can you help me narrow my options? Is 14 schools too much?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi I'm currently a rising senior.</p>

<p>I want a school strong in math and economics. I would prefer an environment in which you know a good amount of students. Decent food is also a plus. You could extrapolate some of my interests from looking at my ECs. </p>

<p>My list (I know the top is filled mainly with mid- maybe high reaches):
MIT (definitely #1 choice, applying EA)
Princeton (definitely #2 choice)
Harvard
Yale (I really like their residential college system.)
Stanford (I love California and the wide array of events offered at Stanford, like football games, community service, etc.)
Dartmouth (I like the compactness of the community.)
Brown (I like their open curriculum system A LOT)
UPenn (Wharton?)
UChicago (EA)
Northwestern
WashU
Duke
Rice
GA Tech (safety) (EA)
Michigan (another safety) (EA)</p>

<p>I've copy and pasted my academic/EC stats below:
-GA resident, male
-Ethnicity:1/4 Hispanic (Is this enough to only say Hispanic? I think I look somewhat Hispanic, but mostly Asian. Would it be best to just say I'm mixed Filipino and Spanish?)
-UW GPA: 3.94ish
-Weighted GPA: 4.14
-school doesn't rank, but I got an award for being the junior with the highest weighted GPA, meaning I'm a would-be valedictorian.</p>

<p>SAT I's (I'm retaking this October or November. I will aim for getting as close to perfect as possible.)</p>

<p>Math: 800
CR: 730
Writing:710</p>

<p>SAT II's (should I take some more? My college counselor didn't think it was neccessary)
Math II: 800
Chem: 720
U.S. History: 710</p>

<p>Past AP's: US Gov and Politics-5
Projected AP scores for this year:
APUSH: 5
AP Chem: 4/5
AP Eng. Lang: 4/5</p>

<p>Senior Load
1. AP Calculus BC
2. AP Statistics (is it true stats is not really math, but is more like reading?)
3. AP Biology
4. AP Physics C
5. AP Literature
6. Economics
7. (maybe) Band (if I can fit it in my schedule)</p>

<p>-school doesn't offer honors classes, but mentions "due to the rigorous curriculum of the school, no classes are designated as honors" in school description.</p>

<p>My only B's have been graphic design freshman year and AP Gov last year(will a 5 on the exam atone for this)? I got straight A's junior year.</p>

<p>EC's:</p>

<p>Boy Scouts
-Eagle Scout (just did my board of review). My project was building benches, pressure-washing old ones, and putting sealant.
-Senior Patrol Leader during 10th grade, Patrol Leader during 9th
-broke a national record for hiking. I hiked the Bartram Trail (100 miles/5 days, has a lot of elevation): honored by Governor Sonny Purdue and national head of boy scouts for this feat
-LOTS of community service projects
-raised money for inner-city kids to buy scout uniforms
-Philmont Summer 2010</p>

<p>Tennis (all 4 years)
-private lesons
-varsity tennis</p>

<p>Academic Quiz Bowl team (10-12)</p>

<p>I founded and am president of our school's food critic club. We go to restaurants about once a month and write critiques about them, which are published in the school newspaper.</p>

<p>Trumpet
-private lessons
-Superior Rating (9,10,11) at Solo Ensemble Festival
-Community Jazz Band (9-12) (play at retirement homes for free....I guess this can count as community service)
-GISA all-select band member (11th grade) (top band members of private schools in GA)
-played for church on Sundays
-invited to play at school's open house 10th grade</p>

<p>Piano
-lessons
-invited to play at several concerts</p>

<p>Young Republicans (should i say this? i know prestigious colleges are very liberal?)
-cofounder and vice President
-helped a bake sale to fund troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
-helped campaign for John Mccain and senator Saxby Chambliss</p>

<p>Duke TIP summer program (summers after 9th and 10th grade, I respectively studied macroecon. and robotics)</p>

<p>Academic Awards:
-Georgia Certificate of Merit
-Phi Beta Kappa Award (given to Junior with the highest weighted GPA in class)</p>

