Am I applying to too many colleges? Which schools would you take out/add/replace?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>GPA: 4.19 (weighted), 3.81 (unweighted)
Ranking: 36/730
SAT Reasoning Test: 2280 (760 CR, 770 M, 740 W) [Superscore: 2300, with 770 W]
SAT Subject Test: 710 Math 2C, 710 US History
AP Coursework/Score: US History (5), Calculus AB (4), Chemistry (4), Biology (4)
Senior Schedule:
0 AP Physics B
1 AP Spanish
2 AP Calculus BC
3 Honors Principles of American Democracy
4 Honors Art History
5 Senior Board
6 AP Literature</p>

<p>Community Service
• 2011: Teacher Assistant at Lawrence Middle School: Assisted teachers and students and organized paperwork for staff members (12 hours total)
• 2011: Volunteer at Hsi Lai Temple: Annual Buddhist Ceremony (16 hours total)
• 2011: Volunteer at Tree People (Planting Trees, 4 hours total)
• 2012: Volunteer at Heal the Bay (Beach Clean-up, 4 hours total)
• 2012: Volunteer at Heavenly Pets Cat Shelter (8 hours total)
• 2012-present: Volunteer at Gift Shop, Post-Partum, and Patient Care departments at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center: Working closely with the manager and customers to improve the shop, shadowing and assisting doctors and nurses, and helping patients (170+ hours total)
• 2012-present: Leader and Side-walker at Ride On Therapeutic Horsemanship: Teaching horseback riding to individuals with disabilities (28 hours total)
• 2013-present: Knitting Teacher and Arts and Crafts Teacher at Police Activity League Supports, sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Department: Teaching arts and crafts classes for children, Knitted baby hats for newborn babies at the Northridge Hospital (50+ hours total)
• 2013: Volunteered at Justice Elementary School’s Bake Sale and Book Fair: Helped sell baked goods and books to parents and students (4 hours)
• 2013: Volunteered at Woodlake Elementary School’s Monster Mash: Arranged the Halloween games for students to play, organized and handed out prizes (6 hours)</p>

<p>Honors/Awards
• 2010: Future Star Award for Girls Varsity Golf
• 2010: 2nd Place Regionals for Girls Varsity Golf
• 2013: Certificate of Merit for Violin (Advanced Level)
• 2013: AP Scholar with Honor
• 2013: Presidential Volunteer Award (200+ hours)
• 2013: CFGL Essay Award</p>

<p>Activities:
[Co-founder, Treasurer, and Main Programmer], Robotics Club (10,11,12)
[Publicity and Art Director], Senior Board
[Art Director], Sophomore + Junior Council
Knights + Ladies
School Varsity Girl’s Golf Team (9th grade)
CSUN Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (9-12)
Korean Language Institution
Give and Take Book Club
St. Joseph Korean Catholic Church Youth Group
Violin lessons (13 years)
Piano lessons (6 years)</p>

<p>List of Private Colleges:</p>

<p>1) Amherst (reach)
2) Brown (reach)
3) CMC (reach)
4) Washington U St. Louis(reach)
5) Davidson (match/reach)
6) University of Rochester (match)
7) USC (match)
8) Vassar (match)
9) Macalester (match/safety)
10) Pepperdine (safety)
11) Muhlenberg College (safety)
12) Sarah Lawrence College (safety)
13) Willamette College (safety)</p>

<p>UC's:</p>

<p>UCB
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
UCI
UCD</p>

<p>I'm planning on taking a pre-med course in college, but for now, I am undecided since I'm not entirely sure.
Please and thank you!</p>

2

<p>Sit down with your parents, and run the Net Price Calculator at each website. Ditch any of them that won’t be affordable.</p>

<p>While your GPA and exam scores are excellent, none of these admit by the numbers and flat-out guarantee admission for someone with your stats. This means that there is a chance (albeit an outside one) that you might be rejected everywhere. Go to the Financial Aid Forum, and read through the threads about Guaranteed and Automatic merit-aid, and check the thread on institutions that admit by the numbers in the Parents Forum. There are a number of decent institutions out there where you are auto-admit because of your stats. Those are your true safeties.</p>

3

<p>9) Macalester (match/safety)
10) Pepperdine (safety)
11) Muhlenberg College (safety)
12) Sarah Lawrence College (safety)
13) Willamette College (safety)</p>

<p>Have your parents said that they’ll pay the costs for those schools? If not, and you need FA, then those aren’t safeties.</p>

