College list?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Georgetown University
1

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>Georgetown is one of my top college picks, yet I feel like my college list is unrealistic because it's filled w/ Ivy League schools that are unpredictable no matter how incredible your stats are. I'm looking for some suggestions for safeties and matches according to my stats. Here's my college list so far:</p>

<p>Columbia U
Cornell U
Dartmouth C
Georgetown U
Harvard C
Northwestern U IL
Stanford U
U Calif Berkeley
U Calif Los Angeles
U Calif San Diego
U Chicago
U Michigan
U Pennsylvania
Yale U </p>

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>GPA: 3.9
SAT: 2270
ACT: 30
SAT IIs: History (740), Literature (730), I'm doing Mathematics Level II this October</p>

<p>Good ECs + awards. Still working on college essays, and I expect my reccs to be solid. I'm looking to study Political Science or International Relations with a minor either in Economics, Journalism, or Legal Studies.</p>

<p>Since most of those colleges are reaches, any ideas for safeties and matches?</p>

2

<p>mines a bit like this too… if you apply to about 12 reachy schools, you’re bound to get into one of them. finding safety schools is really hard for me</p>

3

<p>Apply to University of Michigan first or as early as possible, and get that application out of the way. You will hear back from them quickly. usually within a month, and a lot of their admissions process is based on stats. If they accept you this is your safety school.</p>

<p>I would also consider dropping at least one or more of HYS as you learn more about the schools and which ones you prefer.
Also, consider narrowing your list among Georgetown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Chicago, Northwestern, and UPenn. Ask yourself why you are applying to each of these schools. To me Dartmouth and Cornell look like outliers for what you want to study. And Chicago and Northwestern, although both in Chicago, are very different schools. Consider dropping one of the two, unless you really want to be in Chicago.</p>

<p>I know Penn, G’town, Stanford and Harvard give joint information sessions. Its called exploring college options. You may consider attending to help your comparison among the schools. The information is in the attached link.
[Exploring</a> College Options](<a href=“http://www.exploringcollegeoptions.org/]Exploring”>http://www.exploringcollegeoptions.org/)</p>

<p>As mentioned above. Definitely apply to Michigan. Low risk and high reward if you get in.</p>

<p>Depending on your geographic preferences, other possible safeties (grouped by region/media markets) might be:</p>

<p>New York: NYU, Syracuse</p>

<p>Boston: Boston University or Boston College</p>

<p>Mid-West: Wisconsin, University of Missouri (for Journalism)</p>

<p>Mid Atlantic: American, George Mason, Howard, THE George Washington University, or Univesity of Maryland</p>

<p>West Coast: You seem to have this covered.</p>

4

<p>Possible List could be:</p>

<p>Reaches:
Georgetown
Yale
Harvard or Stanford
Cal
UCLA
Columbia
Chicago or Northwestern
Cornell, Penn or Dartmouth</p>

<p>Safety Reach:
Michigan</p>

<p>Relative Safeties:
USC, NYU, Rochester, BC, UCSD, Wisconisn, BU, Syracuse, GW, George Mason, Maryland, Missouri, American</p>

5

<p>Thanks SO much for your help chocolate25 and 1789! :)</p>

<p>I think those safeties are really good, yet my list still has too many reaches. I’m looking for more matches, but I guess nothing is really for sure. I rearranged my list according to your advice today, and came up with this:</p>

<p>Safeties: Michigan, UC San Diego</p>

<p>Matches: U Chicago, Northwestern (even though their admissions rates are in the 20s…)</p>

<p>Reaches: All the rest (Georgetown, Harvard, Stanford, etc.)</p>

<p>I’m still looking into the rest of the relative safeties you provided to see where they fit with my stats. But thanks again for all your advice, it’s super helpful.</p>

6

<p>I think you should look into Tufts (match), Boston College (lower match), Emory (match), Vanderbilt (match). It seems like you are California as an in-state student. Given this, you’re very likely to get into most of the UCs. You might not need to many matches/ safeties beyond schools like Tufts, Emory, and Vandy.</p>

<p>Also random tip: don;t send your ACT score. A 2270 is leagues better than a 30 (its around a 34). Forget you ever took the ACT, it will bring down your application.</p>

7

<p>if you’re serious about political science, get Princeton on that list. And according to laws of probability, if you apply to 10 schools that have acceptance rates of ~10%, you’re going to get into at least one. Apply to like UMich as a safety and then go for your dream schools!</p>

8

<p>Thanks slipper1234 and necrophiliac. I agree with the great ACT advice, I didn’t even study for it because I already knew I had a high SAT score.</p>

<p>I hope that happens! But I’ll still go for other safeties other than UMich just to be SAFE. Princeton is an excellent school, yet it doesn’t offer double majors which made me opt out. I’ll take another look into it, though. Thanks for the hope and great advice :)</p>