<p>Hobbies:
-food-trying at restaurants (and even cooking some by myself)
-camping/backpacking</p>

<p>Miscellaneous:
I also volunteer at the library during the summer.
-I'm almost certain my PSAT score will qualify me for semifinalist standing in the NMS search. I didn't fill out Hispanic in the ethnicity section, so I wont get National Hispanic Recognition Program Honors.</p>

<p>Recommendations: I know several teachers at my school who like me and will probably write well about me.
Essay: 1) talk about perseverance, about how I thought I could accomplish anything after my national record hike (would this sound too trite?)
2) talk about how certain adversity in a trumpet competition didn't kill my trumpet passions.
saints2009 is online now</p>

2

<p>I had a long list as well (~13) but gave in to procrastination and indolence when it came time to write all those supplements. Maybe you’re different but it is not easy to apply to so many schools, especially since you’re going to have a busy senior year. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to narrow down your list. You have excellent stats so there’s no need to feel insecure. The following is what I recommend based on what you want to major in: </p>

<p>MIT, Princeton, Harvard, University of Chicago (these 4 offer the best economics programs), and Stanford (if you like California then you might also want to consider Berkeley because they too have a very strong economics program). These are the ones you want to focus on since they are the top 5 schools for economics. </p>

<p>After you apply to those and you still want to waste your money on more applications :slight_smile: then consider these three: Northwestern, Penn, and Yale. </p>

<p>Forget about GA Tech for a safety. Instead consider UCLA and UC at San Diego (since you like California and both of these offer economics programs in the top 15). Michigan is good too. Also forget about the other schools. I’m confident that you will get into one of the top 5 anyway so there’s no need to complicate your application process.</p>

3

<p>but I’m a GA resident, so GA Tech is almost a free tuition. Plus, it’s engineering program, which I may very well get into, is in the nation’s top 5. It’s econ program is pretty solid too.</p>

4

<p>I also applied to 13 schools, am a Georgia resident, and a lot of our list is similar. I applied to HYPS, Duke, Penn (Wharton), Dartmouth, Cornell, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, UVA, Michigan (safety), Georgia Tech (safety). Applying to this many schools definitely took a LOT more time than my friends spent on their college applications, although you should definitely try to reuse your essays as much as you can. I don’t really regret applying to so many, but at the same time I didn’t get accepted to that many of my reaches; I was rejected at HYS and Penn, and waitlisted at Princeton and Dartmouth. I think you have a better shot than me though, so you should definitely go for it!</p>

5

<p>The biggest problem I see in your list is not that it’s large, but that it is unfocused. You’ve grabbed nearly every school on the US News top 20 universities list. The result is a list that is all over the map in terms of location, size, atmosphere, and academic structure. For example, if you like Brown’s Open Curriculum so much, why also choose Chicago, which has a Core Curriculum with many required courses? Both do have strong Math programs. Does that override the curriculum difference?</p>

<p>The other problem is that you do not seem to have appropriate safeties and you hardly have any target/match schools. If money is at all an issue, I’d be reluctant to consider Michigan a safety for an out of state resident, although with your strong qualifications you are very likely to get in. Georgia Tech may be a good safety from an admissions and cost perspective for an in state resident, but it is very different from almost all other schools on your list.</p>

<p>If you want an environment in which you know a large percentage of the students, would you consider some liberal arts colleges (LACs)? Since you love camping and back backing, why are so many of your schools in urban locations? Amherst College is even more compact than Dartmouth, has an Open Curriculum like Brown’s, is one of the highest ranked LACs, and has much better access to outdoor recreation than most of the schools on your list. Williams College is even more outdoorsy, is also one of the highest ranked LACs, and seems to have a very strong Math program. Economics is likely to be pretty good, too, at just about any top LAC.</p>

<p>If you just want to attend the highest ranked university that accepts you - not a terrible goal - then your original list is good and it may not be a bad idea to apply to as many as 14 schools. I think you’ll wind up a happier camper, though, if you try to be a little more discriminating.</p>