Alternative Sources to Learn About Colleges

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm a high school junior. Yeah, I know, before you hit the "back" button on your browser, hear me out.</p>

<p>I've narrowed down my college list to 11 colleges based solely on whether my planned academic major (BME) is offered, the range of their SAT scores, whether the college is in an urban environment (only 2 of them are in a suburban environment), and whether their religious affiliation is pronounced or not. Here's the list:</p>

<p>USC
Tufts
Yale
Stanford
Rice
Columbia
Carnegie Mellon
Brown
UT-Austin
JHU
Emory</p>

<p>I am now going to try and eliminate 3 or 4 colleges from this list. I realize that some colleges, such as USC and Yale, are situated in places with vastly different climates. It's only snowed once where I've lived for my entire life, and I loved when it did. I am slowly beginning to only dislike, instead of hate, the blazing heat in the summer. I think that I would adjust to the occurrence of actual seasons, instead of it just being hot or cold on a particular day.</p>

<p>Some of you may say I should begin to visit these colleges. Living in the Tip of Texas, McAllen, puts me at a huge distance from these colleges. I don't know of any way that I could pay for the trip to most of these colleges. I'd like to know more about these campuses from any other sources, that could perhaps tell me more of what I need to know.</p>

<p>I'm looking for blogs, flickr accounts, journals, pictures, anything that could help me decide. Where is a good place to look? Where is a good place to stray from a college's own website?</p>

<p>(Also, have I truly scrutinized all American colleges? Sometimes I feel like I resorted too much to those I knew by name.)</p>

2

<p>That is an excellent range of schools and if I were you I wouldn't know what to eliminate. Can you post us some stats? Do you have any safeties?</p>

3

<p>The OP is instate for UT-Austin. Don't they have to accept any instater in the top 10% of their class? I'm assuming that if the OP is considering places like Yale and Emory that he/she fulfills that requirement. That would take care of the safety.</p>

4

<p>Considering that you have 4 big reaches for any student, even the most qualified, on your list- S,Y,B,C- where unhooked students [those without URM, developmental admit, recruited athlete, or alumni status] have less than a 10% chance of acceptance- I wouldn't eliminate any schools at this point. More info on you would be helpful.</p>

5

<p>i have 2 safeties. UT-Austin and UT-Pan American. i didn't list the latter in my college list, because there is no application for students who have already been accepted with the concurrent enrollment program.</p>

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>Just took the SAT on March 10th. But, PSAT scores:</p>

<p>Math: 710
CR: 800
Writing: 700</p>

<p>(ouch, I know.)</p>

<p>Rank: 14/480? or 490. I don't know.</p>

<p>IB diploma candidate. Taking 4 HLs(2-year courses) in Biology, Psychology, English, and History). By senior year, I will have taken 1 year of physics, 2 of chemistry, 4 of english, 4 of history, 5 of math, 3 of biology, 4 of spanish, and other electives. recently, i averaged an 87 (academic, not including electives) average this semester..and for the first time i failed a course (psychology). i have a 93.1366 unweighted gpa(end of sophomore year.) however, this marking period, i averaged a 90.trying to get use to everything in these classes, because although I came from a preAP high school, i was relatively unprepared for the magnet school i ended up going to. (i dually attend the ib magnet school and the high school, however.)</p>

<p>skipped a grade. (middle of 5th, took tests, and went to 6th grade)</p>

<p>choir- joined sophomore year. voice part: tenor
pre-area 5th chair this year.. 1st time competing.. hoping to make all-state next year
1st division at solo and ensemble
student body vp
actively(6+ hours a week) work with the national hispanic institute.. director of photography.. but i don't just take a bunch of pictures.
taken voice lessons for awhile (actively: 4 years. total: 10 years.)
i do community theatre whenever the local theatre has a production available. generally one a year. the type of roles i get are usually lead for my voice part, because i am "indispensable" as a tenor. frankly, i think my acting is horrible, and that's the true reason.
rejected from TASP :( :( :(
i also had a summer job. 10-15 hours per week.
taking another job right now, not sure where to accept. prolly it will be at the local applebee's.</p>

<p>the courses i have taken at my local "university," not to be condescending, and my grades in them
general physics (A)
beg. french (B)
pre-cal (B)
American heritage I (american history starting from a little bit before colonization ending in the civil war) (A)</p>

<p>currently taking:
statistics
macroeconomics</p>

<p>planning to take:
beg. french II
calculus I-III
some sort of philosophy course.. or logic.</p>

<p>Oh, i also have one SAT II score, but I doubt it helps much. SAT Spanish:800</p>

<p>please keep in mind that i don't want this to become a chances thread.. you all said stats would help you, and that is understandable. i am shooting for my dreams because i have the benefits of safeties. i am mainly looking for sources of info. about these colleges.</p>

6

<p>One place I would scout is livejournal.com, where there are communities for almost every college in the country. If you look at the communities, keep in mind that only a slice of the population is posting to them, and that their audience is not you but rather the student population. However, you can feel that what you're getting is "the real thing" instead of the glossed-up PR that you can get if you visit the colleges' websites.</p>

