Hey guys,
So I’m a senior in high school and I’m trying to decide about if/where I want to apply early decision or early action (restricted). I want to find a school where I will fit it, that’s really fun and in a good location. So a little bit about me…
- I live in the SF Bay Area
- I played 3 sports in high school
- I have like a 4.35 gpa and 1530 sat score
- I’ve been pretty popular in high school and like to party and spend a lot of time with my friends
- one of the things that I’m a little concerned about is that in high school, most of my friends haven’t been very smart or tried very hard academically and that is because I don’t really like spending time with the smart kids at my school because they are really competitive and aren’t very fun because they get hung up on all these little details
- considering my grades, tests scores and extra curriculars, ik that I am capable of attending a good college, so I am looking for any suggestions for a good college that I would have fun at.
- other things that I would like in a college is a good sports program ( football etc. )
- I also don’t want to go to a small school ( bigger than 5,000 undergrad )
- location is really important for me, I’d like it to be close to a city ideally, and I really don’t like heat, so not somewhere too hot.
- I’m a really low stress person and looking for a chill vibe at a school, I don’t really like high stress people
- two schools that I visited and really liked are Vanderbilt and university of Virginia
- I’m also probably applying to Notre Dame, U Penn, Duke, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, U Michigan, maybe BU and some more
( I visited duke and my impression was that everyone there is really intense and serious, do you think that was an accurate read of the school vibe? )
Anyway, I would love some opinions on the social climates of these schools and any other schools that you think I might like. THANK YOU!!!
Oh and I forgot also I’m applying to Northwestern, USC and UT. Also I’m interested in studying engineering and likely interested in Greek life.
What’s your budget?
First, you need to find two safeties and a few matches.
Since you live in California, SDSU, UCD, UCSB, Chapman, UOregon, UWashington Seattle, Gonzaga all seem like basics for you to apply to.
Run the NPC on the last four and show the results to your parents to ensure they’re affordable without loans.
Definitely visit UCSB, and the college town of Isla Vista. I loved it there! I transferred from USC and thought I’d miss the awesome football games at SC, but found UCSB to have such a great school spirit (soccer games, basketball games etc), that they were every bit as fun. The general vibe at UCSB seem to fit your personality-- lots of smart kids, but laid back and friendly. The college town of Isla Vista is completely walkable and unique in that it’s pretty much only college kids living there. Lots of fun! Good luck!
Vanderbilt has a good party scene from what I’ve heard
You sound terrific and have a great attitude. You are different than your peers.
All of these schools are big enough where there are a variety of people and backgrounds. Your attempts to classify the “social scene” will not help you because your social scene will be what you want it to be with people you like. All of these schools will have enough people for you to find your crowd.
You might think about what it takes to get into some of these schools and ask yourself whether there are likely to be a lot of high stress people, and the answer will be yes. But you will be incredibly surprised to find plenty of low stress people everywhere too.
Surprised not to see Brown which is probably considered the most laid back ivy.
If you’re interested in Greek life, strike Notre Dame from your list.
What is you budget?
vandy, smu, tulane, usc may be some good ones for you to look into