an 09er with a wake up call. advice, anyone?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Okay so winter break has given me a lot of time to sit down and think, and I've been constantly thinking "what is going to be the best place for me?!" My dad is buying tickets to go visit colleges soon...and so I thought I'd ask for some advice on which colleges I should visit/look into. :)</p>

<p>Well..here's the jist of it:</p>

<p>1.) Location if BIG for me. I love California more than any place I've lived..and it would be great to stay here. I'd also rather not be in a rural environment. Suburban is good... urban might be better (ie think downtown Palo Alto with University Avenue yeee). North Carolina would probably be my next choice.. and then comes the east coast. Don't get me wrong though... I love the east coast too.</p>

<p>2.) I don't MIND a big school... but a medium-sized school would be best - one where it's not so small that I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere, but not one so big that I feel like all I see are strangers everywhere. I also have this thing with my teachers... I wouldn't like it if they didn't know who the heck I was. So I wouldn't like the thought of filing into a class with like over 100 people ;_; Diversity is also key.</p>

<p>3.) I want to major in biochemistry or the biological sciences/chemistry. I'm okay with math (don't hate it, but certainly don't love it. I'm not bad at it though..). I've been researching schools that have strengths in these areas, and all I've come up with are Stanford, Duke and UC Berkeley...? I'd like to be well-balanced though... so maybe a strong/rigorous core also?</p>

<p>4.) I'm so anti-drug it's ridiculous. LOL soooo yeah there's that :)</p>

<p>5.) I'm big-time into athletics, being an athlete myself.</p>

<p>6.) LOTS of community involvment. Busy, busy campuses/students/social lives attract me :)</p>

<p>7.) Lastly, prestige is pretty dang important too (LOL), but the other factors may/may not override this factor.</p>

<p>My basic stats are:</p>

<p>GPA: 3.965 unweighted (one B :( ...btw I forgot to change this in my chances post, sorry LOL.)
Rank: somewhere in top 5% (class of a little over 550)
ACT: 34 (33 English, 36 math, 31 reading, 34 science, 33 English+writing with 11 essay)
SAT II's: 790 chemistry. I’m still going to take math II, bio, and world history</p>

<p>EC:
• Founder/President of MISSION: SOS (11, 12) – Stanford based program that a group of 5 us introduced to my high school. Basically, this program helps the community, student body, and school administration deal with the stress and other stress-related issues that are a huge problem at my high school. I’m pretty proud of this because it will definitely leave a mark at my school and will allow future kids to enjoy high school as much as I did, rather than “do it just for college.”
• Class officer (10, 11, 12) – sophomore and junior class vice president and senior class president or ASB president
• Track (9, 10, 11, 12) – varsity junior and senior year. Captain junior and senior year
• Cross country (10, 11, 12) – varsity junior and senior. Captain senior year
• Kung Fu - (9, 10, 11, 12) – green-black belt so far
• Science Olympiad/National Science Bowl… (11, 12) I really want to. Time has been such an issue LOL.</p>

<p>Schools that I've come up with are Stanford (LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT :/), Duke, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. If you guys can give me some ideas and advice, I would be really appreciative. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance! :D</p>

2

<p>Urban without urban problems, pretty nice weather, socially active campus, lots of opportunities for interaction with the city, mostly small classes, profs who interact with students, Div. 1 sports and lots of club sports, good sciences with a lot of pre-meds: these are features of Vanderbilt University, located on a beautiful campus about 1 1/2 miles from downtown Nashville. Undergraduate student body about 6K overall, including A&S, Engineering, Blair Music, and Peabody Education and Human Development.</p>

<p>If you are visiting that part of the country, you may wish to look at Washington Univ. in St. Louis also. Sports are somewhat less important to many of the students. Size is similar, location is on the edge of the city, not remote from urban life, good sciences, more winter weather.</p>

3

<p>How about USC? The academics are first rate, and the athletics are big.</p>

4

<p>Stanford, Duke, and Pomona (or maybe one of the other Claremont schools) are the first that come to mind for me.</p>

