<p>Would you recommend, for me, that I only apply to H,P,S,M & Penn/Stern/Michigan & the UC's?</p>
<p>My concern is that I suppose there is a chance I will be rejected from Cal & UCLA. Are my stats good enough that I am pretty safe w/ one of them (or should i wipe out some of the reaches & go w/ more matches)? If I used this strategy I'd have all my apps narrowed down. =)</p>
<p>Tell me if I'm wrong, but I heard the social life at MIT is dismal & not much else goes on there besides studying. Don't get me wrong, I don't just want to party...but I suppose I have a "work hard play a little bit" philosophy. So maybe take off MIT?</p>
<p>Same w/ Chicago or no?</p>
<p>Also, for some reason I think of Harvard as too big of a reach to even try for (but for some reason I think Princeton/Stanford are barely reasonable...maybe b/c they ignore freshman grades completely).</p>
<p>Any of those 3 that I should take off the list?</p>
<p>Forgot to mention, I will prob def apply to USC not as a safety but more as insurance (one of those matchish schools i will probably get into in case i get rejected from Cal/UCLA). </p>
<p>Also, I am really interested in CMU. I think I would fit in there.</p>
<p>MIT, CMU, Chicago and Johns Hopkins are schools with very serious academic atmospheres. But it does not mean that their students are stiffs. Obviousy, you are going to have more fun at Stanford than at Chicago, but if you want to have a fun time, any of those schools will do fine. </p>
<p>MIT is really tough for Engineers, but I thing Econ and Business majors have a more reasonable workload. But obviously, you want to apply to the schools you feel most comfortable with. If those should be Princeton and Stanford, so bit it. They are awesome. </p>
<p>I would not bother applying to USC. Cal, UCLA and Michigan are great matches for you and all of them are better and cheaper than USC.</p>
<p>As for CMU, if you really like it, go a head and apply to it. It has a reasonably good Econ department and a very respected B School.</p>
<p>How important is it to visit before apps are sent in? I kinda felt that for most schools I would visit after I was accepted (since I will be rejected by several of these).</p>
<p>I believe that visiting before applying is great because it helps you narrow down the schools you are going to apply to. It is pointless to apply to a school if you hate the campus and the locale.</p>
<p>As it stands, schools like H,P,S,Y and M would be extreme reaches, but other universities are certainly very possible. Schools like Chicago, johns Hopkins, Michigan, Cal, Borthwestern, Cornell etc... are matches and reasonable reaches. If you feel like you could have done better...redo your SAT. Adding an extra 150 points will make a significant difference.</p>
<p>hey stambliark41, Im in a very similiar situation to yours. I got 1550 on the SAT's, 34 on the acts and am all state for lacrosse and orchestra and a ton of EC. Im counting on these as my hooks, as my grades are pretty bad. 3.85 weighted.....which would make it like 3.5-6 unweighted. </p>
<p>I think you have a great chance at the top business schools alexandre mentioned. Im instate for uofm, and i can tell you now its a great place....work hard party hard school. My dream school would be wharton too but its pretty competitive. I think ill go to UofM or NYU stern, then hopefully transfer to Wharton for grad school. </p>
<p>As im instate, UofM is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper and is just as good if not better than NYU. </p>
<p>If you are all state in Lacrosse, you may have a great "in" at a top D-3 (or depending on the strength of your state's program, even a D-1) school-- your SAT is great so you wouldn't "drag down" the SAT average and this is a big plus with athletic recruitment.</p>
<p>You may want to look at highly academic D-3's-- schools like Williams, Amherst, Middlebury. NYU may also have Lacrosse; I don't know.</p>
<p>Look up the national and regional D-3 Lacrosse rankings for an idea of the sort of great school that would value your abilities.</p>