<p>I can already hear the angry screaming resulting from this question but here I go. I am currently on track to apply early decision to Brown. I want to go to the college that will let me be the most successful when I am older and will give me the best education. I weighed the odds and because I have legacy at Brown I chose Brown. Now that I have thought about my chances at other schools I am reconsidering. I would have to miss about 5 days of school between now and the November 1 Early Decision deadline if I want to go to one of the other schools. The other schools, by the way, are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. Why these schools? I went college touring this summer and visited different types of schools (in the city vs in the middle of nowhere, small schools and huge schools, etc…) and the only conclusion I came to was that I literally have no idea which school I would prefer going to. I liked them all the same, the college tours seemed extremely similar and I wasn’t rediculously attracted to a single school. Therefore, I feel that I should go to the most nationally respected university I can get into to get the best education and have the best future. I feel that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Stanford are much more respected than Brown, and so I am considering these schools. Ok, now my chances.</p>
<p>Our school uses a software called Naviance which gives the average sat score and gpa (from our school) of the accepted students at various universities. I have a gpa equal to or above at every single ivy and my sat is above the average for accepted students at all the ivies, so I am feeling that I made the wrong decision choosing to apply to Brown early. Did I?</p>
<p>Stats:
GPA: 3.81 (We don’t rank and I will have taken 5 aps by the end of high school. We can’t really take more than 3 a year and we are only allowed to start taking aps in senior year. Our school sends about 15% of our grads to ivies + stanford and about 35% to top 20 schools.)
SAT: 2230 single sitting 2270 superscored
Extracurriculars: good stuff, not too spread out. Focused and lots of breadth.
Essays: will be great
Recs: will be great
Legacy: only at brown</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch y’all</p>
<p>Oh and btw I go to an american school in england.</p>
<p>I don’t usually respond to chances threads, but yours is a bit of an odd duck, so I will.</p>
<p>I have four quick points:</p>
<p>1) If you can’t distinguish among schools, you shouldn’t apply to anywhere early.</p>
<p>2) You need to articulate what you’re looking to get from college. For a small set of answers to that question, looking at prestige makes sense; for most, it’s stupid.</p>
<p>3) Your sense of relative prestige is skewed by where you go to school right now. When I was in Brussels in high school, less-informed people there thought that BU was more prestigious than Brown. In many circles in the US, at least some of the schools that you mention are certainly not “much more” respected than Brown.</p>
<p>4) It sounds like you haven’t gotten very good advice about how admissions works in US schools. The schools that you mentioned all reject the (vast) majority of individuals with above-average numbers. Admissions in the US is not a simple numbers game. I had better numbers than you when I applied to college (in a time when admission was easier), and I was rejected by some of the schools that you mention, and deferred by Brown.</p>
<p>All of the above schools have very limited acceptance numbers, so your stats don’t guarantee admission into any of them. (prob more like 20% chance at any, less% at Harvard). I would agree that if you are that undecided, you should be not applying early anywhere. Or perhaps if one of the hyps is your first choice by a bit, then there. Applying ED at Brown as a legacy does give you a bit of an edge there. But not enough to do that if you would have an unhappy (and obnoxious) life at Brown saying "I should have applied to HYPS instead all the time!)
BTW you can only apply to ONE of HYPS as early action, it is a single choice application deadline, so if you do that, I doubt you have to miss any school, lol! You can apply early to other schools outside of the US, but not early to any other school in the US.
I am sure that there are other considerations for you in choosing a school than perceived prestige. (west coast=extra day travel, different culture. Columbia is in NYC, How important is “country club” type ppl for you.How much do you want to pick a variety of courses? ) Each school has a bit different “flavor” even though the students will represent all different types at each one.</p>
<p>Just reiterating what other people have said, don’t apply to Brown ED if you’re not absolutely sure. It’s a binding decision. At least with the other schools you’re considering, they’re Early Action, so they wouldn’t be binding. From what you wrote, you really don’t seem sure enough about Brown to apply ED.</p>
<p>Most of the schools you delineated really aren’t more prestigious than Brown, all things considered. Only Harvard and Yale are marginally more prestigious and, if you do well at Brown, they aren’t any more prestigious than Brown for anything you want to do straight out of undergrad.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you got the information that Columbia is more prestigious or respected than Brown as an undergraduate institution anyway. Brown tends to win that cross-admit battle, and if you look at the matriculation statistics to the most prestigious and rigorous secondary schools in the U.S. such as St. Paul’s, Groton, Exeter, Andover, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Milton, and Choate, more tend to choose to go to Brown than Columbia. I tend to see Princeton and Brown as roughly equal. The admit rate and yield for the two schools are very similar. They do tend to attract decidedly different prospective students though. Brown’s students tend to be more academically entrepreneurial, while Princeton’s students tend to be more academically establishmentarian. </p>
<p>However, as the above posters stated, if you are in any way uncertain about attending Brown, don’t apply early decision. In fact, given how misguided you are, I personally hope you don’t apply to the school at all.</p>
<p>HYPS all have SCEA, I recommend applying to one of those only because you’ll at least have one under your belt, but if you can’t choose which you like the best, ED is a reallyyyyy bad idea …</p>
<p>Don’t apply ED. Should you get in, you would come in with a chip on your shoulder, which would always be nagging you. Furthermore, from a purely pragmatic perspective - if you apply to Brown and on your application answer the ‘Why Brown?’ question with something along the lines of “I wanted a prestigious school, and this is the best I thought I could get,” I can almost guarantee your application will be denied; if there is one thing admissions does not want, it is a student coming to Brown purely for its reputation and with a chip on their shoulder - such students don’t make great members of the community, which is what Brown is at its heart - especially when admissions has 30000+ applications from other students who really are excited about Brown. It is infinity better to wait until Regular, when your reasons for applying should be more settled and considered, and go through that route.</p>
<p>Visit Brown, stay an overnight. FIND OUT if you like it. Your chances of getting in with legacy are good. </p>
<p>If you don’t see yourself there, still apply, but not ED. It’s not that hard? (Or maybe it’s because I would KILL to go here haha)</p>
<p>You weighed the odds? What does that mean? Does it mean you don’t know anyhthing about Econ or CS or Neuro etc at Brown? What do you mean you will miss 5 days, I’m lost. You prefer to go to schools more respected by morons, we get it.</p>
<p>My daughter was waitlisted at Yale but immediately declined it to accept Brown. I have no idea why you think Brown limits you. For my daughter, she found her major there. It was a good one. She was accepted to a top 10 funded PhD program out of undergrad school. She has interned at high profile internet corps at top dollar. She would have never applied to Harvard just because of the wankers at her school who wanted to go there.</p>
<p>Skip Brown. You should go somewhere else that fits you better, for sure.</p>
<p>Adding that your SAT scores are really not that great for any Ivy (unless you are in minority and the first one to go to college in your family etc.) Since you are ambivalent, you might considering withdrawing your application if you have already applied. Maybe they will let you do without penalty, I do not know.</p>
<p>^^^ Its a little frustrating that people seem to think that one cannot be caucasian and get into an Ivy with less than a 2400. 2270 is a terrific SAT score, and not a single school, Ivies included, would reject someone based on that—especially because on many SAT curves a 2270 can be no more than 4 wrong.</p>