Having trouble narrowing down my college list

College Search & Selection
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<p>Your preferences make sense in terms of the things you’ve said you were looking for in a college; in essence, the schools that resemble Harvard THE LEAST are at the bottom of your list. Unfortunately, your preferences also seem to be inversely related to your best chance of getting accepted. Funny, how life always seems to work out that way. :)</p>

62

<p>Would it make sense to pick a very high reach or two out of:
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford</p>

<p>A medium reach or two out of:
Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Williams, Wesleyan, Duke</p>

<p>Or is that not the way I should be going about it?</p>

<p>I have replaced Davidson with Northwestern because I think Northwestern matched what I’m looking for a lot more than Davidson did.</p>

<p>And again, I really appreciate all the comments, it’s really been helping me with my decisions.</p>

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<p>That’s a perfectly valid approach; in fact, I can’t think of a better way of doing it.</p>

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<p>Hey squashgirl, that’s the exact same way I’m doing it and so far so great.
Best of luck :)</p>

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<p>Right now, Brown is pretty much my top choice. Would it be a good idea to apply ED, and then if I didn’t get in, make my list a little more safety-heavy, taking off some of the reaches?</p>

<p>But at the same time, I liked Harvard equally as much as Brown, I just know that getting into Harvard is like winning the lottery. Since I am waffling, would it be a better idea to apply SCEA to Yale or Stanford, and then base my list off my acceptance/deferral/rejection?</p>

<p>Or would it be even better to just apply early action to one of my safeties (the other doesn’t offer early action) and apply to all my other schools RD?</p>

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<p>Different folk have different strategies around this; some like to maximize their chances by placing everythng they’ve got (legacy, E.D./E.A, athletic tip, bang-up supplemental essay) into one reach application; others like to spread their “chips” around, as it were. There’s no right or wrong answer, here.</p>

<p>I’m not sure I get the “apply EA to a safety” strategy; just to have one acceptance under your belt early?</p>

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<p>If Brown really is your first choice, and FA is not a big issue, I’d say go with ED. It’ll allow you to harness your legacy status more so than if you apply in the ED round.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/728329-brown-legacy-admissions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/728329-brown-legacy-admissions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;