<p>So I thought I finalized my college list a month ago, but then I started adding schools that may give me scholarships and my list has grown by a few spots. My list is fairly long now, so I listed colleges in order from reaches to safeties. I want to know if it looks too long, too top-heavy, etc....thanks.
short list of my stats: SATI:cr.m.w: 710.770.800 SAT IIs: math2.bio.us: 760.730.730
GPA: 94-95 uw (will take ACT this month, and more SAT IIs in October)
APs: Bio, US, Lang, Euro-5 Microecon/Macroecon-4
ECs: DECA Regional President, Varsity Tennis Captain, Model UN Officer/Chair, Mock Trial Captain, Intern at U.S. Senator's office, Alto Sax & Sitar(Indian Instrument) for 6 yrs.
-extra notes: I'm interested in business/law, I'm Asian (Indian) and a NYS resident
So here's the list:
1) Harvard
2) Princeton
3) Yale
4) Stanford
5) UPenn-Wharton (ED)
6) Columbia
7) Dartmouth
8) Cornell-AEM
9) UChicago (EA)
10) WashU
11) NYU-Stern
12) Emory-Goizueta
13) University of Rochester
14-16) SUNYs-Geneseo, Bing, Stony brook</p>
<p>Hmmm… Your list is WAY heavy on high reaches with very few safeties. Will you really be happy at the SUNYs if you don’t get into the others? You look like a great kid, with great preparation and all that. But keep in mind that there are thousands of schools with DECA presidents and tennis captains. You are qualified to get into the Ivies, but not a shoe-in. NOBODY is a shoe-in. </p>
<p>You really need to get more schools that you like and less with the names. Is there a real, definable <em>reason</em> you like schools 1 - 10, or is it just that you’ve heard of them or they’re high in rankings? </p>
<p>This is a canned message - nothing personal - but there are a bunch of threads on CC where someone didn’t get into the colleges they wanted because they thought they were good enough to get in to the top schools. They have 10 times too many people who are “good enough”. So you have a 10% chance of being one of the lucky ones.</p>
<p>No matter how good you are, you can’t guarantee admission into ANY of the top several colleges. 10% chance of acceptance times 10 schools does NOT equal 100% chance. You must find some safeties that you 1) will get in, 2) can pay for, and 3) would want to go to. Following is a whole fleet of threads along the lines of “oh no, I didn’t get in, what do I do?”. Don’t be posting your own in a few months!</p>
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<p>GeekMom63 thanks for the response, and I certainly see your point, but everything on my list is truly there for a reason. It does look like I picked school’s for purely prestige but this isn’t entirely true. </p>
<p>Here’s my reasoning for my reaches:
1-4) HYPS-loved the campuses, great places to study economics, strong social sciences programs, yes they are huge reaches but if I don’t apply I have no chance of getting in
5) UPenn-Wharton (ED)-my top choice, love the Wharton program, my sister went here I know the school well
6) Columbia-visited and loved the campus, would be a good place for econ/law (later)
7) Dartmouth-strong liberal arts, I’m less familiar with this school so I may take it off
-I know Cornell, WashU, UChicago, and NYU-Stern are all reaches for me but I think they’re definitely worth keeping on my list</p>
<p>-What match-level schools do you think I could add to make it less top heavy?</p>
<p>any other opinions? thing I should take off? match or safety schools i should add on?</p>
<p>If you were to get denied from the top schools on your list, would you still be happy going to a SUNY? If not then try and work on some other safety’s.</p>
<p>I would prefer UofRochester over the SUNYs, but I consider UofRoch a safety as well…is it not? If anyone could offer me any suggestions about specific safety schools I should add, based on my stats, I would appreciate it :)</p>
<p>If you have an interest in Finance I would keep Dartmouth -its hard to beat in that area.</p>
<p>If you were to be happy at the SUNYs if all else fails your list is perfect, if not add at least another match or safety. Mabe you would like Syracuse University?</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestion missninx3…SU’s a good school…and I know Whitman is a good business school but I don’t think I want to apply there. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any good ideas for matches withing the top 50, or with top business programs. Any other safety ideas.</p>
<p>*Your list is WAY heavy on high reaches with very few safeties. Will you really be happy at the SUNYs if you don’t get into the others? *</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year? Is there a chance that you’ll get into your favorite schools but not be able to afford to attend?</p>
<p>Would you be happy at a SUNY? If not, you need to also apply to some other schools that you would like that would give you big merit for your stats as alternative financial safeties. </p>
<p>However, if your parents will pay for whatever school you’ll get in and you won’t mind a SUNY, then great!</p>
<p>This list looks pretty much like the US News top 10, a couple others from the top 20, and a couple of in-state schools tacked on at the end. Very few of these schools award large numbers of “scholarships” if by that you mean merit aid. To find the sweet spot for merit aid, generally you have to move a little farther down in the rankings to schools like USC and some of the Midwestern LACs, or to state universities that have had a relatively hard time attracting top students from their own states.</p>
<p>There is no reason to apply to HYPS for the sake of applying, unless you liked them all, not because of the prestige factor. They do not have the programs you want, business and law are all graduate programs in those schools. You should cut down the schools at the top and apply some in the middle ranked but with good business programs such as Wake Forest, UVa and UNC for example. If you have good grades in UG, you can get into law schools in HPYS easily. </p>
<p>There is a Big Gap in your list between Emory and SUNY… You should close that gap, not based on prestige factor but to your own interest.</p>