<p>If you look closely, though, you can pick up some details about student life. For example, I learned that students are extremely frustrated with USC's housing system:</p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/usc/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/usc/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>That you can find peace and quiet or party dorms at Tufts:
<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tttufts/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/tttufts/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/yaleuniversity/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/yaleuniversity/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/fountainhoppers/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/fountainhoppers/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/columbia_u/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/columbia_u/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/carnegiemellon/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/carnegiemellon/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ut_austin/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/ut_austin/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/johnshopkins/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/johnshopkins/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/emoryuniversity/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://community.livejournal.com/emoryuniversity/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>another thing I would do is stalk the college websites themselves to see what kind of dirt you can get without having the school ID. For example, part of the reason I chose the school I chose was that I was able to view course evaluations for all these different classes-- the more official version of rate-my-professor. That the school conducted these surveys and posted the results impressed me almost as much as what I read about the professors.</p>

8

<p>im from New Haven, and Yale is really segregated, believe it or not, its nothing serious like what you read in books, but each culture or area is seperated by race and economic status, you could easily distinguish between the ghetto and the yalies, and the white areas, and the ghetto, but personally speaking, that wouldnt be a problem for you, my advice is, apply to a school that is near a urban area, but with a high acceptance rate, and average sats, trust me on this one, if you cant afford to goto schools as stated above because they cost too much, applying to the middle schools will prolli offer you full coverage, and u would get into like 75 percent of your schools but financially, can you cover the cost?</p>

9

<p>another thing i learned about the college process, is that big name schools are overated, and its not where u go for undergrad, its where u go for graduate school, so plan accordingly, like for instance, if you want to become a lawyer, its obvious to aim high like the harvard and yale law, but they want great lsat scores, and high undergraduate gpa, and if going to a top school, would you think that you could easily get a 3.8 or better at a really competitive school?, but again, i dont kno how you are academically... and depending your major, u could goto graduate school for free (well i know at yale you can)</p>

10

<p>crap. i forgot to list that i'm of mexican-american heritage, living with a single mom, and we have an under 30,000 income.</p>

<p>sorry, i think that would change things up a bit.</p>

<p>honestly, i would be satisfied going to my safety, UT-austin. but i really just want to reach high, since i already know i am going somewhere at least semi-decent.</p>

11

<p>You will need a lot of financial aid, so a good way to eliminate a few schools is to investigate which have a track record in offering huge awards. Being a low-income minority will help, but you also need to look for schools that can afford to take you. Brown is the poorest Ivy, and even says that their ability to offer aid is limited. Carnegie Mellon is not known for great aid. Neither is JHU. Still, these places may want you. Emory, Rice, and USC are known for merit aid. Stanford and Yale (and probably Columbia) can obviously afford to take you. You should read any statistics that you can find on how much aid these places are giving. You do have a great safety, so can take a risk with your applications.</p>

12

<p>I don't think Yale has a strong engineering program. If you want an Ivy for engineering, look at Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, U Penn, Brown.</p>

<p>Gourman ranking for undergraduate biomedical engineering follows:
Johns Hopkins
U Penn
Brown
Duke
Northwestern
Tulane
Case Western
Texas A&M
RPI
Marquette [this is a surprise entry...]
UC San Diego</p>

13

<p>from a previous post by Alexandre:
Biomedical Engineering:
Boston University
Case Western Reserve University
Duke University *
Georgia Institute of Technology
Johns Hopkins University *
Massachusetts Institute of Technology *
Northwestern University
Rice University
University of California-San Diego *
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Pennsylvania</p>

14

<p>from a previous post by posterx:</p>

<p>Biomedical Engineering (note - if you want to do this, studying biophysics, physics or any type of engineering as an undergrad, then specializing in grad school is just as good as doing an undergrad BME degree):
Johns Hopkins
Duke
Yale
MIT
Northwestern
Caltech
Princeton</p>

15

<p>wow the livejournal idea is great for me - thanks.</p>

16

<p>Thank you all, you have been enormously helpful to me. I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and looked up some statistics. Found out that all schools, minus Stanford, that I want to apply to, operate on a semester schedule. Stanford operates on a quarter academic calendar. I am not familiar with this.</p>

<p>Also, I found out that all my schools have similar costs of tuition, minus Rice (about 10k less than the rest) and that to me is a huge + to Rice, although my EFC will probably close to, if not, zero. USC has a huge enrollment for 05-06, 15k kids, while all the other schools (minus Rice) dwindle around 5-6k. Rice has a 3k enrollment. That, to me, is appealing, because they still manage to have 500 computers on campus available for use. </p>

<p>I am kind of leaning towards taking Emory off of my list. The average debt I found was 22k. Ouch. 50% of the students, took out loans, if I remember correctly. I don't want to do that. :/ I might add Penn. I don't know. Thanks so much guys.</p>

<p>I might have to eliminate Carnegie Mellon also, because they had a pretty big debt. Penn seems pretty cool right now. :D</p>