College list recommendations

College Search & Selection
1

I’m a current junior in high school and I’ve realized I should probably get more active in the college search process!

I live in the Northeast (of the US) and would like to attend a school (of between 2000 - 10000 students) on the East Coast.

I’ve already visited Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Berkeley, and Duke which nicely coincided with family vacations! I didn’t like Johns Hopkins very much although I really liked Duke and Berkeley. Stanford was alright though, living in the East Coat, the Spanish style buildings and palm trees were something to get used to. Although my parents hated Berkeley, I really liked its sprawling campus.

However, as we drove around California, I realized I didn’t like it–I think I might think twice only for Stanford (which haha obviously would be a very once-in-a-lifetime opportunity). Berkeley I think there’d be schools of equal caliber on the East Coast which is why I’m not sure I’ll apply. In general I just HATED the weather and how cold it got at night.

My interests right now are very vague and undefined, but I think I may go into computer science so I definitely need a school that is relatively strong in that area. However, I definitely want to have a somewhat-structured liberal arts education and therefore wouldn’t want to go to a school that is specifically STEM focused like MIT. I want to take interesting English and history classes throughout college! I also really enjoy art so that is why I’m considering Brown since apparently students can walk over to RISD and take classes there!

My GPA is a 3.83, and although I haven’t taken the SAT or ACT yet, on practice tests I’ve scored around a 1570 or a 35. My extracurriculars aren’t especially strong.

I’m just very unsure how to start building a college list. I used a few college match search engines and the two schools that recurringly popped up were UPenn and Yale. Right now for reaches I have Yale (I know someone in computer science there and he says that although it is not the highest ranking school in computer science, it is still pretty strong and I think it might be a bit easier to get in–though obviously very very hard–for computer science at Yale in comparison to Stanford or Princeton, also I think it would have a very strong liberal arts education), Brown, Duke, UPenn, and Stanford.
I’m not very sure which other schools, especially matches or safeties, I should be looking at. Any recommendations at all?

2

Plus I think I’m adding Tufts for reach/match! Thoughts?

3

Look to some of the LACs for CS departments with a liberal arts structure.

4

Tufts is a reach.

Do you want to be in a city, a rural area, or something in between? How do you feel about things like sports/greek life/party culture? Do you have weather preferences? (I can assure you it gets far colder at night in New England than it does in Berkeley!)

In any case, some solid matches for CS include Brandeis, Bucknell, Case Western, William and Mary, Lehigh, and U Rochester.

5

You will have good breadth requirements at most universities, which means you will have to take a variety of courses – some science, math, social science, and humanities courses – regardless of your major. That breadth of knowledge is part of the liberal arts approach to learning, and you don’t have to attend a LAC to encounter it.

So you want a school of 2k-10k students on the East Coast? Do you mean undergrad pop or total student pop? Because most of the Ivies have more than 10,000 total. I’ll use total population.

Let’s see – here are a bunch of schools, that are not STEM-focused (you want breadth…), with 2000-10000 students on or near the East Coast – and Yale, since you seem to like it and it’s pretty close pop-wise, with ~11,000 students:

Princeton
Yale
Williams
Dartmouth
Brown
Middlebury
Wellesley
Smith
Wesleyan U
Vassar
Tufts
Colgate
Barnard
Brandeis
U of Richmond
Wake Forest
William & Mary
Lafayette
Lehigh
Bucknell
Holy Cross
Mount Holyoke
Trinity College (CT)
Skidmore
Union
Dickinson
Franklin & Marshall
Bard
Gettysburg
TCNJ
Furman
St. Lawrence
Providence
Seton Hall

Read about these (and others…) and see which of them fit you best in terms of academics (majors/classes, class sizes, calendar, curriculum style, etc.), setting (urban, suburban, rural), environment/weather, and cost (run the NPC to see if a school is likely affordable).

There are plenty of reaches and matches on this list, but i’m not sure about safeties – maybe Providence or Seton Hall. Typically a school is a safety for you if its admit rate is at least 40% and your stats are well above average (vs. students who were admitted), and if you like and can afford it. In-state public schools often make good safeties for top students.

6

It is a reach, but I would definitely consider Penn for Computer Science. The program is rigorous and isn’t always rated very highly for research, but the students are excellent and the opportunities and salaries coming out of the program are recognized by employers. In the 2015 Career Survey, starting salaries for CIS and the related NETS majors averaged $98k & $101k, respectively, with the top students earning significantly more.
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/SEAS_2015SeniorCPSurvey.pdf

7

You are spending a ton of time on reach schools and not enough on finding match/safety schools that you would be happy to attend. I’d suggest you get your hands on some good college guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide) and start reading. You can probably find these books in your HS guidance office or library.

8

Try to pick a school where you get in-state tuition for an easily affordable safety.