Narrowing down my list??

Thank you!! I’m trying to narrow down my list because the only schools my mom approves of / is saying she would pay for are Princeton and the elites (Vanderbilt, rice, etc). Only Princeton has the course I want but it’s very competitive and even though I have a strong academic background (all As, 7 APs), I don’t think I’m emotionally ready for the stress. I honestly just got interested in Swarthmore Bc I saw an email from them and the environment seemed so peaceful and welcoming (especially towards women of color)

I just put in my extracurriculars which are starting a POC steam organization, self learning a new language, volunteering with children for 3 years, working as a tutor for 2, creating a short visual novel based on my interest in neuroscience, etc into the collegevine thingy. Also, I’ve taken the act (made a 33) but am going to retake & superscore to hopefully get a 35+. I’m also planning to have 6 APs, 2 honors, and 4 college/dual credit classes by the time I graduate. After putting all of that in, collegevine put me at about a 40% for Vanderbilt 😭😭 very hard target but a target none the less. I’m also a black female so they might have taken that into consideration too

Wow that's an amazing extracurricular list. I'm a sophomore but my extracurricular list is struggling and I'm starting to panic about it. Right now I have learning ASL, working with kids with special needs for 4 years (it will be 6 when I graduate), National Honor Society, and Orchestra. I will also have quite a lot of Dual Credit Classes, right now I have about 15 credits and I will be taking a lot more. I am also planning to have 6-8 AP classes once I finish senior year. I've been using collegevine and it's saying I have about a 19% chance, but I also haven't taken the SAT yet. Vanderbilt has the exact program I am looking for so right now it's my top choice. I'm going to be working very hard to improve my applications before I have to apply. I think you will do great no matter where you go, but I wish you luck at getting into whichever school you want to go to. I hope you aren't basing all of your decisions off of what your mom says, but no judgement either way.

I think working with special needs kids and learning ASL are very interesting extracurriculars. If you build on that by doing something impressive with it, you could have a higher chance at getting into Vanderbilt. After looking at the number of people who are getting rejected from their dream colleges even after taking 15+ APs, interning with Google, winning film competitions, etc, I’ve begun to realize that colleges aren’t really looking for “perfect students”. They’re just looking for interesting/unique ones.

Thank you! Yeah I have been looking into it and it seems that it might be better to have a few extracurriculars that you're really passionate about and just continue to build on them and develop them so that they are really strong.

Bc I’m moving to Florida this summer and already have 100+ volunteer hours and 29+ on my act, I’d get a full ride to USF Bc of their Florida academic/medallion/whatever scholarship that covers full tution and others. However ... I don’t know if their programs would be as good as me going anywhere else on my list