suggest using a tool on the Princeton Review site. It asks you questions about your background & desires & then spits out some colleges that would be good for you.

The links to US News rankings and Princeton Review are below.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Try Juniata. http://www.juniata.edu/ I'm sure they would love to have you attend!
They also are # 97 of the top 100 colleges in the Consumer Report.

They are # 95 under Liberal Arts Colleges here...
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Answer 3

If you have the money you can get in any college.