Balancing my College List

College Search & Selection
1

Greetings folks! As admissions season is in full swing, I’m feeling as though I’m behind the curve regarding which schools I should apply to. I feel as though I’ve got some high reaches and some safeties that I’d be happy to attend, but my low reach/target schools could use some more variety and depth. Any suggestions to other places I should look into? One or two more schools in that middle range would be perfect.

High Reaches

  • Harvard
  • Princeton
  • Brown
  • Duke

Low Reach/Target

  • Cornell
  • Georgetown

Safeties/Matches (shooting for honors programs in these schools)

  • University of Pittsburgh
  • Villanova
  • Penn State University

For reference, I want to become a social scientist, meaning that I want to major in political science and statistics. I originally was considering Boston College, too, but their lack of statistics department turned me away. I’m in PA and driving distance is important to me, so nothing further south than N. Carolina, east of PA and North of Massachusetts.

Stats: 4.0 UW, 4.785 W, 1590 SAT, 16 APs
ECs: Class President, VP of County-Wide Student Political Forum, President of Mock Trial, Varsity Tennis (not scout-worthy tho), Student Administrative Rep, Academic Team, History Club, National Honor Society, & other smaller things

Thank you so much in advance!

2

NCSU?

3

That’s a good option I hadn’t considered before. Thanks! It’s on the bigger side for my taste, though, so I’m going to do some more digging.

4

For variety, consider undergraduate-focused colleges with notably strong government and math/statistics departments such as Amherst and Hamilton.

5

George Washington and American might fit the middle range. American has a Data Science for Political Science program. V is likely more in the middle but if you are happy with your other 2 safeties you are ok.

6

Wash U, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Tufts

7

Note that the OP has included geographical considerations that would eliminate three of the suggestions listed above. Nonetheless, the drive to Dartmouth would be shorter than that to Duke from eastern parts of Pennsylvania.

8

Thank you for your suggestions! I’m going to do a deeper dive into LibArts colleges because I haven’t given them enough attention. Do you think Swarthmore would also be a good fit?

9

I’ll take a second glance at Dartmouth. The location (and its perceived isolation) is definitely a bit of a concern. Any thoughts there?

10

Swarthmore could make an excellent fit for you, particularly considering your goals, which would seem to include graduate school.

See reply #12 for an opinion on several of them: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/2123956-differences-between-top-east-coast-lacs-williams-amherst-swarthmore-bowdoin-middlebury-etc-p1.html.

If your interest in social sciences includes economics, these resources will allow you to compare colleges by faculty publishing in the field:

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html