College List

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello, I am helping one of my friends make a college list. Her stats are >4.0 GPA and >2200 SAT. She is within the top 10 students in her class.</p>

<p>Criteria: big city, premed or business</p>

<p>Reach
Harvard
Stanford
Columbia
Chicago
Penn
Northwestern
Emory
Rice</p>

<p>Match
NYU
USC - many full tuition and full ride scholarships (guaranteed full tuition scholarship for National Merit Finalists)
Wellesley
UT Honors Program</p>

<p>Safety
Pitt Honors College - many full tuition and full ride scholarships, guaranteed grad school acceptance
CUNY Honors College - free tuition, free dorm, free laptop, $7500 grant</p>

<p>How does this list look? Are there any other colleges she should be looking at?</p>

2

<p>What’s she planning to major in?</p>

<p>Vanderbilt, University of Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, UCLA, Duke, Brown, Georgetown…just to name a few top schools she would have a good shot at.</p>

3

<p>I don’t know what she wants to major in, but she wants to do either premed or business so probably biology or finance. She’s not sure yet, so the school should be strong in both areas. And she definitely wants to be in a big city, so not any of those schools in the middle of nowhere or even a college town.</p>

4

<p>Just so you know, tons of incoming freshmen believe they are doing premed but then let go of that dream within their first two years. If she wants to do premed or business, make sure that she actually enjoys them and isn’t wanting to do them for the money, as many incoming freshmen were drawn to premed and business by the high wages (business) or job security (premed). I’m not saying your daughter is doing it for the money, but the small percentage of incoming premed who end up finishing the premed track and going to med school is very small.</p>

5

<p>She’s not my daughter, she’s my friend lol. And she definitely wants to do premed (she’s done a lot of volunteering overseas helping children born with defects). Business is her backup plan.</p>

6

<p>What can her family afford? Does she need merit aid? At many of those schools she will be full pay (UT).</p>

7

<p>Yeah, UT would be expensive for out-of-state but it has a really good honors program. Plus she used to live in Texas and she’s considering going back there for college.</p>

<p>Her family can afford up to ~$30,000 a year, but she’d obviously take a full ride over that any day especially since she has to worry about paying for med school too. ;)</p>

8

<p>W/e, she’s basically your daughter</p>

9

<p>Statistically, I would bump down emory from reach to match.</p>

10

<p>If she is considering Wellesley why doesn’t she consider Bryn Mawr, Smith and Mt. Holyoke, a similar education but a much better shot at getting in, they could all be consider low matches/high safeties for her.</p>

11

<p>I would drop UT totally. Having once lived in TX will not make her a resident:

Look through this thread for some other options with merit aid: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

12

<p>Smith and Mount Holyoke are in small college towns. Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore, while close to the city, are relatively small towns too. She thinks they’re too quiet and there’s not as much to do.</p>

<p>We looked at that list before and most of the schools don’t really appeal to her.</p>

13

<p>Yeah, we know she’s not a resident, but don’t they offer scholarships? Or are those only for in-state students?</p>

14

<p>Many highly selective schools do not have undergraduate business majors. Of the schools on the OP’s “reach” list, I believe Penn and Emory are the only ones that do. At Northwestern there is an undergraduate “certificate” program in business. A couple of the others may have similar arrangements. Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, and Wellesley (or any highly selective school with a strong liberal arts & science focus, including most LACs) may not even have anything like a business certificate program.</p>

15

<p>Yes, but Harvard, Columbia, Chicago and Wellesley all have excellent placement on Wall Street and business school.</p>

16

<p>I would say also look at WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western (very generous with scholarships too). Since she is applying to Wellesley and Columbia, also consider Barnard.</p>

17

<p>Okay, so I added Baylor, Rutgers, and SUNY Stony Brook. What do you guys think of these schools?</p>

18

<p>^ Pretty different from Wellesley or Chicago. What’s the common thread?
“Big city, pre-med” must cover about a thousand schools.
Any preferences for region, climate, size? What about intellectual atmosphere? Sports and Greeks v. lots of Geeks? Well-integrated Core courses v. Open Curriculum? etc.</p>

19

<p>She doesn’t care what part of the country it is in or how big the school is. She doesn’t care if it’s really “intellectual” or if it’s a party school. She doesn’t want cutthroat like Johns Hopkins for premed, so I guess WUSTL and Penn aren’t really her top choices either. Merit scholarships would definitely be a huge plus since she’s trying to save money for med school.</p>

20

<p>Is she a NMF?</p>