Cutting Down my College List

<p>I'm a junior at a highly competitive high school in Upstate New York. I started the college search last spring (around May) and have been pretty engrossed in it since. I'm interested in mainly neuroscience/cog sci (so I won't go to a school that has no neurosci/cogsci program/concentration/minor/major/SOMETHING), although I'm not sure if this could change to psych, econ, english or maybe even physics. </p>

<p>I'm a pretty outdoorsey guy who could really see himself in a quaint,rural, little college town (as long as the town isnt dead). However, sometimes I think I might also thrive in an environment near a big city. I don't like boiling hot weather that much and I don't want a college with a 'deep south' culture or an overwhelming frat scene. Distance from home is not an issue. My most important factors in selecting a college are research opportunities,professor-student interaction, a sense of community, and merit aid opportunities. Division III athletics is a must. Not an overly liberal campus. 1,000-5,000 students.</p>

<p>My parents have promised to pay around 20,000 a year but my EFC is more: my parents make somewhere around 160,000 a year</p>

<p>My Stats
93-94 average
school doesn't rank
All honors classes so far, opting out of spanish 11h this year because our schools
Will be taking AP Psych, AP Lang and Comp, AP Chem, and AP US this year
Spanish program is insanely difficult
last year I took AP Euro-5
Cross Country all 4 years JV, JV, JV/V (its up in the air), V (probably)
Nordic Skiing JV 8th grade, V freshman year
Indoor Track JV, JV, V(probably), V(probably)
Outdoor Track JV, JV, V(probably), V (probably)</p>

<p>Model UN
member freshman year
co-VP sophomore year
Secretary junior year
Going to the Netherlands this winter for 2 weeks to participate in the THIMUN conference</p>

<p>LitMag contributer/editor as sophomore, junior, senior
Managing Editor (basically editor-in-chief) as Junior</p>

<p>Internship at Rochester General Hospital over the summer in the neurology department with a friend of mine
Member of the Town Youth Court since creation this summer
will be youth court co-advisor Senior year
spanish club sophomore/junior year</p>

<p>SAT II's
770 World History
700 Math I</p>

<p>took the ACT's and will probably take them again: projected score 29-32 with hopes of eventually getting a 34</p>

<p>taking SATs in December with hopes of getting around a 2100</p>

<p>So I have like 15 or so schools on my list and I would like to narrow it down to AT LEAST 10. I know that Carleton, Swarthmore and Colorado College offer little/no merit aid but I discussed this with my parents and they said something like "You can still apply to these schools: we'll worry about paying for it once/if you get accepted."</p>

<p>My list:
Swarthmore
Carleton
Colorado College
Grinnell
Whitman
Franklin and Marshall
U of Rochester
Earlham
Lawrence
Beloit
Denison
Goucher
Rhodes
Willamette
SUNY Geneseo
SUNY Cortland</p>

<p>Have considered Kenyon, Occidental, Brandeis, UPS, L & C, Kalamazoo</p>

<p>I would be sure to look into what the merit awards typically are at Whitman, Kenyon, Grinnell, etc. I am not sure that even their top awards would get your price down to $20,000 a year. You can find out what the average award is at each college’s Common Data Set and a phone to the college may tell you what their highest award is.</p>