Hi, I am a rising senior. I have a 3.9 UW GPA, 4.7 W GPA, and a 1530 on the new SAT.
As it stands, I have 9 schools that I will be applying to in the fall.
Cornell
Dartmouth
IU Bloomington(Priority)
Northwestern (ED)
UMD (Priority)
UMich (EA)
USC (California, not Carolina)
UVA(EA)
Vanderbilt
For whatever reason, my OCD has convinced me that I should apply to 10 schools, thus I am looking to add 1 more school to my list. I plan on majoring in something either business-related or STEM-related. Looking for a traditional campus with a good social scene, but not too rowdy or fratty. D1 sports are definitely a plus but not a necessity. Have any suggestions? Please let me know if I need to include anything else, thanks!
Not sure how you feel about Catholic universities but the following have strong business/sports/social scene: Villanova, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College.
Not D1 sports but Emory, WUSTL
@doschicos Forgot to mention that I am Jewish so I would feel a little weird at a Catholic university to be honest. I’ve taken WUSTL on and off my list 10 times, still thinking about. Don’t know much about Emory, will have to look into it. same goes or Rochester @merc81 . thanks to the both of you!
I can understand that, @acort0780. FYI, Emory has a good sized and active Jewish community.
University of Richmond has business and STEM, has a traditional campus with a good social scene, is Division I. It does have Greek life though. Has a higher admit rate than most of the schools already on your list.
You have a good shot at Penn, and it doesn’t get much better for business.
UPenn has an amazing business school and based on your GPA, you would have a fairly good shot!
OP, you are a good student with a good GPA and SAT scores (I think - it’s hard to keep up with all the College Board’s changes). You are competitive for top schools, but your list is very top-heavy. Cornell, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt are reach schools for anyone - you’re basically the average applicant there, so no guarantees. USC is probably more of a reachy match, but similar principle applies. Maryland, Michigan, and Virginia are very competitive and you are likely out of state to at least two if not all three of them, so getting in will be much more difficult (especially at Virginia). Indiana’s the only ‘safety’ on your list, and if you are OOS for Indiana it may not be a financial safety unless your family can afford to pay the cost of attendance.
So, I think that your 10th school should definitely be a safety school, both admissions-wise and financially. I also think that you should replace some of these reachy reaches with some match schools. If you apply to 10 schools exactly, then a good rounded list might be 3 reaches, 5 matches and 2 safeties. Even if you go more risky and forgo one safety for a reach - so 4 reaches, 5 matches and 1 safety - you’re still unbalanced here.
What state are you from? Your state’s flagship likely has D1 sports and a traditional campus. You said you had a cousin who worked at University of Chicago, so if you live in Illinois UIUC is a good one to put on your list, for example.
Also, in another thread you said that Penn was your dream school. So why isn’t it on here?
@juillet UMD is my state school. I feel that I have a very good shot at admission at UMD as my stats are well above the admitted range, same goes for IU. The reason my list is reach-heavy is because I am fine with going to UMD, so I figure applying to multiple reachy schools won’t hurt me as worst case scenario I get rejected from everywhere besides UMD and IU, and I end up going to IU. UPenn Wharton was my dream school over a year ago and the things I’m looking for in a school are much different now.