9

<p>I wouldn’t consider UCSD a safety school this year and I would rate the UC schools as extreme reaches. With California budget woes, the UC’s have stated that they have to reduce admission numbers significantly, that class sizes will increase because fewer classes will be offered and that tuition will go up at least 30% this year. My DS’s friends are reporting that it will take them at least 5 years to graduate from UC schools because they can’t get the classes. In fact DS college counselor is encouraging California seniors to look out of state because of the current California state budget crisis.</p>

<p>For safeties, you might want to add Ohio State, they have a very good international relations program and are very generous with scholarships for out-of-state students with your stats. I think the scholarship is called the buckeye scholarship.</p>

10

<p>"if you apply to 10 schools that have acceptance rates of ~10%, you’re going to get into at least one. "</p>

<p>That’s assuming everyone has an equal chance of getting into these schools, which we all know is not true.</p>

<p>You need more safety/match schools, just in the case you DO get WL/Rejected from all of these reaches. I recommend 2 safeties, 2 matches, 3 reaches, and 5 high reaches (if you are applying to 12 schools).</p>

11

<p>Another tip, don’t do what I did:</p>

<p>Georgetown was my favorite choice. I loved it. But I still applied to three reaches: Harvard, Princeton, and Penn. (It may sound weird, but I still liked Georgetown more than those places). Also, I had three safeties that I didn’t actually end up liking much: Drexel, Northeastern, and BU.</p>

<p>In the end, I was rejected from the Ivies and was accepted to Georgetown (which made me immeasurably happy). What I’m saying is, if I didn’t get into Georgetown either, I would have been very unhappy.</p>

<p>I got lucky. So make sure you have some “good” schools that you would still love to go to if you “got stuck with them.”</p>

12

<p>sophomore12, 2400 get rejected from Ivy schools and my school sent a 3.0 GPA (in a GPA inflated school) to Cornell. Sure it’s not a completely random process but based on the OP’s stats, I’d say the chances are pretty good.</p>

13

<p>I just think ppl play the “random” part of the college admissions process way to much, it’s not as random as you think… but it’s the OPs choice, I’ve given my 2c</p>

14

<p>DO NOT think that if you apply to enough high-reach schools you’re bound to get into one. It’s NOT TRUE. Every school evaluates you holistically and every school comes to their own conclusion: each school, independent of the other 11 you applied to, could come to the decision that there are other people they want to fill their class. Once you get to the top top level of schools, some element of crapshoot factors into your decision. They get to basically hand-pick their class based on which individuals they want, once they establish that 80% of the people who apply to these places are qualified (have the grades, sats, etc). All 12 schools (if they are super-high reaches) could find you qualified but not what they’re looking for. (I really want to warn you and I also saw this happen to one of my friends who applied to Yale, Harvard, Amherst, Duke, Tufts, Cornell, U Chicago, etc and WAS qualified but only got accepted to one very disappointing safety school in the very end.) Here’s how to do it, though, if you want to avoid applying to too many safeties: pick one that has an Early Action or Rolling Admissions option. If you apply to Tulane (early action) or UMich (rolling) in October-ish, you will hear back by December 15. If you are accepted, great, you have a lovely fall-back option and you don’t have to continue applying to safe schools because you’ve got two guaranteed. If you’re rejected (by some freak stroke of un-luck, you definitely shouldn’t be rejected from those places lol), then you still have two weeks to get all your other applications in the mail. </p>

<p>PS I think you plan to apply to 6 out of 8 Ivies… It’s hard to tell what kind of school you really want, or if you just added all the top schools to your list. Try to decide if you want a city or a campus (Columbia: city; UPenn: campus), a big school or a small school (Cornell: 14,000; Dartmouth: 4,000), what part of the state you want, etc. It will be easier to pick safeties when you know in what type of environment you would be happiest for the next four years.</p>

<p>Good luck! Hope I wasn’t too much of a downer. Haha</p>

15

<p>I would also suggest University of Virginia and Duke University as everyone else already got the “good” backup schools covered, not that these two schools are back ups in general :)</p>

16

<p>I just joined CC to reiterate sundress’s point. Please, please do not assume you will get into one of these reach schools if you just apply to enough. My best friend applied to practically the same schools as you’re thinking about (minus 3, plus maybe 5) with the same strategy and stats and got into 3 schools: our state flagship, a mediocre UC, and a private university 10 minutes walking distance from her house (none with scholarships). She was devastated for weeks and spent the majority of her time researching transferring. (In the interest of full disclosure: she got off the waitlist–one of 3 she was on–at one of the schools on your list and is happily attending). However, I think in total she got rejected by 12 schools, which is a self-confidence killer.
I agree, there are definite criteria you can use to narrow your list down such as size and location. Compare study abroad programs, and comb their websites for special IR programs etc. If you want to take a language in college, especially a less commonly taught one, that can narrow your choices.</p>