Aiming too high/target options??

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I am just wondering if my list seems realistic, and if anyone has any suggestions as to how to improve it? I know there are too many schools on it, and I’m working on narrowing down the “reach” section.

my stats:
ACT: 35 (35 on math, english, reading and 34 on science)
GPA: 4.0 unweighted, 4.2 weighted
I participate in a ton of extracurriculars (sports, leadership, clubs, volunteer) and don’t foresee this being an issue! I live in New York. Overall I think I am a fairly well-rounded candidate, I’m just worried I’m not applying accurately.

safeties:

  1. university of vermont
  2. binghampton
  3. colgate
  4. lehigh

targets:

  1. university of virginia
  2. university of michigan
  3. emory
  4. wesleyan
  5. haverford
  6. middlebury
  7. unc - chapel hill
  8. notre dame

reach:

  1. upenn
  2. brown
  3. northwestern
  4. dartmouth
  5. hopkins
  6. cornell
  7. yale
  8. williams
  9. tufts
  10. duke
  11. uchicago

Thanks for your help!

2

What type of school do you want? From your safety list, Vermont and Bing are very different than Lehigh and Colgate. I think you could eliminate 2 if you prefer larger public over smaller private.

In the targets, Middlebury and Haverford are quite different than Michigan.

3

I dont think Lehigh or Colgate are anyone’s safety schools and some of your targets are reaches .

Your list is all over the place. Do you want a city or rural? Big or small? Penn is WAY different than Dartmouth! What is your intended major? This seems more like a prestige list vs a thought out list of schools that fit you.

4

if you’re asking abt how realistic your odds are of getting into reach schools I’d post your EC’s; otherwise, it’s impossible to tell.

Applying to 23 schools is too much. I know you’re going to cut it down so I’d recommend following the advice of @momofsenior1 and finding a college that matches what you would like and looking into the programs for each college.

5

U of Michigan is not a target school for an OOS in most majors, its a reach, especially if you want to study some of the more popular majors, which they have too many of , like computer science.

You need a very strong high school curriculum, to get into Michigan from OOS,
what sort of classes are you taking? What have you done
over the summers?
I find that what students do over the summers really matters, as well as how well they write.

You could eliminate schools by size or geography, or by quality in a certain major.

Also being from New York State is a slight disadvantage as your state sends a lot of kids out of state,
so no one needs more New York State students, for geographic diversity.

Williams College is very isolated. You will need a car there to get places.

Do you want a small rural school like Williams thats very sporty, or do you want a city school like Penn?

Think more about what is a good fit for you.

Do you have a hook? (sports, URM, math Olympiads, Carnegie Hall performance? ) If no, You could decide to leave off Yale and the very low probability schools on
your reach list, unless you really have a compelling reason to go to those schools.

Also can you pick a first choice? Northwestern accepts medium stats IF you apply Binding ED.
So if you can pick a first choice college, and that college offers ED, it may be wise to apply that way.

Are you a first generation college student? If the answer is YES, my answer would change.

First Gen students get a huge boost at Yale U.

6

Look at OOS admit rate to Chapel Hill as well. Its ridiculously hard to get into Chapel Hill for New York State student.
With public schools, the in state kids get in much easier than you. Binghamton, thats a safety for you, though, but look at SUNY Buffalo if you want a techy degree, Buffalo has lots of investment lately.

7

A lot of people are talking about how these schools are reaches but I don’t know what it’s like at your school so I would suggest looking at naviance graphs to see how many people are accepted and what they’re stats are since it varies from school to school. For example, for students in the top 15 at my school and with strong SATs or ACTs, Vanderbilt can be considered a match as long as they have decent ECs while Northwestern, which is similarly selective is nearly impossible to get into for those same students.

8

Imo you have way too many colleges you’re applying too… and some of them aren’t very similar to each other. I would recommended honing it down to what kind of school you would like. You don’t have to apply to almost all the ivies. Have you visited any of them? Read about them? I would research more or your time writing essays and keeping up with deadlines will basically kill you.

Honing down the matches will also be good. Tbh, I applied to more reaches than my matches and safeties combined and were more picky for safeties and matches because if I got in, I would still be happy there compared to a reach where the name/prestige makes up for it and I can take time to adjust(p. messed up, but true).

9

i think i’m still trying to decide if I prefer a larger school over a smaller school. I’ve visited schools in both and found i liked them just the same.

10

University of Michigan is a target mostly because for my school, many students are accepted. In addition Lehigh and Colgate fall under this same category.

11

To clarify, I’m looking to pursue a double major in English and Public Policy as well as following the Premed track.

12

I have to agree that Lehigh and Colgate are not safeties. Read the Lehigh thread from last admissions cycle.

13

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats make you qualified to apply to all of these schools. Depending on the strength of your ECs, you could consider many of those targets to be acceptances. Write great essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools