<p>I was waitlisted from JHU and I did not accept the waitlist spot. </p>
<p>I was not baffled by my waitlists/rejections from HYPSM and JHU and etc. I am sure you know this from my previous post. (Story of my Asian Friends….) I was shocked when 3 of my Asian male friends with 2350+, 35+, multiple 800s on SAT IIs and perfect GPA (all of them had 4.0 and I was the only one with 3.96GPA) were also shut out from every Ivy they applied, Stanford, MIT and Cal Tech.
It was like 0 for 30.
Shockingly, one was rejected/waitlisted from every college he applied except state u.</p>
<p>I can tell you this. Admission results for White males/females, Asian females and URMs were a lot different than Asian males (in my HS).</p>
<p>Applying to this many schools is not only costly and difficult–it makes you seem as if you have no personality and no actual interests, and that will show in your applications. It doesn’t seem like you are interested in these schools for more than their “big names,” and if you go by that alone you will have a terrible college experience. As many others have already suggested, take a look at schools that have something you actually WANT, regardless of whether or not they have a good reputation. Every single school in your list is very different from the others. The Ivies alone each have very distinct personalities. </p>
<p>Bottom line: your high scores will help you, but if you’re not interested in the school for what it actually has to offer it will show, and you will likely not get in to any of your choices.</p>
<p>Have you gone to visit these colleges? Perhaps after your visit, that will help you narrow down your list. Fitting is the most important factor, think about cost, academics, size, location, weather, social, etc. Also, there are guides out there, such as the Fiske Guide to Colleges that provide a broad range of subjects, including student body, academics, social life, and financial aid of the finest institutions to help students select the best colleges to reach their goals. So, before you spend all those money on application fees, it is wise to do a bit more research. Best of luck.</p>
<p>You need a proper mix of reaches, matches and safeties, as opposed to applying to all USN&WR top 25 national universities. When choosing your safeties, you should take both academic and financial factors into consideration.</p>
<p>For the OP’s sake, I hope not all 20 of those schools have an essay prompt of the variety, “tell us why you’d be a good fit here.”</p>
<p>2010 grad from my D’s school at daddy’s insistence applied to 12 schools, all super-selective. Would not take the GC’s advice to include the state flagship as a safety. 12 rejections, and a forced gap year. </p>
<p>OP, as others have suggested, the biggest problem with your list is not that there are too many schools on it, but that there aren’t enough matches, and no safeties (in my opinion). I doubt very much if any of the schools on your list will give you substantial merit aid, and some of them give no merit aid at all. Although I’m a proponent of having more as opposed to fewer reaches for those who are interested in the most selective schools, you just have too many.</p>
<p>1- it’s dicey to apply w/o any matches; for HYPed schools, practcally everyone is a reach, yourself included . . . your stats fit the profile of rejected Ivy applicants (PM me for more info if you want)</p>
<p>2- try some thinking about the kind of school were you would flourish . … example: are you the kind of student who needs/prefers structure in the curriculum, or are you the kind of student who needs/prefers picking their own classes w/o any requirements? You may have some inkling of your preferences, and based on those you might toss out either Brown (no requirements) or Columbia (strong core curriculum)</p>
<p>3- the logic of applying to many schools to maximize merit aid will not work at schools that do not provide ANY merit aid . . . like the Ivies and some of the others on your list . . … also, some of the schools on your list offer fairly poor merit aid (e.g, NYU gives 9% of frosh an average merit award of ~$7k) . . . there are many other fine schools that are safeties for you and are more generous with merit aid (e.g., American gives an average of ~$16k to 36% of incoming class)</p>
<p>As others have noted, you need to broaden your list to include fits and safeties. I would say that almost every school on your list is a reach. This isn’t because your stats aren’t good, but because you are competing with thousands of students who have similar stats.</p>
<p>My kids go to a very competitive, high achieving high school and every year there are students with similar stats to yours plus outrageous ECs (Eagle Scouts, 1st chair violins, Black belts, varsity athletes, science fair winners etc) who are gobsmacked when they find out that they didn’t get into any of the top tier schools they applied to.</p>
<p>On top of this, I feel like you’ve just shot gunned top tier schools without really considering if they meet your needs. Example: If you are interested in journalism, science and business why is U Chicago on your list? Where is USC or University of Texas Austin or University of Missouri Columbia?</p>
I needed to compare FA packages ( I did not ED to any college because of financial reason)</p>
<p>Only 1 safety because it is very good state u and my parents could afford it.
EA to 3 colleges (MIT, Chicago and Georgetown) because I wanted to have some good options before March.</p>
<p>I will be attending one of my top choices: University of Chicago</p>
<p>floridadad55 - I see no problem with his list but i just did nt see any safeties on that list. Stating that he was looking for merit aid eliminated 10 of the schools right away since they did nt give any.</p>
<p>If OP said his parents wanted him to go to the most prestigious school possible and they are willing to pay, then all I would have told him to have at least one safety if things did nt work. As a parent, I am advising a similar strategy for my kid but the kid is fine with attending the single safety. However, we are resigned to paying through the nose if one of those admissions came through.</p>