<p>So I'm a rising senior in high school and I could really use some advice on what colleges I should be looking at. My grades a good, not great. So far, my weighted average is a 95, I got a 1900 on my SAT (which I am retaking cuz that was pretty bad for me) and I got 690s on both of my SAT IIs. I have taken 3 APs so far and will be taking an additional 5 this year. Preferably I would like to stay on the East Coast, but any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have a sibling that will be attending Yale in the fall so I would like to keep my school relatively competitive. Lastly, I am an aspiring surgeon if that helps at all. I was thinking of schools like NYU but I really have no clue</p>
<p>Thanks for any of the advice!</p>
<p>C’mon, somebody please!- i don’t want to keep bumping this thread lol</p>
<p>I guess I’m new and impatient lol</p>
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What is there for anyone to say? Other than limiting the search to the East Coast, there isn’t one word in your 1st post about what you’re looking for. That gives a pool of something like 1,000 colleges.</p>
<p>Do you want to go to school in a large city, a suburb, or a rural area? What size clases do you want? Are you looking for a lecture format or more of an emphasis on seminars? Are you looking to study abroad? Get internships? Take part in research? Prefere a semester or quarter system? A college where everyone lives in campus housing, one where people live right around campus, or one where people live in the general area and commute in? What type of advising system do you want? What activities and clubs are you hoping to participate in while in college? Are there some fields you think you’d have an interest in studying so you can look for schools that have a strength (or at least a presence) in those areas? You can get into med school with any major, so “aspiring surgeon” doesn’t narrow anything down. </p>
<p>There are tons of dimensions to choosing a college that’s a fit for you, and IMHO you have the search process backwards. First you figure out what ideal colleges would look like, then you start finding a range that fit the profile from safety to reach given your qualifications. You seem to think you start with qualifications and try to find schools, worrying about the fit stuff later.</p>
<p>I always thought that u try to get into the best possible school u could- i guess my logic is backwards then- that explains some of my cluelessness then</p>
<p>I guess thats one way to go, but chances are you’ll end up in a college you don’t like. I know a lot of people who picked less selective and less well known schools over ivies because they liked the campus, or the programs, or the location better. You will prob be spending 4 years at the school you pick, so it might be a good idea to add in some other factors in how you choose.</p>
<p>Yeeesh. Bumping your post every 8 minutes… What is your unweighted average? Do you need FA? In what state do you live?</p>
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<p>Single dumbest decision you could make.</p>
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And how is that measured, anyway? I mean sure, on a coarse level you can make distinctions. But too many people take the US News rankings as gospel. #10 is probably better than #11, and certainly better than #15 or #40. </p>
<p>First off, they need numbers to run thru their formula so if some factor can’t be reduced to a number they don’t count it. And even though the casual observer might think there are lots of factors that contribute in how a school “ranks”, US News says its just 7 because that’s all they use in their formula. Second, are you convinced that retention should be 20% of the final score, student selectivity 15%, and so on? Were those numbers engraved in stone by a higher power, or just the ones US News decided to use this year? I’m guessing the latter, especially since they change the formula every few years.</p>
<p>Here’s what I suggest you do. Rather than looking for names at this point, spend a week or so reading thru a good book about college admissions so you understand the whole process. One book I recommend is “Admission Matters” by Springer that covers the topic pretty well, including what fit means, questions to think about when you’re evaluating a college, how to do a campus visit, etc.</p>
<p>Read this so you can have an idea of how it looks from a selective AdCom’s point of view:</p>
<p>[Newsweek.com:</a> Society: Inside The Admissions Game](<a href=“http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/99/990329.admissions1.html]Newsweek.com:”>University of Chicago News)</p>