5

<p>Take a look at the Claremont Consortium (mentioned by Catfish), particularly Pomona and Claremont McKenna. If you're "so anti-drug it's ridiculous," I can't imagine you being happy at Pitzer (which is certainly not to say that all Pitzer students are into drugs, but the scene is prevalent), and despite your science interests, you just didn't strike me as someone who'd appreciate the unique environment of Mudd (though it'd still be worth checking out if you're really sure you want to pursue a science or math degree). Scripps is a non-issue b/c it's a women's college.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>The schools are D3, so athletic scholarships are unavailable, and the sports scene isn't even remotely comparable to that at many D1 schools. That said, athletics is still fairly well-supported, particularly at CMC (I forget the number offhand, but if multi-sport athletes are counted multiple times, something like 90%+ of students were JV or varsity athletes in HS...weird, but apparently true).</p></li>
<li><p>Suburban/urban environment (suburban to someone used to SoCal, but surprisingly urban to many others. Still, Claremont itself is an oasis in the midst of the Inland Empire...access to LA, but a pretty quiet town in itself...a comparison to Palo Alto wouldn't be out of the question). </p></li>
<li><p>The issue of prestige is tough to mention, given that we're talking about LAC's. As LAC's, the Claremont schools garner an exceptional level of respect...we're 1/10 of the top 50 LAC's :) However, the Stanford/Cal/UCLA-type widespread name value is just not there. LAC students in general are confident in saying that "the people who matter will know," but exactly which people matter is a subjective idea. Your call.</p></li>
<li><p>Best of all worlds in terms of school size. Pomona and CMC are about 1500 and 1200 students, respectively, but the undergrad consortium is about 5-6k, and around 7k with the grad schools. Best of all worlds (in the I'm-not-just-saying-that-it's-SERIOUSLY-true sense of the phrase). </p></li>
</ul>

<p>If you're in CA and are willing to look at LAC's, definitely arrange a visit. Judging from your original post alone, I could see you being interested in both schools for very different reasons. Learn more here: Welcome</a> to Claremont.EDU</p>

<p>Good luck in your search :)</p>

6

<p>At least as a safety, Pepperdine might be worth considering. As far as location goes, it definitely fits, since it is on the edge of the Pacific ocean near Malibu. You aren't in a super-urban area, but you still have good access to the city.</p>

<p>With around 3100 undergrads and 2900 graduate/professional students, the school certainly qualifies as a mid-sized research university. </p>

<p>As far as any diversity goes (from Petersons.com):
-- 57% women; 43% men
-- 2% transfer students</p>

<p>-- 6% international from 61 countries</p>

<p>-- 8% African American
-- 10% Asian American or Pacific Islander
-- 11% Hispanic American
-- 2% Native American</p>

<p>As for the quality of their bio/biochem program, I cannot speak to it. I do know that the only people I know of that went there were pre-med. And they are generally academically strong, having had people like Ben Stein, Kenneth Starr, and Daniel Pipes previously on-staff.</p>

<p>With respect to drugs, the school's Christian affiliation makes for some strict rules that, I would imagine, leave it a pretty drug-free environment. </p>

<p>54th overall according to USN&WR, so in the 98th percentile of prestige in this country.</p>

7

<p>How about Columbia? Johns Hopkins?
I know it's not East or West coast, but Case Western sounds like a good fit.</p>

8

<p>•" Science Olympiad/National Science Bowl… (11, 12) I really want to. Time has been such an issue LOL."
If I may suggest, I STRONGLY recommend you MAKE the time to do the science bowl activities if you want to give yourself a better chance at Stanford. They love multitalented scholar-athletes at Stanford, but if you can show strength in 3 EC's- not just 2[ Leadership, Sports] you may greatly increase your chances there.</p>

9

<p>holy crap lots of VERY, VERY helpful advice :) thanks everyone!</p>

<p>anyone else? :D</p>

10

<p>maybe unc, its quite large but it has great academics. everyone i know who goes loves it there even though they are in the minority of out of state students. i agree with most others, usc would be good and duke too. you might want to look at virginia and dc area too because they arent the northeast and virginia (obviously) would provide almost the same geographic location as nc</p>

11

<p>I'd agree with WUSTL. Also Emory -- excellent sciences, you'd probably get some merit money. Take a look at some of the other big State schools -- Michigan, UNC, UVA. </p>

<p>I know you want medium but still Amherst sounds like a good fit -- a nice sized town and access to a consortium of colleges; a similar set up as Pomona (which is also an excellent idea). </p>

<p>Williams -- Definitely rural but with many other positives . Strong sciences, sports emphasis, low drug quotient, small classes with lots of personal attention, extroverted multifaceted student body. Both Amherst and Williams are high on the prestige scale for graduate schools.</p>

12

<p>Kansas State.</p>

13

<p>Just a note to an above post: If you check out Pepperdine and decide that you're interested, do not plan to use it as a safety. Admissions are notoriously unpredictable when it comes to seemingly over-qualified students, particularly those without histories of extensive church involvement.</p>

14

<p>Wake Forest, William & Mary, Georgetown would be good complements to Duke and Vanderbilt.</p>