Cities generally are more diverse, but some are also highly segregated, which suggests less inclusiveness than less segregated cities. The Most Diverse Cities Are Often The Most Segregated | FiveThirtyEight is an older page on the subject, but gives some idea of the situation.
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Thatās actually a pretty common and reasonable type of list for students like you: high stats but limited budget. Actually, in your case because you are NMSF, it is 3 buckets:
- In-state schools that are safeties for admission and cost. Lucky for you, Virginia has incredible public options (I am super jealous!)
- Schools that give big merit for NMSF/NMF status. Although in your case, many of these schools are located in areas where you donāt want to be. But you can afford to be choosy about location because your Virginia schools are strong!
- Reaches. The bad part is acceptance rates are low, the good part is that their financial aid is incredible. I have a good feeling about you getting an acceptance at at least one of your reaches. Schools donāt invite students to fly-ins that they are not serious about (and not accepting their fly-in wonāt be held against you.)
Personally, this would be my tactic:
- I would resist the temptation to apply to so many schools and scholarship programs that I started to dilute the quality of my applications.
- For each school I was considering, I would ask myself "Do I really like this school better than my favorite true safety (safety for cost and admission.) If the answer is no, I would ruthlessly eliminate that school from my list!
- I would devote my current application efforts to my ED choice first of all, then complete my in-state safeties. If, and only if, I was done with these would I move onto other applications.
- I would adopt an attitude of fun. Youāve done your best and now youāre throwing your hat in the ring. Donāt take it too seriously; life is an adventure! Something great is going to come out of this, even if you donāt know what it is yet. Love the schools that love you back. They will be lucky to get you! You got this.
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Because you indicated Dallas might be okay, definitely look at University of Texas Dallas - a very generous NMF school!
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I say go ahead and try. You could look at University of Rochester.
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Brown/Northeastern-- VERY different. If you love Brown- apply early and take your shot. But Iād do a deep dive on coop, pre-professionalism, etc. at NEU before I wasted the time on an application.
Double major AND a minor? Why? You donāt even need a second major, let alone a minor.
Try to take the ādream schoolā concept out of your vocabulary. There is no dream school, no dream house, no dream spouse, no dream job. Life is full of trade-offās. Take your shot at Brown recognizing the odds are against you- and start to get excited about some of your safer options.
You sound like a fantastic person and student and any college would be lucky to have you!
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No William & Mary? I know it isnāt urban, but itās pretty great for your interests.
If Atlanta is an acceptable destination, have you considered Emory? They are one of the few private Uās that recompute GPA without freshman grades, which it seems would be helpful in your case.
Agreed that Brown and Northeastern are quite different; but if you love both, you might have a look at URochester (as was already suggested above); my kid felt that there was overlap in terms of the things she liked about these schools. Great music opportunities for non-majors there, too. Run the NPC to see whether their aid would work for you.
If youād consider west coast, the Claremont Colleges are top-notch in your areas of interest.
Carnegie Mellon is another that doesnāt use freshman grades in the GPA. (And I see youāre already considering Pitt - thereās cross-registration between the two, and they are right across the street from each other.) Their CogSci major is very computational - you wouldnāt need an additional minor in CS/data science. They have a reputation for somewhat stingy financial aid, but this seems to be improving - students have been reporting pretty generous need-based aid packages in the past few years. It might be more affordable than Pitt, for you.
Seconding the UT-Dallas recommendation as well. Check out the various tracks within their CogSci major. Their NMF package is very generous and attracts a very strong cohort of students for the Honors College. The undergraduate population is very diverse - less than 27% white. (Although itās still only 5% Black; the larger demographics are 39% Asian & 17% Hispanic).
Itās hard to know how to chance you, especially given the shifting landscape vis-a-vis racial factors in admissions. Being below the top quartile may hurt you at schools that look at class rank; if you look at the Common Data Set information for some of these schools, the percentage of admitted students who werenāt in the top 10% or at least top 25% is very small. But they also know that NoVA schools are very competitive; and your upward trend and very strong ECās should go a long way. Iām pretty confident that some excellent schools will want you! Whether Brown will be one of thoseā¦ hard to say, but it doesnāt hurt to try!
TBH, I canāt quite figure out the algorithm for your geographic criteria. For example, you like WashU enough to consider ED2, but in terms of political and racial issues, Iām having trouble seeing why St. Louis is any less troubling than Dallas or Atlanta or Tulsa.
Good luck; hope you keep us posted!
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Thank you so much for the advice! Yes, I love my VA publics theyāre very awesome (GMU is my favorite I think). I like the suggestion about comparing my schools to my true safety (GMU in my case) and taking it off if I donāt like it better! Yeah, Iāve spent a lot of time on my Brown application, Iām actually already done with all seven supplements (they went absolutely insane this year) and Iāll probably ask a cc reader and my english teachers to review them! I will try my best to have fun, thank you : )
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Will definitely look there, thanks!