<p>Posters with more than 10 schools always strike me one of two ways. First, there are the fin-aid “shoppers”, applicants who submit a lot of paperwork hoping to come up with a spectacular aid package. Given the inherent costs, I have no problem with this attitude. Second are the students hoping to hit the “big name prestige lottery”; they apply to schools that are all very good and but they treat them as interchangeable - “really, what’s the difference between Harvard, Yale and Princeton, I’ll apply to all three”. The risk with this approach is that the attitude comes through in the applications. Did any thought process at all go into choosing 7 of 8 Ivies, Stanford and Chicago? It reads like little more than the USNWR “Best Undergrad Econ” list. </p>
<p>Schools 1-9 are some of the most selective in the US, schools 10-13 are only somewhat easier to get into. Your ability to get into the top 13 will depend on your statistical profile and your ability to relate through the essays. Statistically you’re average for the top 10 of your schools, your SATs are above average but your GPA is average to slightly below for some of the schools. So you will be relying on your performance in the “Why…” essays, (Why Penn, Why Stanford, Why etc). Given the competition you will be facing at these schools, I personally find it very difficult to see how you can do justice to 13 applications and 13 sets of supplemental essays. </p>
<p>You seem to be attracted to these schools because they “have nice campuses and would be good places to study economics”. Well those schools already know that and have a surfeit of applicants telling them the same thing. My recommendation is to keep Wharton because you have a connection to the school, of the remaining 8 schools in the top 9. I’d pick 3 and then write exceptional applications for those instead of half-baked apps for all of them. Keep schools 10-13 and take 1 of your SUNYs. That leaves you with 9 schools, still a lot but far more manageable that 16.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, I think BC and Babson will be your matches, maybe Northeastern…</p>
<p>Rochester is a match for you, maybe a low match, but not a safety. Rochester and NYU seem to be your only matches, so it may be worth adding one or two more. You have safeties covered with the SUNY schools. You have way too many reaches, and I would suggest cutting down on them, and replacing them with matches. Perhaps GW, U. of Richmond, Lehigh? </p>
<p>Princeton Review gives a Selectivity number to schools. Most of your schools are probably 98 and 99. You could use more schools in the 95-97 selectivity range. </p>
<p>Do you know what your rank is? Does your school rank? Does your school have Naviance?</p>
<p>okay…so yes I realize my list is eerily similar to US News rankings, but my parents are willing and able to pay for any college I go to for undergrad, and they just wanted me to apply to some low match schools that might give me a scholarship, since there is certainly a chance that I could get rejected from many of the top tier schools on my list.
In regards to HYPS, I know they’re different schools that are not interchangeable, but I’ve done campus visits to these schools and know there are great opportunities there. I’ve already finished my Harvard supplement, and am part way through my Stanford one and I don’t feel as if I’ve written half-baked essays. Obviously for my “Why School X” essays I will not only write about how much a liked the campus, since this would be painfully trite. I know HYPS don’t have undergad business programs or pre-law or anything like that as well.</p>
<p>In regards to my gpa/rank…our school does not rank and does not weight GPAs, but I am in the top of my class (at least top 10%), and I take as many APs as I can fit in my schedule with other classes (about 4-5 per year) which is considered rigorous at our school. Our school does have a Naviance, and our grads do pretty well at admissions at selective schools, but I know with ivy-league schools chances are often like the lottery. </p>
<p>Yes I do hate the thought that I very well may be rejected from over 50% of the schools on my list, but I can’t remove any reaches from my list without feeling a sense of regret. Essays are my strong point, and I feel like I could use them to my advantage in applying to some of my reaches. But I’ve considered what people have said and I’m thinking of taking a few reaches off my list and substituting them with strong matches. </p>
<p>I might replace one of my high reaches with Carnegie Mellon, because Tepper is such a strong program there…am I on the right track here or is Carnegie Mellon a reach as well???
And thanks for the school suggestions artloversplus and sacchi, I was looking into BC and Babson. Undergrad business isn’t my only interest, however. If I get into a school I really like that doesn’t have an undegrad business school I’m interested in political science and economics as well. Any other suggestions? I appreciate the feedback.</p>
<p>Also, as a side note, places like Wash U and Dartmouth and SUNY Bing don’t have supplemental essays that I have to finish, so if I’m interested in these schools why shouldn’t I apply???</p>
<p>11 of the schools on your list have acceptance rates of ~20% or lower, below 10% for several of them. You don’t indicate that you have any admissions hook that would increase your odds, although your stats are within range for those schools. So, you have 80-90% odds of being rejected from 2/3 of the schools on your list. </p>
<p>Since you have access to Naviance, you can compare how students from your school with similar stats have fared, which should be really helpful in selecting which colleges to apply to. </p>
<p>BTW, most top schools have pre-law advising, but not a pre-law major.</p>
<p>CMU had an overall admission rate of about 36% last year. For men, the percentage was slightly lower, just under 33%. Looking at Naviance for your school will really give you the best sense of what is a reach or match for you. Be aware that Naviance will not show you if an admitted student was an athletic recruit, legacy, or otherwise hooked.</p>
<p>Have you visited Binghamton and Rochester?</p>
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<p>The overall admission rate was 36 %, but the admission rate for the Tepper School of Business in particular was just under 16 % (see admission statistics [here](<a href=“Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University”>Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University)). </p>
<p>Keep in mind that, at CMU, one has to apply separately to the different colleges. You may apply simultaneously to more than one college though.</p>
<p>I haven’t visited Binghamton, but I’ve been to UofRoch a lot since I live in Rochester…thanks for the Tepper statistic bruno</p>