<p>In the fall, I'm going to be a junior. Over the summer, our college counselor has given us the "homework" of finding 20 schools we might be interested in and try to categorize them as either Reach, Match or Safety. I've started my list, but could use some help and advice.</p>
<p>A little about me:
White female from California
Projected ACT score: 32-35 (that's what I've been scoring in diagnostics and practice exams)
SAT II: Spanish - 750, Math II - 700 (retaking in the fall), projecting 780+ in French, will also take Chem but no projection yet
APs: Spanish - 5, next year I'm taking Calc AB, Chem and World, and then [projection] Calc BC, Physics C, English Lang senior year
GPA: 4.43 weighted</p>
<p>What I'm looking for in a college:
Strong International Relations program
Strong study abroad program
Preferably not in California</p>
<p>My list so far:
Georgetown
GWU
American
Macalester
JHU
Claremont McKenna
Princeton
Yale
Tufts</p>
<p>As you can see, I need 11 more for my list.
Obviously, Princeton and Yale are reaches, and I think GU is also. The rest I have no idea how to categorize.</p>
<p>I think you definitely need a couple schools that are more on the safety side.
Is there anything else your looking for in a school? Do you like more suburban, rural, or urban environments? Amount of students? Weather?</p>
<p>Using the collegematchmaker on collegeboard.com may be helpful to find some more schools that you haven’t thought of.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank. I would say easily top 20%, but I’m not positive any further than that. I go to a VERY competitive private college prep school, so it is much harder to get top 10%.</p>
<p>Amount of students: I’d say around 2000 to 15000. Definitely not any bigger than that. And that’s just counting undergrads.
Weather: No matter to me, I’m used to sunny CA weather but I love the cold as well.
Location: I’ve lived in a big city my whole life, so once again, doesn’t really matter to me. I would like a real campus though. That was a bit of a turnoff for GWU for me.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr (Peace and Conflict Studies)
Carleton (International Relations)
Connecticut College (International Relations)
Denison (International Studies)
Haverford (Peace and Conflict Studies)
Kenyon (International Studies)
Lawrence (International Studies)
Occidental (Diplomacy and World Affairs)
Reed (International and Comparative Policy Studies)
Swarthmore (Peace and Conflict Studies)
Vassar (International Studies)</p>
<p>Most prep schools keep great records on who got in where. You’ll get much better help from that than yo can get out of context here. Even at very top schools, Yale and Princeton are huge reaches without a hook unless you are very top of class.</p>
<p>Have you tried registering at collegeboard.com? You can input all of your stats and then enter desired major, location, school size, etc and voila…it gives you a list.</p>
<p>I have used “College Finders” such as the the one on collegeboard.com. The problem with those is that many schools with IR programs do not have a specific IR major and therefore don’t show up with the results.</p>
<p>Georgetown
GWU
American
Macalester
JHU
Claremont McKenna
Princeton
Yale
Tufts</p>
<p>First off I would say that your list is excellent: every school on it is excellent in IR as well as overall. Great job so far.</p>
<p>I would add the following, in no particular order (I was pretty much looking at the same type of schools, the same type of program a year or two ago and had similar stats, just slightly weaker, so I have quite a bit of firsthand knowledge of what you are looking for).</p>
<p>University of Chicago
Dartmouth
Lewis and Clark (easy safety, you won’t end up here, but you need a safety)
Connecticut College (safety)
Colby (very low match/safety)
Brown
Middlebury
Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore
William and Mary</p>
<p>Just for reference–I had a 3.9/2210 and ended up applying to
Georgetown
American
William and Mary
Middlebury
Colby
Conn College (safety)
Claremont McKenna
UChicago
Lewis and Clark (safety)
UW-Madison (safety)</p>
<p>Thank you bigp9998! Your post was extremely helpful, especially the safeties, as I didn’t have many on my original list. I don’t know a whole lot about LACs, so I am definitely going to read up on some of those.</p>
<p>Out of some of the universities listed on this thread, I’am also attracted to University of Wisconsin- Madison international relations program etc… very nice, but I wouldn’t count the school as a safety, maybe it could be a match for you.</p>