<p>For a school to be a safety then you have to know FOR SURE that you have all costs covered with assured grants, scholarships, family funds, and/or small fed Stafford loan.</p>

<p>However, if your parents have said that they’ll pay $60k+ for Sarah Lawrence or the others, then fine. :)</p>

4

<p>*background: My older sister is 19 years old and suffers from alternating hemiplegia. My mom stays home and spends most of her time taking care of my sister. </p>

<p>My dad is the one who goes out and makes money, but he had to leave his job and remained unemployed for half a year until he got a new job about a month ago ^^*</p>

<p>Sounds like your parents aren’t in position to pay for Sarah Lawrence or the other “safety” schools. </p>

<p>You need to make sure that you have safety schools where you’re 100% certain that you have all costs covered.</p>

5

<p>@happymomof1, what kind of schools would I have an auto-admit? What schools would give me an automatic full ride and are somewhere around the range of my current “safeties?”</p>

6

<p>Safeties with guaranteed admission and guaranteed aid:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Matches with good probability of complete merit aid:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1461983-competitive-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Automatic scholarships, but maybe not as much money as you need:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Automatic admissions but maybe not affordable:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-schools-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-schools-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A safety meets these four criteria:

  1. You know you will be admitted because you have stats that fall within a range that that institution guarantees admission for.
  2. You know you can afford it with nothing other than guaranteed federal aid and/or guaranteed state aid and/or guaranteed merit-based aid from the institution itself.
  3. Your potential major is offered.
  4. You will be happy to attend if all else goes wrong in the admission process.</p>

<p>Very often a real safety is one that doesn’t at first glance appear to be remotely “somewhere around the range” of the places that the people in your life have led you to believe were safe for you.</p>

<p>Look at the institutions mentioned in the threads linked here. See if any of them could serve as your better-than-my-local-CCC-or-a-gap-year option.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>

7

<p>How did you come up with this list and have you visited the schools? I ask because having Vassar, Macalester, and Pepperdine on the same list is a little unusual. The first two are known for their extremely liberal student bodies and politics and Pepperdine is one of the most conservative schools in the nation. It would be an unusual student who would be happy at all three.</p>

8

<p>Yes, having a frank talk with your parents about what they can contribute is the first step to narrowing down your list. Do it right away, then run the net price calculators, and you may have a whole new list.</p>

<p>Then really do the research on the schools your family can afford. You seem to have a wish list here rather than YOUR list. The urls that have been provided are excellent indices with which to begin. Find the eight or nine schools you can afford and you might like to go to, and make sure there are three safeties in that list. The latter task might mean that you might have to travel to one or two of those schools to ascertain whether or not you fit there since you chose them “under duress.” Do everything you can to ascertain that you could fit in these nine. Then throw out the “maybe” fits. Then you’ll have a list your family can afford and you probably could thrive in. Good luck.</p>

9

<p>I am of the similar mind as the others here. Your safeties are not so, if the likelihood of getting the aid you want/need is small. The question to ask here is what the NPC comes out as what you should pay at the schools, and if there are a number of scholarships the school gives out that exceed that amount. Sarah Lawrence, for instance is very, very expensive. If you come up with no need, or little need , the chances that they have close to full ride merit for you, is very small. The same go for your matches or really any school unless you are coming out flush on the NPCs. </p>

<p>What are the NPCs saying your famliy is likely to be asked to pay? You reach schools will be the most accurate, as they tend to meet full need, and have little merit skewing the results. That is about what you can expect at best for financial aid. Can you afford that amount? Any merit simply replaces the fin aid, for the most part, so you need to see whether the school has any big merit money awards. If they don’t, the likelihood of being able to afford the school is just about zilch. </p>

<p>Harvard is a very generous school, but if what they expect your family to pay is still more than they can, then you are out of luck because there is a 0% chance that you get merit money from them. Just not in the picture. Amherst and Brown are the same way. That they are reaches on an admissions basis is fine. But if it’s clear that you don’t qualify for the aid that you need to go there, it’s really a dead end. It’s one thing when you have a chance, another when your chances are just about zero, simply because a school does not give out what you need. No merit awards at a school, and your need is low enough that you need merit money to afford it, means that school is unaffordable. Just like when I tell international students to cross off those schools that don’t give money to them. The chances are zero that they get anything by definition. </p>

