Creating a set college list

College Search & Selection
1

Here are some of the my stats:
I just completed junior year.
My weighted GPA is a 4.68 and my unweighted GPA is around a 3.85.
ACT: 32. (35. 27. 33. 32.)
I took 4 AP Classes this year.
AP Chem. AP Physics I. APUSH. AP Lang&Comp
Next year I’m going to be taking 6 AP Classes.
AP Calc AB. AP Bio. AP Gov. AP Psychology. AP Lit&Comp. AP World History. Spanish 4.

I want to major in Chemistry with maybe a minor in Art History/Cognitive Science idk. I also want to go to med school so I will be on the premed track.

Some of my most consistent extra curriculars: Baseball Frosh, Soph, Junior, and I will play senior year. I should be a captain next year.
Basketball freshman year. BEE leader at my school (mentors freshman). Student Athlete Leadership Team. Travel Baseball for 8 years. Summer Baseball with my school for 3 years. Minor volunteering positions.
Two Summer Job ~20hours a week for each of them.
I have received a few awards at my school (High honor roll, Student Athlete award, Grit Award, All-Conference Academic).
I’m White. Male. Income: ~200,000. My parents will pay as much as needed but of course scholarships are good.
I live in Illinois, Suburbs of Chicago. Most kids at my school don’t go to good colleges. Usually 1/2 people go to an Ivy/highly selective school a year.

I’m trying to find a balanced lists of schools to apply to. I’ll probably apply to around 10 schools.

WashU-ED
Vanderbilt-ED obviously only applying to one of these two ED
Case Western Reserve-EA
Haverford College-EDII if the previous don’t go my way
Hillsdale College-RD
UW-Madison-RD
Miami University (Ohio)-RD
UofRochester-RD
Carleton College-RD
Rice University-RD
Tulane University-EA
Brown University (I can dream can’t I)-RD

2

I would look at the details of each school’s ED/EA policy in detail. Planning to apply to 4 or 5 schools early may put you in a sticky situation, especially since it looks like you are a (fairly to very) good stat match for each of the schools on your list.

3

As long as he only EDs to one, that is fine. This list seems like it varies a lot. Hillsdale & Carleton seem like outliers.

4

Congrats on your hard work and success! Your ED plan looks good, and you have a nice group of schools on your list. I think your stats/grades/etc make you a serious, well qualified applicant at all these schools. I think ten is a good number given where you are looking, and maybe that won’t be necessary with an early acceptance, which is certainly possible given your list. Here are some thoughts:

Do you get in-state at Wisconsin? It’ll be expensive if not, but I don’t know how reciprocity works in that region.

Vanderbilt and Wash U, in particular are much more challenging in the RD round. Whichever way you went, the other school would become a very long shot (not for just for you but for everyone). And interest is important especially at Wash U, where you will want to visit/interview if possible. Vanderbilt is incredibly challenging these days. I believe they published that their ACT 25/75 range was 34-36. So that’s tough.

Again you would be a serious applicant at all these schools, but those two, Brown, Rice, and maybe Tulane, Carleton, Rochester, and Haverford would be reaches/high matches, just because overall acceptance rates are low (simple supply and demand situation). You might get into any and all or none, just hard to say. As a thought exercise, would you be happy going to one of the other schools on the list? They are very good schools but that’s a good question to ask yourself. I’ll note that Miami of Ohio super-scores test results for admission AND merit aid. If you could get a 33 ACT super-score (at least was true this year), you would be on the top line for merit aid, with a range of merit aid equal to half to full tuition.

http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/

You have a very large school (UW) and a few small LACs (Carleton, Haverford). That’s of course fine, but does one type of school seem preferable, or do you love these schools and are happy to consider studying at them? Just something to think about.

Have you considered Wake Forest? We found it to be similar in many ways to Vandy, Wash U, Brown, and Rochester (visited all of them, and a several at least twice), which seem to be at the top of your list–similar size, strong academics, med school, etc. Check out it’s new Wake Downtown biosciences campus, which just opened in January. Brand new, beautiful, meant to bring together undergrad programs and med school faculty/research. It also places a strong emphasis on interest and interviewing is important. Like Vandy, Wash, ED is helpful also. We also liked Santa Clara University for some of the same reasons, and the spectacular CA weather. It’s right in Silicon Valley, so internships/job opportunities are great). Just some thoughts. Good luck!

http://wakedowntown.wfu.edu

5

I’ll check out Wake Forest but I’m not longer going to take the ACT