Any suggestions (please and thank you)

College Search & Selection
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<p>I know this is kind of a cliched topic, but I'm a junior starting to look at colleges, except I think I'd be happy in a lot of places so I'm struggling to find places I think would really be the best match. If anyone has suggestions for places to look into, that would be amazing. Thank you in advance!</p>

<p>Ok, so, basic stats:
White Jewish female, Boston suburbs, good public high school
GPA: 3.7ish unweighted, 4.6ish/5 weighted (second semester this year will bring them down a bit but not a ton)
SAT: 2190 (720m/730w/740r)
APs: Chem and Bio this year. BC Calc, Psych, self-study Macroeconomics next year. Possibly stats too
honors classes in math/science/language, normal levels in english/history</p>

<p>ECs:
mock trial - all of high school, co-captain this coming year
badminton club - started this year, continuing next year
anime club - started this year, continuing next year
Hebrew school - 4 years, got a nice official-looking transcript
member of local teen group that works with town government to plan informative events for high schoolers and parents
gonna do some volunteering on a local farm this summer</p>

<p>I work at the local supermarket (not sure if that counts for anything)
weekend classes on various topics at a local program since freshman year (again, not sure if it counts for anything)</p>

<p>Criteria: 2 big things: I want to go somewhere that has both business and science programs as well as strong career/employment help, and it must be suburban/college town/rural. Under 10,000 is highly preferable but not a must. Location doesn't matter, could not care less about brand-name schools. Um, a 'nerdier' atmosphere would be nice, but again, not a big thing. I also don't care too much about academic rigor, as long as the place is decent (I figure its more important to have the degree, regardless of its origin). Assume price is no object (even though it totally is).</p>

<p>I'm finding this has left me looking at smaller LACs, but so many of them seem so similar, and since I don't know what I want to major in aside from probably something business-y and/or science-y, I'm having trouble both finding schools I think I'd like and crossing off ones. If anyone has any suggestions for places they think I might like, that would be lovely. I don't care if they'd be safeties/matches/reaches - anything is fine. If it helps at all, 2 schools I'm looking at seriously right now are Elon and Bucknell.</p>

<p>Again, thank you so much for reading/hopefully replying to this!</p>

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<p>Lehigh would be a great match school </p>

3

<p>So might University of Richmond. Both UR and Lehigh are large enough to offer you a lot of different majors and both are strong in science and business. UR might be a little harder for you to get into. Most state universities are strong to very strong in business and science, naturally, so check out how you’d fit at UMass and consider schools like Maryland, California, Michigan, Virginia, and Indiana. You’d be a match at the first and last of these and a reach at the other three.</p>

<p>And money is never not part of the list-making. Run those net price calculators for each school now because there’s no point in our mentioning a lot of schools your family cannot afford to pay for. Then tell us what your family can afford to pay.</p>

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<p>@hqureshi11: thanks for the suggestion! I toured there and it seems nice, if a bit tech/engineering heavy.</p>

<p>Also, apparently it’s actually more helpful if I talk about my financial situation as well…oops. My family is low income (~35k) but high asset, so some of our cost calculator results can be weird/unexpected. My parents can afford ~25k a year towards my college, so I’d need some aid but not a ton (cheaper is better though).</p>

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<p>What about Dickinson? They don’t have a true business major, but you can major in international business or econ (D1 went there, her boyfriend was an econ major and is doing very well with Deloitte a couple of years after graduation).</p>

<p>When you put in your parent’s assets and income, do the calculators show the schools as affordable for you?</p>

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<p>@jkeil911:UMass Amherst is my safety (academic and financial), and I’m probably applying UMD as well. I hadn’t considered the others though. My one reservation is that they’re all very big schools, but if the programs are good then I might apply.
@intparent: I’ve visited Dickinson, thought it was fairly good. Have you heard anything about their career placement from your daughter or her boyfriend? Regarding net costs calculators - my dad does all that (he flat-out refuses to tell me our assets). Almost everything we’ve looked into has come out as affordable except Lehigh. However, my parents aren’t limiting my applications in any way based on prospective finances - they figure nothing’s certain. That’s why I said price was no object.</p>