<p>What numbers are the EFC estimators and NPCs churning out for you? How much have your parents committed to paying for your education? This is crucial information for you. You list is just fine if your parents can fully pay for those school, but if they can’t, you need to comb through the “no go s” where you know the money is just not going to be there.</p>

10

<p>Considering your financial situation you need to check out a variety of 100% need schools AND run the Net Price calculators on each website.
Each school will decide how much your family can pay and it can be quite different; then, they can decide to give you less than what you need. That’s where the “100% need” schools come in: they decide how much you can pay, but they will give you enough. If you have high financial need (which should be your case) this list is one to comb through carefully.
[100%</a> Meet Need Colleges | CollegeGreenlight](<a href=“Colleges with Need-Blind Admission for U.S. Students”>Colleges with Need-Blind Admission for U.S. Students)</p>

<p>The most prestigious schools tend to be the most generous; some schools, like Davidson, won’t even package a loan (it’ll all be grants) if they admit you. Of course, the difficulty is to get admitted…</p>

<p>A school may be very expensive, like Sarah Lawrence, yet provide students with excellent financial aid. Sticker price does not reflect how much you’ll have to pay but you absolutely cannot trust that the money will take care of itself. You have to run the NPCs. For one student, it went from a $541 family net contribution to a $12,500 contribution depending on college (the $541 college was a 100% need met college)! A student whose family income is below $30,000 was estimated to pay almost $19,000 by NYU for example…</p>

<p>I agree with MrMom in #7: a student who has Vassar, Macalester, and Pepperdine on the same list has not done proper research into the schools. Check out each website, obviously (after you’ve run the NPCs). Then go to your school or town library and borrow the Fiske Guide, Insider’s guide to the colleges, and/or Princeton review’s best colleges.</p>

11

<p>Here’s what I did too weed out my colleges, if you haven’t done them already.

  • Too pricy? Make that college **** of your list.
  • Do the school’s political views (ex: conservative, liberal) agree with yours?
  • Would you prefer the huge city or a small town? Choose colleges with your preference.
  • Is the retention rate low? Because that probably means that the college sucks and its students don’t like it enough to stay.
  • Do the schools actually have a renowned program for your major?
  • Is the graduation rate low? That’s not good.
  • Do you like large student bodies or small class sizes?
  • Are student reviews of that school positive?
  • Do the professors have positive ratings? (ratemyprofessor)
  • Does the school have cool traditions? (I heard of one with an annual pickle festival.)</p>

<p>Then there’s some more shallow reasons.

  • How does the college rank for cute boys/cute girls? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
  • Is the food good?
  • Is the campus pretty?
  • Does the college have high rankings on Forbes or whatevers?
  • Are your friends applying?
  • Does the school have cool clubs? (Quidditch and dance ftw)</p>

<p>I honestly feel like you haven’t done enough research into your colleges, because they’re all so drastically different. Don’t go for the rankings alone. Go to a place that you know you’ll love.</p>

12

<p>I don’t think 13 is too much as I am applying to 24. But if you would like you can definitely cut down a few depending on how specific your interests match the school. Btw, I am applying to u of Rochester and muhlenberg for premed as well! Have you done an interview with muhlenberg yet, OP?</p>

13

<p>I agree with happymomof1 & m2ck. Unless your parents have the money to pay, I would ditch some of those “safety” schools that may be unaffordable unless they offer big merit scholarships and you think you can be competitive for those.</p>

<p>If you were asking me <em>personally</em>, personally, I would ditch Peppperdine, Willamette and USC. The I would only apply to 3-4 UCs. Thirteen schools is a lot, but not an overwhelming amount.</p>

<p>I would say that 24 is too many.</p>

14

<p>I would eliminate Muhlenberg and Williamette, because there is no doubt that you will get into one of the UCs. So I would apply to a few more reaches.</p>

<p>Since you apply to the UCs with just one application, this is an efficient way to apply to a lot of schools.</p>

<p>Don’t worry, however, about applying to too many schools.</p>

<p>Given how competitive it is to get into the tip top schools, you need to apply to a LOT of them.</p>

<p>My son, two years ago, had similar stats to yours, yet got waitlisted at a million schools.</p>

15

<p>Other suggestions:</p>

<p>Emory
Vanderbilt
Johns Hopkins</p>

16

<p>@juillet, 24 is reasonable since I’m applying only to b.s./M.D. programs. As for application fees, about $700 is nothing compared to how much parents can save with full tuition paid for undergrad.</p>