<ul>
<li>Preferably metropolitan setting (although rural is not a total dealbreaker, I'm considering Cornell + Oberlin) with great off-campus activities available</li>
<li>Excellent financial aid programs</li>
<li>Religious affiliations are fine, but I'd like it to be a bit scaled back (I was turned off from Georgetown when I learned they don't allow stem-cell research)</li>
<li>Educationally diverse student body (plenty of people majoring in different fields)</li>
<li>Good biological (big extra points for neurobiological undergrad programs) and poli sci/literature departments</li>
</ul>
<p>Here is my current list:
William and Mary
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
UChicago
UVA
Princeton University
Columbia University
Cornell University</p>
<p>Thoughts? I can't thank you enough for the help.</p>
<p>Are you looking at any safeties? Have you thought about NYU or is their traditionally small amount of financial aid turning you off? Johns Hopkins (my first choice haha) has really good Bio I know. With regard to Cornell, it’s an amazing school but realize it is in the middle of NOWHERE. There is a lot to do both on and off campus and Ithaca is beautiful. However, if you’re coming from a big city, you might be in shock. Same thing goes for Oberlin.</p>
<p>My safeties are Oberlin and William and Mary, although I’m trying to look at more.
I’ve heard that about Cornell! It makes me sad but when it comes down to it, the fabulous academics and amazing financial aid for me outweigh the location. Same goes for William and Mary and Oberlin. I’d like to try to find more metropolitan schools/safeties.
Yeah, I wish NYU would cough up a little more aid. :)</p>
<p>Oberlin is tired of being a safety school. There was a CC member who’s story is well document here, Andi, whose son had very high stats and was rejected from ivies, top LACs and Oberlin, with no acceptances the first time around. He reapplied a year later and ended up at MIT, but choose your safeties wisely.</p>
<p>W&M is tougher for acceptance than UVirginia as well. Higher test scores, lower admit ratio, and smaller student body all add up to a tough admit. It should never be a safety for almost anyone.</p>
<p>Maybe a school like Richmond or Bucknell or American should be added to the list.</p>
<p>Yeah, you need a REAL safety, a college that makes second page of USN&WR, or even lower down. Everything can (and a lot of times will) go to h*ll in the process, and you’ll look like a fool. I don’t care if you’re valedictorian, president of every club, 2400 SAT, and cured cancer, you can easily get rejected from ANY of the top 50 private national Uni’s and LAC’s because of whatever. It’s happened countless times before.</p>
<p>So, pop the balloon filling in your head, and get a real safety, like U Pitt. It’s got a lot of nice programs and options, and if you work hard enough, there will be no difference between you and the guy from Harvard with a 3.9 college GPA. Because I can guarantee you, no private top 50 school will EVER be a safety.</p>
<p>That’s not very nice at all. I’m in-state for William & Mary and my mom went there. I did say I was trying to look at more schools, and that’s why - I always personally felt that they were too top-tier to be true safeties, but that’s all I could find that had the programs I’m interested in at the moment. There’s no need to be insulting.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins has a top 3 neuroscience graduate program behind Harvard and Stanford. It’s neuroscience undergraduate program is highly ranked too.</p>
<p>A neurosurgeon on this board recommended Hopkins and Brown for neuroscience.</p>
<p>History/English/Romance languages/Spanish/French/Italian/Near Eastern studies and literature are each ranked among the top 5 or top 10 in the nation. International relations at Hopkins undergrad is among the best in the nation too. The graduate IR program at Hopkins SAIS is also highly regarded too. Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was ranked the #1 terminal masters programs for International relations (poli sci kinda ish) in 2005 alongside powerhouses like Georgetown Walsh, Columbia SIPA, and Princeton WWS…</p>
It seems like a pretty solid list to me. While I agree with swish that using UVA and W&M as safeties is a bit risky, you’d have a solid shot at either with a 2200+ and top 10% rank.</p>
<p>If you can handle the cold, U Rochester might make an excellent safe match. It political science program is extraordinarily strong, and the sciences are strong as well.</p>
<p>Sorry OP, I was jsut mad that anyone could be ignorant enough to lead you to believe that W&M and UVA could be considered safeties. Wasn’t really supposed to be anger directed at you so much as others around you. At least you came here to be corrected.</p>
<p>Anyways, yeah, I liked IB’s term used above “safe matches”. That would be a great way to think of W&M and UVA. Still, you need “safeties”, thus my reasoning behind telling you to take a look at many of the quality Uni’s on the second page of USN&WR.</p>
<p>So with that in mind, try U Pitt (has sweet honors you could probably get into), Case Western (I know, violates my rule but with a 70% accept rate it’ll work. Trust me.), and UT-Austin.</p>
<p>Definitely check out the University of Minnesota. It has a great biology department and it has an amazing campus right in the center of Minneapolis. And at 14K tuition OOS, it is possibly the best bargain in the country. Definitely check it out for a solid match/safety.</p>
<p>Thanks for recommending UofM! I actually lived in Minneapolis for nine years before moving to Virginia, it’d be great to go back even I don’t miss the cold. :)</p>