completely lost.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I'm a senior and applying to college this fall, and I haven't a clue as to which colleges to look at, much less apply to. </p>

<p>I'm an Asian female from Georgia. My grades are decent (around a 3.8 unweighted I think?). SAT score is 780 CR, 770 math, 780 writing. I haven't taken any SAT2s yet, but I'm planning to do so very soon. AP scores are still pending, so I haven't the foggiest about those. I have 6 APs under my belt.
I've got a couple leadership positions and a few hundred hours of volunteer service. </p>

<p>I'm not so good at math and science. Politics/government is kind of my style, and I suppose writing is not bad.
I like learning foreign languages.
A good study-abroad program would be nice.
I love debate, so a school with a good debate program would be great.
I fence. It would be nice if the school had a fencing team, but if it doesn't, it's not a deal-breaker.</p>

<p>I'd like a fairly large school in an urban-ish setting. Suburbia would bore me.
I don't want to go to a "party school". I would prefer for Greek life not to be prevalent on campus.
I'm not fond of liberal arts colleges.
It would be nice if the school did care about the students.</p>

<p>I want to go to a school that is intellectual without being cutthroat, a place where students learn for curiosity's sake. At my high school, everything just becomes a resume-booster. While school should be competitive and I have no problem keeping up with a highly-motivated, brilliant student body, I don't want the learning atmosphere to be cutthroat.
I don't imagine that I would be able to decide on a major very easily, even during the first few years of college, so I want college to be a time to explore my interests and to feed my curiosity for different subjects (that doesn't include science though haha). Although I'm not looking for an eclectic college per se, I'm imagining a school somewhat notorious for, how should I put it, randomness? and intellectual curiosity.</p>

<p>I hope I don't sound too picky (who knows, the school I'm describing may just be a dream), but I hope you guys can come up with some suggestions for me. Thank you so much!</p>

2

<p>You do sound picky, as a matter of fact. But you are obviously bright and interested in a number of areas; these kinds of people take longer to find their path in life, I think. </p>

<p>The first task is to find out how much your family afford to pay for college.
The second task is to visit a college finder like the one at [College</a> Admissions - SAT - University & College Search Tool](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.com%5DCollege”>http://www.collegeboard.com). There must be some schools that fit you! And, if the generated list is very short, you need to pull back on some of these items. Have you considered the University of Chicago?</p>

3

<p>Tufts, for sure. Perhaps Barnard?</p>

<p>It’s a LAC and you aren’t interested in LACs, but take a look at Macalester.</p>

4

<p>Brown maybe. I would say U of Chicago as well.</p>

5

<p>I second Tufts and U. of Chicago. Maybe Georgetown, U Penn or Columbia too. It is difficult to assess the quality of your transcript via your GPA. At some schools a 3.8 can be at the top of the class, at others it can be in the bottom half. Even if your school does not rank they will provide a grade distribution chart to the colleges so that they can see where you fall vis a vie your classmates. If you are within the top 5% of your high school I would shoot for the schools mentioned above. If not you may have to set your sights a little bit lower.</p>

6

<p>I would suggest for you to look into The University of Iowa. Located in Iowa City, very vibrant and known as the only US city along with two other European cities as World City of Literature. Iowa City has a world known writing program and one of the nations best debate teams. The school offers vast resources for your interest ( same as my own: political science, economics, etc… and possible opportunities whre you can land internships or anything to get your foot in the door. The state of Iowa is the nations first caucus state which gets a lot of political attention by not only politicans but also press. If you can recall last year President Barack Obama won the democratic caucus. All who went on to earning their party election since 1984(since 1976 for Dems.) won the Iowa caucus ( speaking of Democratic and Republican) besides Dem. Harkin and Gephardt, and Rep. Huckabee and Mondale. The school is also known for “study hard play hard” and Iowa City is known for being liberal. I could give more insight about The University of Iowa.</p>

7

<p>If you haven’t already, go to CC’s new search engine, it does a good job of providing you with a basic list.</p>

<p>[College</a> Search - College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/)</p>

<p>A few things: If you’re at a large school it won’t matter if it’s suburbia or rural nowhere, your social life is going to revolve around campus.</p>

