Beginning my college search

College Search & Selection
1

<p>It might be kind of early, but my parents are nudging me to start thinking about college. I started doing some research, and it seems like there aren't really that many choices for how specific I'm being. I'm only a sophomore, but I'm fairly certain on what I want to do in life. </p>

<p>Here is my criteria:
-Good biomedical program (I want to be a doctor)
-As selective and prestigious as possible
-I live in southwest PA, but I don't need to go to college close to home. However, it has to be at least in this general region, it can be from New England to Florida, and maybe as far out as Michigan, but not much farther than that. Nothing on the West Coast, for sure.
-It must have a D2 or D3 football team... football is a large part of my life and I can't imagine not playing it in college. I'm not good enough to play on a D1 team, though. I'm a walk-on D2 player at best.
-It can't be an overtly lame and boring college. Ivy schools seem fun enough, but some schools I've been looking at are surprisingly even more boring than the most boring of Ivys. Wesleyan, Williams, Tufts, Trinity, and other NESCAC schools come to mind. I probably couldn't get into those anyway. I don't have to go to a "party school," but I intend to have a fun time.
-Liberal arts colleges seem like they fit me better, but I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that topic yet, so I'm open to universities and what not as well.</p>

<p>And here are my grades/activities/etc.:
This is so far this year. My MP2 Spanish grade is basically a low A because the teacher knocks off your lowest quiz grade, and the MP2 Psychology grade is basically a low A because the teacher gives a 100-point binder check assignment which I'll get a 100 on. My grades will DEFINITELY get better as the year goes on, because I'm building up my study habits for the first time in my entire life.

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<p>And here are my underwhelming freshman grades. I don't recall studying for a single test, and if I did it was less than thirty minutes. I had no study habits, and regret not doing a better job.

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<p>I've taken the PSATs with absolutely no preparation and got an 1810. My scores were 670 in reading, 620 in math, and 520 in writing. That 520 can easily be improved through studying, SAT-courses, and preparation. I see myself scoring easily around 2100 next year. Standardized tests are my strong suit.

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<p>Now on to activities. I will be a 4-year football player, 3-year lacrosse. Unfortunately, I have done absolutely no clubs so far, but that's all going to change next year. Next year I'm planning to do every single community-service based club available to me, as well as possibly a couple of other interest-based clubs, especially if I can find something biology/chemistry related as it will look especially good on my transcript. I'm also going to start volunteering, especially at the SPCA and other animal-related efforts. The reason I don't already do this stuff is because I don't have a car and struggle to get rides to just sports. </p>

<p>I know it's a tad early to be going this in-depth in my college search, but I figure I can all ready narrow it down based on my critera.</p>

2

<p>Dartmouth
Penn
UNC
Duke</p>

3

<p>Do you actually think I could get into an ivy like Dartmouth/Penn with my grades? Or even a top tier school like Duke? Penn was my “dream school” for a while, but I deemed it unreasonable. As a bonus, my family has a lot of alumni that went to Penn, probably like five people. </p>

<p>My parents also went to Villanova, but I’m less interested in going there because it’s more of a business school, it’s super expensive, and I couldn’t make the football team in all likelihood.</p>

4

<p>Washington and Jefferson? Allegheny College?</p>

5

<p>Both look like solid options, thanks. Added to my list.</p>

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<p>I second Washington and Jefferson/ Allegheny College</p>

<p>but I would put muhlenberg college at the top of my list.
if you want a slightly larger school…butler university</p>

<p>also rollins college and hendrix college ( do not let the location of hendrix bother you)</p>

7

<p>I definitely wouldn’t mind a slightly larger university, but Butler doesn’t fit all of my criteria. Regardless, Muhlenberg college seems like another solid option, so thanks for that. There seems to be a theme with a lot of good, small liberal arts colleges in PA.</p>

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<p>What can your parents pay each year? Will they pay for a fifth year if you take that long to finish?</p>

<p>Sit down with them and run the Net Price Calculator at the Villanova website. Then run the NPCs at Penn State, and a couple other places. Have tissues and adult beverages handy. The numbers often cause serious emotional reactions.</p>

