Looking for suggestions for targets & safeties
Hi everyone :) I’m a current sophomore looking for some schools to start thinking about & maybe tour!
DEMOGRAPHICS
- White, middle-class female from Pennsylvania
- Mid-sized public high school, top 20 in the state
MAJOR
I’m looking to eventually go into law & probably major in polisci for undergrad
ACADEMICS
- I had a pretty rough freshman year, but have an upper trend in my GPA (all GPAS are weighted, school doesn’t show uw)
- Freshman year: 3.36
- Sophomore year so far: 4.2
- Total: 3.5
- PSAT: 650 english & 560 math (didn’t study, aiming for at least a 1400 on the SAT bc I’m a good test taker)
COURSES
- Freshman year: Honors English, Biology, and Civics, Algebra 2/Trig
- Sophomore year: Honors English, Chemistry, and World History, AP Human Geography, Precalculus
- Junior year: Honors Physics, AP Lang, US History, Psych, and Calculus AB
AWARDS
- Honors roll sophomore year
- Model UN “chairman’s choice award”
ECS
- Model UN
Since sophomore year, Vice President starting next year
- Youth & Government
Since sophomore year, Gold committee chair 2021-2022 school year, running to be legislative president next year
- Key club & Spanish Club
Since sophomore year
- Job as a cashier in foods
Since March 2021
- Basketball
From 2016 to 2021
Rec from 2016-early 2018 & 19-20 season
Travel from 2017-18
Middle school JV in 2018-19 season
High school manager in 2020-21 season
- Golf
JV team 2020 season
- Summer 2015 - made bracelets at summer camp to donate to the humane society
- Summer 2018 - 2 week trip to Guatemala where I helped at an orphanage
- Winter & Spring 2021 - volunteering with key club
SCHOOLS
Looking for something that’s:
- In a city!!! (preferably a large one)
- Medium-Large student body
- Good academics
- East coast, California, Minnesota, Texas, or Illinois
Earn karma by helping others:
4 answers
Put all of the information you just typed out into your CollegeVine profile, go Schools > Find Schools. For the filters, go to State and select the states you're interested in, go to Major/program and type in then select "Political Science." Next, go to All Filters, and under Location, you should see Campus Setting. Select "Urban." Also in All Filters will be a section labeled "Student," and you can click on Total undergraduate students and set it to a preferable number. If you are looking for Target or Safety schools, go to Admissions difficulty, and select Target and Safety. You seem to be a very accomplished student and individual so I'm sure you will have no problem getting into nearly any college of your choosing!
A good rule of thumb I find when picking a target school is choosing a school with a general acceptance rate of 20% or more. Personally, my GPA un-weighted is a 3.67 and I have taken 17 honors/ AP courses total, and for me my ideal target school has a general acceptance rate of about 30%, and a safety school has an acceptance rate of 50% or more. NYU is a great tough-target school- it has a 21% acceptance rate, is in a city, and it has renowned academics. California state universities could be something else to consider as a safety, because often state universities have cheaper tuition while still maintaining challenging academics. I hope this helps!
Keep in mind you can generally only include extracurriculars that you did in highschool. If you’re a sophomore, some of that stuff you did in 2015-2018 isn’t gonna matter to colleges. With that being said, I think your profile still looks pretty strong :)
Thanks very much
Your chance of acceptance
Your chancing factors
Community Guidelines
To keep this community safe and supportive:
- Be kind and respectful!
- Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
- Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!