<p>You should probably move Tufts to a Reach. The College MatchMaker on the College Board website isn't perfect. I've found plenty of mistakes with it. You've got to be more specific with your preferences. I know it's hard to be very specific, especially at junior year (I just want to go to a good college, gosh darn it!), but if you don't, you're going to have way too many schools, and it will be hard to narrow the list down. That's why people sometimes end up with like twenty-something schools, and they don't know what to do besides apply to all of them because they can't rule a school out. They don't know enough about the school, and they don't know enough about what they want in college.</p>
<p>Think about how comfortable you will be in a rural location. For example, Carleton, Grinnell, and Oberlin are all in pretty rural areas. I think University of Massachusetts-Amherst is also in a rural location. At first, I thought I would be comfortable in a rural location, where most of the social life revolves around campus. I didn't think I'd mind. But I realized that I loved living in a major city (Seattle), and that every so often I'd want to get away from school and go to a place where I can see lots of people and just have fun. I don't know how many opportunities you will have for that if you go to Grinnell. You need to think about that carefully. Are you seriously willing to live for four years in a rural location? It helps if you actually go to a rural place; it's different when you actually experience it. </p>
<p>I understand that you might not want to go to college right in the middle of a city, but would it be important for you to at least have that opportunity? </p>
<p>You want to go to a place with an emphasis on undergrads and yet you're applying to Harvard? You might want to rethink that, or at least think more carefully.</p>
<p>It seems like you're pretty open to lots of things, although I honestly doubt that you want to go to a college in Alaska. Try to think about it like this: if you had to choose between going to school in California or Alaska, which would you pick? If you pick California, then if you have a large list of colleges, you can knock out the colleges in Alaska. This is a general guideline; it won't be perfect.</p>
<p>Think about what your favorite subjects are--those could be potential majors. You might not major in those subjects, but if you do major in it, then you want a school that has a good program in that field.</p>
<p>Here are the schools I applied to, which might interest you:</p>
<p>University of Chicago
Swarthmore
Carleton
Reed
Macalester
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Washington-Honors (safety)
Grinnell
(they're not exactly alike)
It's hard to suggest schools when I don't really know what you're looking for. All these schools, in my opinion, offer great undergraduate education. Some schools that you might also consider (a lot of people at my school applied to these schools): Colorado College, Occidental, Claremont schools, Haverford, Colby, Scripps (if you're a girl). If you do have the stats and ec's that you think you have, you should be able to get into Colorado College and Occidental and some of the Claremont schools. </p>
<p>Think about the type of student body you'd like to live with. You're going to be stuck with them for the next four years, so you'd better like them!</p>
<p>Also, about SAT's: if you think you can get 2300+ if you retake, retake. If not, don't. That's my recommendation.</p>