<p>Second, every school parties and the bigger the school the more noticeable the partying will be. A campus of 30,000 undergrads are going to do what undergrads do especially of football Saturday’s etc. This doesn’t mean that smaller schools party less, it’s just that it may be less obvious. If you don’t want to party, do go.</p>

<p>Third, I’ve never come across a school that doesn’t have a study-abroad program. The small schools may partner with program providers whereas the big schools will have their own resources.</p>

<p>Fourth, I suspect any school with 5,000 or more undergrads will probably have at least a fencing club.</p>

<p>Fifth, since you’re “not so good at math and science” and want government/poli-sci you really need to overcome your lack of fondness for liberal arts colleges - they’re frankly your sweet-spot for choices. </p>

<p>Given your criteria some places to look at are the Big 10 schools (esp. Michigan, Wisconsin & Northwestern), the PAC-10 schools (Cal-Berkeley, UCLA & USC), some of the ACC schools (Boston College, North Carolina & Duke). Others to consider: Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and maybe some of the Ivies. Those are obviously some very competitive schools, but that should get you started, from there others will become more or less appealing.</p>

8

<p>Georgetown is a fit. No greek life, vibrant area of the city, great languages. I found a very supportive faculty, especially among the Jesuits.</p>

9

<p>Quote: </p>

<p>“I’d like a fairly large school in an urban-ish setting. Suburbia would bore me.”</p>

<p>Definitely check out Honors Program @ The Ohio State University - “Columbus” :)</p>

<p>Link: <a href=“http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/[/url]”>http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

10

<p>Georgetown (mentioned above several times) sounds like a great fit and George Washington University would be a good safety. Lots of interesting speakers from DC, lots of internship opportunities, and faculty with a lot of connections in the political/governmental world. </p>

<p>And most top colleges and universities offer study abroad these days-usually the same programs that all the other schools offer-so that shouldn’t be a major criterion.</p>

11

<p>Some others to possibly check into are University of Rochester, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh and Boston University. Best of luck!</p>

12

<p>NYU has a super-terrific study abroad program, and seemed pretty laid back to me. (Because my SATs, like yours, are about 100 above the mean of each section.) I hear it’s competitive in some areas, but I would have had a great time chilling there. The only catch is that its financial aid kind of sucks. It was my safety (although early action worked out for me and I didn’t end up applying) because they lurrrrve kids with high test scores. You will get in. Do apply to some Ivies. If you’ve got the stats and the grades, you definitely have the test scores and the course difficulty for it.</p>

<p>A word about competition: I like competitive places that are competitive by the nature of the excellence of their student bodies. I mean, if the kid down the hall is Yo Yo Ma, yeah, there will be some competitiveness. I felt like a totally uncompetitive place would discourage ambition. I ruled out places that seemed cutthroat or GPA-for-GPA’s-sake. (Basically, places with too many premeds, lol :])</p>

<p>Reach:
Harvard
Columbia (maybe not, given the Core, but people can take lots of classes per semester)
Brown
U Penn
Yale?
Princeton?
Stanford?</p>

<p>Match
U Chicago (again, lots of recs. May be a reach but idts.)
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Emory
Berkeley
Georgetown</p>

<p>Safety
University of St Andrews (In Scotland. $$$$)
NYU ($$$$)
Boston College (you’re way above BU test-wise. If you have other weaknesses, consider it.)
Pittsburgh, maybe?
GWU ($$$$)
If money is a concern for you, you should probably apply to UGA, just in case.</p>

<p>U Iowa’s only real draw vs. UGA is probably its creative writing program, which it doesn’t sound like you’re interested in. Carnegie Mellon is also a bad idea because it is a fabulous university with respect to the sciences and arts, and mediocre at best when it comes to humanities and social science. Avoid premed schools like JHU and WUSTL because they tend to be competitive. You don’t need to compromise on your avoidance of LACs if it’s important to you, but if you (like me) end up coming around a bit on a few of them, check out Williams, Swarthmore, Barnard, the Claremont colleges, and Reed.</p>

13

<p>So 10 months later…I’m back with the results! If anyone happens to be reading over old threads and is curious about what happened. :] I’m committed to UChicago. Applied to Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth as well, but I was rejected.</p>

14

<p>Congrats on UChicago! :)</p>

15

<p>Wow - that’s a perfect choice for what you wanted. Congratulations on your “pickyness!” :)</p>

16

<p>Congrats, great job!</p>