9

<p>You are starting to look around early & I commend you for that!
Have the financial talk early on is a good thing as well & using the Net Price Calculators is an excellent tool. </p>

<p>Will throw in some suggestions for you to check out for football programs, academics, size of school, suburban, rural, urban, price, financial aid etc. </p>

<p>Ithaca College (NY) A Regional University
Alfred University (NY) A Regional University
Skidmore College (NY) LAC
Hobart & William Smith (NY) LAC
St. Lawrence University (NY) LAC
Wheaton College (MA) LAC
Connecticut College (CT) LAC</p>

10

<p>Try [College</a> Admissions, Search, and Financial Aid Help from College Confidential - College Admissions, Search, and Financial Aid Help from College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/) and definately talk to your parents about price. Good Luck</p>

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<p>No… if you want to go to medical school, you need to have an excellent GPA, and be well prepared for the MCATs. That is very hard to achieve at “selective & prestigous” schools unless you are a crack student. Which honestly, does not come through in your statistics. You are a good student, but not a great student. So take a step down from the top schools and pick a school where your statistics are more in the top 50%. I think SLUMOM has some good suggestions.</p>

<p>You might like Dickinson.</p>

<p>It is not too early to start your search. But before you settle on a long list of schools, go visit a couple this spring. Go on a tour and sit in on a class, eat in the cafeteria, maybe talk to the football coach. Try a liberal arts college and a university to see what you think.</p>

12

<p>Thanks for all the suggestions, I have a pretty nice list going now. </p>

<p>@happymomof1: My parents aren’t well off financially, so they can’t pay for much if any. My Mom said they’ll take out some loans with me. Unfortunately, my Dad makes a lot per year, so I won’t really qualify for any financial aid there. I’ll go ahead and run some NPC calculators for these colleges. </p>

<p>@intparent: By as selective and prestigious as possible, I meant as possible for my grades and test scores. Yes, I am not a crack student (whatever that means) so maybe I should look at schools where I am in the top 50% rather than bottom 25%. My uncle went from Trinity (pre-med) to Penn (med) so that’s kind of what I was going for. I do want to go to a real nice college, though. For instance, I live next to West Chester University and I’m thinking of applying there for my safety school but I wouldn’t really be proud of myself if I ended up going there.</p>

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<p>Wheaton in MA</p>

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<p>I have a pretty good list going so far, any college in the top two groups are colleges I’m going to probably research further and maybe ask my counselor about. Pretty good foundation. </p>

<p>Washington and Jefferson
Allegheny College
Dickinson College
Wheaton College (MA)</p>

<p>Alfred College
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
St. Lawrence University</p>

<p>Muhlenberg College
Hendrix College (ark)
Ithaca College</p>

15

<p>I have sent kids to: St Lawrence University (NY) Wheaton College (MA) and Alfred University (NY)</p>

16

<p>If you want to be a doctor, you don’t want anyone Taking out loans for your undergrad education. You want to save every penny possible for med school.</p>

<p>Go to the financial aid forum and read up on schools that offer guaranteed merit based aid. If your grades and exam scores are good enough, you can get that first degree for free.</p>

17

<p>Hi</p>

<p>If you are pretty sure About med school you might want to consider cjvinedndhfhufhfnfu combined ba md programs. Pnnsyvania always had a few They are worth looking at. I was in one when Abe Lincoln was in office.</p>

18

<p>Fwiw you will probably want to pick rhe activities that you enjoy most and focus on them. Schools look for depth of commitment. No need to have a 100 clubs and I think it can even work against you to overdo it. There is no perfect resume to strive for. You seem extremely organized n this thread so I predict that you have very little to worry about in general. </p>

<p>My 2 cents.</p>

19

<p>bbccpp, regarding your post #17, I don’t think cjvinedndhfhufhfnfu has any sports teams. They WANT them, but they can’t figure out how to fit the name of the school on their jerseys. It’s probably just as well, as the cheerleaders would be exhausted by the time they got to the end of the give-me-a-“C”-give-me-a-“J”… cheer.</p>

20

<p>Yeah, I wasn’t so sure about that post. His second post seemed like it had some sort of sense sprinkled into it, though.</p>