My mom keeps telling me I need one or two more safeties that are small LACs where I would have a good chance of getting in and would get really good aid if none of my reaches/matches work out. I have a 3.99 UW, 33 ACT, have taken 7/9 APs offered at my school, volunteer regularly at a science museum among other things, and placed nationally in a sporting event. Right now my list goes:
Reach:
Dartmouth
Penn
Brown
Claremont Mckenna
Carleton
USC
Match:
Occidental
University of Minnesota
UW Madison (these state schools are more like safeties, really, I think)
Safety:
Loyola U Chicago
Is there any shuffling I should do in terms of difficulty with the list above?
What are other schools you would recommend with maybe 20-40% admission and good aid? Aka prestigious yet affordable
I live in the midwest but they don’t necessarily have to be in that area.
St. Olaf is an excellent school. Muhlenberg also fits the bill for an Eastern school. University of Scranton is superb for science and you are a free ride candidate.
You are clearly someone who knows what they want. As a means for generating ideas, this list can be useful: “The Experts’ Choice: Colleges with Great Pre-med Programs” (available online). You will find more matches than safeties, but you still may find at least one or two near safeties that might be suitable for you.
I would second St. Olaf. If you are female, look at some of the women’s colleges like Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke. LACs like Denison, Dickinson and St. Lawrence can be generous w/merit aid.
Make sure you are demonstrating interest to these small colleges. They like to feel the love.
How much can you afford to pay? There are scads of decent LACs all around the country that would be likely to admit you and might throw some merit money at you. Like St Olaf? Then check out Luther & Susquehana.
Just want a guarantee of admission? Then read through this list:
Yes, a lot of those aren’t LACs, but for a biology major a larger university will offer a wider variety of undergraduate majors within the bio-science.
I visited St. Olaf and it wasn’t really for me. That’s interesting about the demonstrated interest, haha, I never really thought about it. In terms of women’s colleges, do you know much about Scripps? I toured Pomona and Claremont but didn’t really make an effort to check out the other schools but if I could be a part of the consortium I think I’d be happy there. As for the Experts’ Choice list, I’ve thought about Amherst and Bates and those other small East Coast schools, but I would like to know, are they fun socially? How hard is the work? I’ve heard Swarthmore is one of the hardest academic schools around, and conversely the hardest part of the Ivy League is getting in, haha.
I’m not exactly sure what I can afford to pay. My net price calculators for Claremont, USC, and Dartmouth ranged from $18k to $24k and my parents didn’t seem too flustered by that amount (that’s probably because my sister who is graduating from Concordia Moorhead will graduate with like $80k in debt) but I know I’d like to get a great education at a decent price. Plus, my mom is now starting school again to attain her bachelor’s and my middle sister will be in college for another two years, this stresses us financially, but it may help in aid. The thing is, is that I realize there are so many to choose from and it’s making my head spin! I wish there was just a magical way to know what school would be the best for you and cost the least…
Schools like Swarthmore, Bates, Amherst do not offer merit aid. Nor are they safeties despite your nice stats. The schools I mentioned in my previous post offer great academics combined with less selectivity and merit aid.
“As for the Experts’ Choice list, I’ve thought about those . . . East Coast schools, but I would like to know, are they fun socially?” (#8)
Well, you could cross-reference the list with PR’s Top Ten Party Schools (I think you would end up with Colgate and Bucknell). I’m not seriously suggesting this as a method for selecting your college, but only as a way to relax your preconceptions regarding schools you have yet to become fully familiar with.
“and cost the least”
If your schools are within a reasonable price range of each other, I would no longer consider cost as a major deciding factor.
Medium size schools with merit aid: University of Vermont and Denver University
If you’d consider smaller smaller LACs in the PNW with merit: Lewis and Clark, Willamette, Puget Sound
for higher selectivity but still offering some merit: Colorado College and Whitman
I’m sure by now that it has been suggested that you attend a school with good admission rates to med school and that cost the least amount of money. Check the schools to make certain that they give a student a “committee letter” and have a noteworthy faculty advisor for pre-med. I would even suggest contacting the advisor. There is a pre med forum on CC that you should check out. If you look at LAC’s, choose one that is known for research. Med school, like law school will look at GPA and MCAT scores and letters of recommendation. You do not want to finish undergrad. with a lot of debt.
@smithemi97 My daughter is applying to Bates and Middlebury she is below average for a female applicant but you are about average. Still, the acceptance rates are only 15% at best.
Socially, they are rather quiet compared to Midwestern norms. Workload? My daughter met with professors at both schools that said average grades in their classes for freshman were C to C plus. If you don’t interview at Bates, your chance of getting in is even lower. Middlebury doesn’t have on campus interviews but meeting local alumni is encouraged. We have not visited Swarthmore but we live close and it is a very serious school.
Similar schools that are more rambunctious are Colgate, Bucknell, Lehigh, Gettysburg and Holy Cross.
Gettysburg and Muhlenberg would be safeties for you and are excellent schools. I wouldn’t call Holy Cross a safety but you will get in without an issue. However, it is known as a meat grinder work wise, especially in sciences.
@doschicos those choices were in response to the suggestion of looking at the Experts’ Choice list, so yes, I know those are more selective, but even schools that don’t offer merit aid can provide a nice aid package if they have a good endowment, right?
I definitely can’t afford C’s if I’m trying to get into med school, so I guess those two are out. Dickinson and Denison both look really nice according to google images, I’ll check out their CC threads.
@smithemi97 - Yes, they should offer nice FA due to endowment size, however, some of the other less selective schools could potentially offer you more in terms of FA and merit combined as they wish to attract higher stat students. Apply to a combo of both. My comments above were in reference to your inquiry for financial AND academic safeties. Just pointing out that those schools would not meet that criteria.
Dickinson and Denison are both very nice campuses and good schools.
Not sure what classes those professors were teaching that @ScaredNJDad’s daughter spoke to but the average Bates and Middlebury class will not have a C average. Grade deflation doesn’t exist at that level at those schools.
Yes, they are very generous with need based money and what they consider high income is much higher than what average families earn. Even if your family earns 100k a year, I would doubt you pay more than 50% of the stated tuition. You should have your parents do the calculators. In NJ, high stat students can go to these schools for the same cost as Rutgers. Ivy League schools are even cheaper than Rutgers.
@doschicos they were Math classes but average GPA’s at least according to kids we spoke to were B -. Many said there freshman grades were not very good.