Congrats on great high school run.
Wouldn’t overly worry re GPA but brown is such a tough admit that if you could learn to love WashU that’s a much more sure bet EDI 2 Or even Chicago or northwestern are easier. If you love Brown that much go for it, but it’s the toughest admit of schools you’ve listed by a meaningful amount.
Regardless I’d strongly consider WashU as EDII given their interest in you. It’s a great school that will take a little hit this year due to random usnwr ranking changes.
I am not as taken by the northeastern craze - or BU for that matter. I have lived in Atlanta, Boston and NOVA/DC and Boston not the best of those re race relations. I’d also second a look at Emory (also strong re debate and doesn’t look at freshman year grades). I promise you that part of Atlanta is diverse and awesome.
Anyway, use your EDI and EDII strategically for best outcome re really selective schools.
From the article shared by @ucbalumnus (bolding addd):
Of the top 100 U.S. cities by population, 35 are at least one-quarter black, and only 6 of those cities have positive integration scores.x
Oakland, California; Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina; Chesapeake, Virginia; Rochester, New York; and Jacksonville, Florida.
U. of Rochester has already been mentioned multiple times and you’re thinking about adding it. A couple other schools you might want to consider are:
Duke (NC): About 6600 undergrads in Durham, NC, one of the cities that has a positive integration score, as quoted above. This school is a definite reach.
Case Western (OH): About 6k undergrads at this Cleveland school. @AmyIzzy has indicated that the school seems to be making very sincere and financially generous efforts to diversify the student body. Make sure to show interest if you want an acceptance.
Marquette (WI): About 7500 undergrads at this Milwaukee school. I’d run the scholarship estimator to see how much you might get, but I think you might get a very nice chunk (and they may indicate that you’d get X amount and eligible to compete for Y more). Additionally, you can stack the $3k NMF scholarship on top of any other scholarships you’d receive, and they allow it to stack to exceed the cost of tuition. This would be an extremely likely admit.
U. of Pennsylvania: About 11k undergrads at this Ivy League school in Philadelphia that seems as though it might work well for your interests. This school is a definite reach.
hi!! thank you for your response, yeah NEU’s combined majors are awesome and that’s a big part of why i’m interested in it! i’m definitely gonna at least EA to NEU, but i know there’s a good chance that i’m gonna get ‘deported’ to their oakland or london campuses… that’s why i’m considering EDII because I know they do that to a lot of applicants.
yeah i considered applying to USC because of that, then decided not to because like i said i’m not really sure if i actually wanna go to the west coast
the thing is i feel like i’m flexible to the point where i appreciate a lot of aspects of a lot of different colleges, which is why I’m interested in both brown and neu and washu–just for different reasons. i think i’m gonna keep my list at its current length just because i do want to optimize my chances even though i know that’s frowned upon by a lot of people! it’s just a personal decision, but thank you for the advice!!
yeah i definitely wanna continue debate in college! rice is looking like a potential addition to the list at the moment, will have to take out another school to fit it in though (BU is kinda on the chopping block right now)
thank you! yeah, i know brown is something of a pipe dream, but i at least want to ED1 there just to see if i have a shot. if i’m deferred, i’m still not sure if i would EDII anywhere because brown isn’t like yale and harvard and mit who all defer like half of the REA applicants–apparently the acceptance rate for deferred brown applicants is the same as the general RD acceptance rate so that’ll be a tough decision to make. Heavily considering EDII to UChicago in the case of a rejection though, especially since they have on their CDS that GPA is like "considered’ or something like that which is really weird… (but beneficial to me so I’m not complaining)
My only caveat with WashU is the location–I know st. louis isn’t bad in terms of race relations but its sort of isolated if that makes sense? i’m very drawn to the northeast because all the cities and metropolises are quite close to one another (huuuuuuuuge reason why i love brown’s location, providence is the perfect size and close to both boston and nyc). st louis is kinda just… there. that’s just me though.
I don’t know what’s up with NEU and how much popularity its been getting as of late (I actually read a book that described how they clawed their way up the rankings it was really interesting) but I just think they’re kinda annoying becuase if you don’t apply ED1 or 2 there’s a good chance you’ll get put in london or oakland for your first year which is not something i want to be doing… that’s why i’m considering an EDII there but the hefty price tag is really off-putting, so i don’t think i’m gonna do that. Emory is officially on the list!
Thanks for your response!! I actually visited Duke this past spring and it was soooo beautiful but I don’t like the fact that its a bubble (I know most schools have a college bubble but its really bad at Duke). It was initially on my list, but in an effort to cut it down that was one of the schools that went unfortunately :((
CWRU is flooding me with mail (both physical and electronic) and i’m definitely considering applying there, I know they love demonstrated interest so I’m gonna apply to their diversity fly-in program and see what happens
Might not do Marquette just because I feel like I have enough in-state VA safeties (and possibly UT-dallas and houston because of huge NMF scholarships)
I am planning on applying to UPenn RD if brown ED or (insert school) EDII doesn’t work out!
I would like to add though that although race relations are a factor for me when choosing a college, i’m not basing my entire college search off of it! my main thing is that i’m not comfortable going to the deep south not only because of race relations but because i just like the ‘culture’ better in places like the northeast, so if anyone has suggestions they think would work, essentially anything north of the mason-dixon line (though VA, MD, DC are obviously fine) would work!! thank you all for your help so far, its truly invaluable!!
My daughter applied to both - very different schools and campuses. But I get that you can like different things about different schools.
I think it’s fine to have a long list but don’t underestimate how much work the applications can be. My daughter started crossing schools off her list in the middle of the application process just becasue she was burned out. Funny enough she regretted that she didn’t apply to one and quickly did the app the week before it was due and that is where she ended up.
I’d recommend doing as many essays as you can over the summer. I’d start with the schools where you are applying EA/ED and also those that are your top priority. Definitely make a safety a top priority. Once you start getting acceptances you can start deciding what other apps are worth your time. Like if you have schools on your list that you don’t think you’ll choose over one you’ve been accepted you might want to skip it or at least make it a low priority.
Finally, if you really plan to debate and a school has a successful debate program, it might not be a bad idea to discuss that in your “Why us” essay.
@premed_equestrian You applied to and were accepted to the Oakland campus and successfully appealed for a change to Boston using your specific circumstances. This student has not mentioned any extenuating circumstances that might get her switched to Boston. If Oakland is where this student wants to go, then yes, I agree…it’s a decent option.
But if they want the Boston campus, I think it will be more challenging.
I know my case was unique, but I’m also saying what I’m saying from other friends I have at NEU who had similar stats, etc. But if my advice isn’t exactly useful, OP is welcome to ignore it. /sheepishly
You have a great resume & I think you have a good shot at Brown ED! Definitely pick an ED2 school(if Chicago or WashU is your next favorite over Brown). Good luck!
Looks like UPenn’s institutional research department (or whoever’s reporting its data) needs to get its act together! 11,250 undergrads were reported on its College Navigator page for Fall 2022.
https://www.upenn.edu/about/facts says 10,412 full time undergraduates but also a sum of 11,250 after adding all of the divisions (CAS, SEAS, Nursing, Wharton) together. Presumably, there are some part time undergraduates, perhaps in the distance education programs that UPenn has.
especially with that price tag