CC LOVES URochester (iām willing to bet money its mentioned at least once in almost all the chance me threads on here) so Iāve actually already looked into that one, and Iām considering applying
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Yeah, I know a lot of the schools on my list are quite different from one another (brown and columbia are my top 2 even though columbia is almost the exact opposite of brown with its core curriculum), but I feel like I like these schools for different reasons. For me, every school on my list has something I love about it, for NEU its the Co-op program. I know its weird but I think Iām just quite flexible in what Iām looking for in a school (other than location I know Iām nitpicky about that haha! Thatās why Iām very comfortable with my safeties, but also just wanna try for the reaches
yeahā¦ the minor wonāt be necessary if I go to a school with a good cognitive science curriculum (because schools with a good cog sci program have a track where you can focus on computation, which is what i want to do), but iāve also been feeling like minoring in addition with the double major is a lot. iām set on the double major though, i donāt see any other way to reconcile my interests in government and STEM!
Yep, I know the odds are stacked against me, and having a dream school usually leads to disappointment, but I think Iām willing to accept that! Iād rather have put all my effort into trying to get in and even if I donāt get accepted Iāll know that I tried my best, and Iām good with that! Iām definitely good with my safeties like I mentioned earlier!
Thank you so much, I sure hope Brown is one of those colleges! I appreciate all the advice : )
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First off, thanks so much for the detailed response!! I donāt think I want to go to W&M, Iāve heard too many horror stories and I donāt really like the location.
Yes Iāve considered Emory, I think Iām gonna apply!!
Definetely heavily considering URochester atm, will run the NPC later today with parents. Music opportunities is huge plus!!
Still wishy washy about west coast but iāll check out claremont
Iāve considered applying to CMU!! I actually visited Pittsburgh this past spring, and toured Pitt and met with an admissions officer at CMU (because apparently you can do that so I took the opportunity). I think Iād really like it there, so I think Iām gonna apply.
Checking out UT-Dallas!
Yeah, a bunch of schools added the so-called ādiversity questionā to supplements, and I feel like thatās their way of getting around the aff. action court decision, so I guess weāll see what they end up doing with that, but my class rank is definetely my biggest concern. it may be helpful to note that iām concurrently enrolled in my STEM magnet school, so my class rank is actually from my ānormalā high school with basically like the entire rest of the school population not taking the classes Iām taking. Not sure if that makes sense, but what iām trying to say is that my STEM school has a lot of grade deflation compared to grade inflation at my normal high school, so I think my counselor is mentioning that in her recommendation (and in the school profile) to kinda add more context to my class rank. i hope that helps, but iām not sure.
Honestly Iām applying to WashU because they accepted me into their fly-in program, and they have an AWESOME ampersand program I really love. I guess you could call it an exception! Also Iām fine with Dallas and Atlanta, Iām straight scared of anywhere in oklahoma (maybe its irrational but thatās just me).
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You donāt need to major in Government in order to ādoā policy; subject matter expertise is what gets you in. Think Tanks- they look for the people who understand the subject they are researching. Roles at agencies and on the hill- ditto. You can major in Agriculture or Nutritional Science and get a job working in food policy (a very important area given how distorted our food supply is by what the government spends money on) much more easily than being a poli sci or government major. Ditto for the other āscience relatedā types of policy jobs.
I donāt think Brown and Columbia are all that different btw. But both are pretty different from GW, BU, and Northeastern.
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You may have enough reaches already, but if Dallas is good, Houston is probably even better; have you considered Rice? Top-tier financial aid and a really great student experience.
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Since you mentioned National Merit scholarships, how does VCU and its Presidential Scholarship compare?
https://admissions.vcu.edu/cost-aid/scholarships-funding/first-year-scholarships/
Thatās good to know! Iām also just interested in government and policy in general and want to work more from that end of things rather than the researcher role (like Iād rather interpret the research and create stuff out of it rather than do it if that makes sense), and if something like science policy doesnāt work out for me I want to be able to get something in the politics/government/diplomacy realm that I wouldnāt get if I just majored in cog sci
Yeah VCU is one of my safeties, definitely going to apply for this scholarship!
popping in here as an NEU freshman bc go huskies and we need more to join the pack anyways- itās a reach, but a decent shot if you applied ED (regardless of 1/2, but they do take more ED1 kids- Iād even suggest applying EA to improve your chances.) I had a 3.8 uw GPA and I did EA, and got in, but it also depends on the kind of class theyāre looking to make each year. Iāll drop the links for the majors you said you were interested in- (also NEU has combined majors and they are chefās kiss amazing. I wouldnāt knowā¦ because I chickened out of my combined major, but anyways.
Closest thing I could get to cog sci was psych/neuro so Iām dropping both: Psych: (Psychology < Northeastern University) + Neuro: (Behavioral Neuroscience, BS < Northeastern University) - CS minor: (Computer Science, Minor < Northeastern University)
feel free to DM me if you have questions about NEU or with the app process for it! /warmly
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USC gives half tuition to admitted national merit students.
I think you are going to be a competitive candidate even at your reaches but you need to reflect on what you really want and narrow your list. Brown is nothing than NE and neither is that similar to Wash U.
Was going to suggest this too. I might have missed it but are you interested in continuing with debate in college? Rice has a strong debate team.