<p>I also realized I don’t want to waste people’s time with them recommending stuff I’ve heard of, so this is a list of places I’ve had recommended previously: UMass Amherst, UMD, Dickinson, Bucknell, Elon, Wake Forest, UNC Chapel Hill, Lafayette, Lehigh, Claremont Colleges, Carnegie Mellon.</p>

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<p>Both my D and her boyfriend got very good jobs after graduation (had them lined up before they graduated0, and all of the their friends except one that I am aware of that were looking for jobs after graduation found jobs (the one that didn’t wanted to work in an industry that is very difficult to break into, had to take an unpaid internship after graduation to try to do it, but I suspect graduates of any college would have had that challenge given what she wants to do). A couple of her friends with lower grades took several months (maybe 6 months) to land jobs, but they seem happy in them now. And i know a couple of her friends went on to grad school right away.</p>

<p>Regarding “nothing is certain”, the net price calculators ARE pretty good as long as your parents aren’t divorced, don’t have a small business, and don’t have rental real estate. If they have the last two, best to enter the value of them as personal assets. It is good that you have one truly affordable option (U Mass - Amherst?) on your list,but be sure you would really be willing to attend. Because ‘nothing is certain’ is not the same as ‘price is no object’. It can still mean that you end up with slew of unaffordable colleges in the spring.</p>

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<p>rebca- there is a thread on CC that you might find helpful <a href=“Colleges for the Jewish "B" student (Part 1) - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/931514-colleges-for-the-jewish-b-student.html&lt;/a&gt; . If you post on that thread, some of the parents might be able to make suggestions and share their experiences. Although you are an A student, the range of students on this thread has been broad, and some of the schools mentioned might award merit aid to someone with your academic record. </p>

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<p>I was going to suggest Dickinson, too. :slight_smile:
Out of what’s already been named:
Juniata (safety for you, merit likely; google “how my daughter made the most out of college”’), St Olaf (if a non-secular school doesn’t bother you - I believe they have a rabbi on staff but I don’t think they have Hillel, very strong in the sciences, publish ALL students’ outcome after graduation, Management major/minor), Goucher (a safety for you, merit possible), SUNY Geneseo (NY state’s Honors College, fairly cheap even OOS, business school AACSB accredited).</p>

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<p>As a high-asset, low-middle income parent, I recommend that you focus your search on schools where you have a good chance of receiving merit aid. Do you know your FAFSA EFC? The application for 2015-16 won’t be up until next January, but you might ask your parents to play with the '14-15 application now (not sending any reports), or to explore some net price calculators on college websites. We had a high EFC. Private colleges using CSS have their own, discrete formulae for determining financial need. Pitzer and Tulane offered nothing; Occidental surpassed our EFC (evidently including travel costs, et al in calculating cost of attending). Is Tulane too urban for you? It might be an excellent academic fit. Your stats are enough higher than my son’s to make you competitive for generous merit aid. I’ve heard great things about Grinnell, but I can’t tell you more about it. I think that Claremont-McKenna sounds like a perfect school for you. It has excellent business programs, and you can take science classes at other colleges within the consortium. They are pretty good about meeting aid, because they have many successful, generous alumni. I will also provide a counterintuitive suggestion: New College of Florida. It is tiny and idiosyncratic, but has an excellent reputation for research-based science. It has no real Business major, but it stresses independent study, with lots of internships or hand-on work. You can spend semesters off-campus, and design your own course of study. I recommend them for cost reasons. Most out-of-state students (it is part of the Florida State system) will pay about $25k next year, regardless of need. Seventy percent of their students graduate with no debt. They have one of the nation’s highest per capita rates for major post-graduate grants (ie. Truman, Fulbright, Goldwater, etc.) and an enviable graduate school admission record.</p>