<p>If you're looking at an Ivy with a small population where you really get to know your professors, go for Princeton. Their undergraduate focus is unbeatable.</p>
<p>Also, Smith is amazing. I highly recommend it.</p>
<p>MIT is as undergrad focused as most schools on your list. I would definitely drop Rochester from your list. </p>
<p>I see you dropped Emory...I wouldn't. It has a great pre-med culture, a LAC feel and is affiliated to a top 20 Medical school.</p>
<p>But let me tell you, you are now down to 17 or 18 schools. Good luck narrowing it down to 8 or so schools! LOL</p>
<p>I disagree with dropping Rochester. Rochester is afilliated with an excellent med school (ranked above Dartmouth, Brown, BU, Georgetown), it's small size and undergrad focus are important assets, lots of research going on on their beautiful campus, a really good combined BA/MD program (if you are looking for that), and some good merit aid. It's also more of a match/safety than many of the others.</p>
<p>Agree with prettyfish about princeton. if you are considering Ivies, no reason to exclude it.</p>
<p>Hmmm...I still think I'll keep MIT off my list (though for not anything academic), but I will re-add Princeton to the list. I agree that Emory is a great school, but (and I have no clue why) my parents would never let me go to school in Georgia. Go figure.</p>
<p>jenskate1--</p>
<p>Check you e-mail inbox. ;)</p>
<p>will do :)</p>
<p>Definitely keep Stanford on your list. My homeschooled son is a senior there, and they really like homeschoolers. There are, I believe, chances to pursue research as an undergrad, if you go looking for them. Great overseas study program, if you are interested in that. And just a nice place to be, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Susan, I just sent you a PM.</p>
<p>Yes, Stanford will stay on my list no matter what. It's an hour away (when the commute is heavy), housing is guaranteed, and there's a good chance I'll be doing research there (at the med school) this summer and will have some research contacts.</p>
<p>Well, I've made two lists: a short one of schools it looks like I'll definitely apply to, and a lsit of schools to consider and to choose 3 or 4 schools off of. Thank you so much, everyone, for your advice -- I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>DEFINITE
Pomona
Rice
Saint Mary's
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>POSSIBLE
Columbia
Harvard
Northwestern
Smith
Tufts
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
U. of Chicago
U. of Rochester</p>
<p>Just be sure that you don't choose all reaches off that list - or you end up with a very top heavy set of schools.</p>
<p>good point</p>
<p>OK, this list is strikingly similar to the original one, but how would this be?</p>
<p>REACH
Columbia
Harvard
Pomona
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>TARGET
Rice
U. of Rochester</p>
<p>SAFETY
Saint Mary's
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego</p>
<p>(note: I put the UC's down as safeties because of their majorly adjusted admissions policies toward homeschoolers -- if you have certain test scores, you're automatically in)</p>
<p>I still feel that this list is rather "top heavy."</p>
<p>And so it should be, in that you need more schools that are super selective to have a bit of a chance to get into one of them. Just remember that some schools do like demonstrated interest, and some could not care less. Don't spend your time and efforts trying to get those schools like HYS's attention unless you have something truly spectacular to share. Be good to the target and safety schools, though UC is another grouping of schools where the app and stats do it all. So your focus is really not going too spread out. I think you should consider Smith. I have no association with the school--no kids there; but reading your posts, I think you would find what you want there. It would be recommended to visit there, as an all women's college is not for everyone, but a couple of days would give you a chance to see Uof Roch which would possibly make it a safety for you, let you sniff out the big boys, and visit Columbia which being in NYC is something you might want to experience as a visit.With the UC app taking two schools, and the common app taking a couple more, you can focus on the other apps and do a great job.</p>
<p>I would say that Smith definitely has the potential to be put back on the list, but my only hesitation is (and correct me if I'm wrong) that it isn't, to my knowledge, near a major teaching hospital (for that matter, this is a bit of an issue with Pomona). I'm not so concerned about affiliation as I am with proximity. For example, Saint Mary's obviously isn't affiliated with a med school/teaching hospital, but it isn't far from Oakland Children's Hospital, which just opened an Immunology/Vaccine research center -- my exact field of interest. So if anyone knows about such opportunities at/around Smith (or Pomona), I'd love to hear what you know.</p>
<p>And I agree about visits, jamimom. My parents are the ones who don't want to visit the East Coast, try as I might to persuade them! lol</p>
<p>This site might give you an idea of what kind of clinical teaching facilities are in the Smith College area (ok, some of them aren't that close). You could research this list and see what's out there.</p>
<p>PS. If you visit U. of Rochester, they'll give you a free t-shirt - just one more incentive :)</p>
<p>City of Hope, a cancer research center located in Duarte, is only 15-20 miles west of Claremont. It usually has research positions available to Pomona students through Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP). The program is open to everyone, including freshman. Even if you can't find suitable research opportunities through the program, you can probably contact the center yourself. </p>
<p>I don't think Pomona offers immunology courses/labs (you have to go to the joint sciece program offered through CMC, Scripps, and Pitzer), but I might be outdated on that. Anyway, CoH's focus on cancer and lymphoma research might provide the complement.</p>
<p>It does take 20-30 minutes to drive there. But you probably have a car already being a CA resident.</p>
<p>As far as I know there isn't a major teaching hospital near Smith. So if that is the key issue, you should cross it off the list.</p>
<p>But I would note that major amounts of student research in immunology, represented in published papers. This will give you a good example:</p>
<p>You'll notice that he has 9 undergraduate research assistants, likely STRIDE scholars at Smith, who are paid to do research in their first two years. I could be wrong, but I doubt that you'll find that at any of the Ivies you listed (especially in the first two years.) Kick the tires and find out. (It's one of the reasons visits help.)</p>
<p>My nephew went to a college affiliated with a top research hospital. Getting any opportunites for research there was not easy--there were opportunities within the science departments at the university at low levels for undergrads, but the best stuff went to the grad students and the top upperclassment. And so it is with many such universities. Smith would offer research opportunities to students that would have very little chance of getting anything at a top level research university with an associated hospital. Having lived much of my life as the wife of a postgrad student, I can tell you that though there is much research happening at these universities, few undergrads get a taste of anything substantial as there are layers of other types with higher priorities and more experience. H never worked with undergrads in his work--all grad and postgrads. Just something to think about.</p>
<p>UC Riverside has a program where you transfer after 3 years and get your MD at UCLA. That would knock off a year in your quest to get an MD, but you have to pick it carefully on your apps.</p>