Have I Created A Good List?

College Search & Selection
1

I’m not sure if this is the right sub forum for this, but I was wondering if I could get feedback on my college list.

I’m a white male from a Major City in the American South, who isn’t requesting aid.
Stats:
Act: 35 (35, 36, 35, 32, 33 - Writing)
No Plans to take the SAT
PSAT within state range for National Merit Scholar
Sat 2: World History 800, plan to also take Math 2, and maybe physics or US History
AP: World History 5, taking Physics, Lit & Comp, and US History this year, with more next year.
GPA: School doesn’t increment letter grades, so unweighted is a 4.0, and my GPA is in the top 5% of the class.
Awards: National Merit Scholar, School Departmental Honors, Eagle Scout

ExtraCurriculars:
NJCL- No leadership yet, but plan to get a position, and have won ribbons from Section to National
Theatre- Been an active participant since middle school
Boy Scouts- An active scout into high school, and city level leader in the Order of the Arrow
First Robotics- Heavy Participation Freshmen and Sophomore years, quit at the midpoint of Junior year to maintain my involvement in everything else

Recommendations and Essay: Essays should theoretically be good. My Counselor and one Teacher recommendation will likely be excellent, but the third is more of a wild card, I can go with a math teacher who will probably give me an above average, but not insane letter of reccomendation, or the latin teacher who I’ve been taught by for two years and moderates our NJCL Chapter.

Intended Major: Economics & Philosophy, or PPE programs at some of the schools I’m applying to

My List is:

Early Decision: Columbia
Early Action: UChicago
Applying to Rolling Admission Early: State Flagship Honors Program
Regular Decision:
Pomona
Penn- A&S
Dartmouth
Brown
Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore
Claremont-Mckenna
Washington and Lee
Carleton
Middlebury
Hamilton
UVA

I just wanted to make sure and get a third party assessment of whether or not, I have odds for some of the top level schools.

2

Your application is appropriate for all of your choices and your odds are fine for them when considered as a group. Washington & Lee, for example, seems to like Eagle Scouts, which will certainly help you there. Your state university should serve as a safety for you. Pomona, Swarthmore, Williams and Middlebury statistically appear to favor males in admission, which could increase your chances at these colleges.

Your list is heterogeneous in terms of school character, but that’s common, and may not actually be by your own assessment.

Many of your choices are particularly strong for economics, notably Williams, Middlebury, Hamilton, UChicago, Claremont-McKenna, Columbia, Brown and Penn.

(“Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges” and “US Economics Departments,” IDEAS.)

3

This is slightly off topic but don’t you need to take the SAT to validate the PSAT score for National Merit? Seems shortsighted not to do that if you are in your state’s range for National Merit Semifinalist. Or are you just in range for Commended?

4

It seems unusual to me that you would be interested in large urban schools as well as small rural schools simultaneously.

5

Re #3, the smaller schools referenced are purely undergraduate focused. This can be considered essential to their appeal and not just an incidental aspect of their environments.

6

Think of fit - this reads just like a “top colleges” list. W&L and Carleton on the same list? Dartmouth and Brown?

In addition, your list reads like this:
1 safety
LOTS of reaches for everyone

So, right now, you need to cull that list of reaches by focusing on “fit”.
Second, you need to find 5 schools with acceptance rates in the 30-50% range, plus at least one more safety (could be another respected flagship’s honors college, outside of the typical UCs, UNC, UMich - since money is no problem, Penn State Schreyer or USC Columbia Honors or U Wisconsin Madison would all be good additions - I’d pick 2 of those actually since Schreyer has roughly an 8% admit rate.)

7

I don’t think urban and rural schools are mutually exclusive. For some students, one or the other is a clear choice. Our family has relocated many times due to work and our D would be happy in either so she is considering schools in both locations. Assistance with finding a major, structure of curriculum, feel of campus itself, etc. are far more important considerations.

8

You have some great stats. Though, you won’t me NMF if you don’t take the SAT.

I agree with @MYOS1634 - It looks like a lot of reaches. If you check out some of the results threads from the last couple of weeks, you’ll see high stat students with a lot of rejections and waitlists. Some are left with only one safety school they don’t even want to attend. Please find a few schools where you are in the 85%+ range in stats. Don’t be left with one unwanted choice.

9

Would I reliably be able to get into NYU Arts & Sciences or the mid tier UC’s (between LA and SC) pretty reliably, otherwise what’s the good thing to look for for safeties?

10

I agree, that most of the schools are reaches for pretty much everyone. Your list is not balanced to include enough match and some good safety schools as well. And you are all over the map with urban universities and rural LACs with the only common denominator seemingly being high rankings. Think hard about what you want in a college experience and it may help you to narrow down your list of reaches. For a safety schools I always recommend people have one or two that have non-binding EA or rolling admissions so you know you will be in by Dec.(Fordham?, Tulane? State flagship? UMichigan?)

11

What about a school like Connecticut College, Trinity College, or Union College?

12

Find one you’d like and show interest. I’d suggest you look at St. Lawrence as well. In some ways, I like SLU more than some notably selective northern tier LACs.

13

Too many reaches, and probably too many applications overall. Your list would ideally be more balanced between dream schools and more reasonable schools.

14

Yes the midtier UC’s (UCD to UCSC) would be good safeties. In addition it’s just one application for all UC’s. Select 2 UC’s.
For matches, look for universities (especially LACs) with 30-50% acceptance rates.

15

You are mixing LACs and Research Universities, showing that you have not though about or decided which kind of school is your best fit.

16

@snarlatron You know, people can have different types of colleges on their list even if they have done research. Some aren’t as picky as others.

17

You should have one “financial safety”, one where you’re sure to get a substantial scholarship: you’re assuming you’ll be full pay verywhere (I suppose you’ve discussed it with your parents and they’ve given you a total like 250K for your 4 years - if not, talk with them asap) but bad things happen. Having a least one financial safety (ie., not UC’s!) is very important.

18

So I decided to check out the link posted above by deadpoolz. I didn’t find it particularly novel or insightful. And the site was annoying because it tried to get me to sign up there. All this made me a little suspicious, so I decided to check out deadpoolz’s postings/history here – they’ve been here about a week, and the vast majority of their posts mention that site. What’s more, the vast majority of the mentions of that site on CC are by deadpoolz. Something smells fishy here.

19

The financial safety is auto admit to the state flagship, one of the most affordable in the country, I buried it in the OP, but I’m not as negative on it as I sounded.

20

ok good. Now, build from there. Choose your UC’s (UCSB, UCD, UCI, UCS would all be possibilities but you really only need 2 of those). Then find matches. Since you like LACs as well as national universities, select 2-3 from each category with admission rates in the 30-50% range. I’d recommend LACs because they’re more self selective, so that the higher acceptance rate may well correlate with better stats than most flagships. Make sure they’re schools you really like and express interest - no school wants to be someone’s safety. Join the mailing list, visit if you live within driving distance, click on everything they send you. Once you’re done with the matches, you can add whatever you want for reaches/dream schools.