Help Me Finalize College List!

College Search & Selection
1

Hey everyone! I’m a rising HS senior trying to narrow down my list of schools that I’m going to apply to. I would ideally like to keep it at 10 or under.
Here are my stats from the MyStats feature on here (super handy)

Gender: F
College Class Year: 2020
High School: Public
High School Type: sends some grads to top schools

Academics:

GPA - Unweighted: 4.30
GPA - Weighted: 4.60
Class Rank: top 5%
Class Size: 280
AP Scores: AP Calc AB (4), AP English Lang (5), AP Psychology (5), APUSH (5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP English Lit, AP Physics C, AP German, AP Chem, AP Gov

Scores:

ACT: 35
SAT II Math Level 2 (IIC): 700 (probably going to retake, along with Chemistry and German)

Extracurriculars:

Significant Extracurriculars: Model UN
School newspaper staff
Marching band, color guard member
School musical, featured dancer
FBLA (state competitor in business law)
NHS
A Capella
District and Regional band, district chorus and orchestra

Leadership positions: Model UN (secretary, will be president senior year)
NHS (historian)
Marching band (co-section leader)
School newspaper (editor-in-chief)
A Capella group (co-leader)
Athletic Status - list sport and your level: haha sports

Volunteer/Service Work: Member of youth church choir
100+ hours as camp counselor/intern for visual and performing arts summer camps
20 hours helping to design and build sets for HS and MS
Intern at local law firm

Honors and Awards: Local leadership award/scholarship
Society of Women Engineers Merit Award (High Honor)
Underclassman music award
College Summer programs: Business camp at Lycoming College

I’m looking at schools mainly on the east coast-midwest region. I want to stay relatively in the north.
As far as what I want to study, I’m looking for a college with a strong interdisciplinary emphasis as I am interested in chemical engineering, business/marketing/economics, psychology and/or possibly pre-law LOL (aka I need to figure out what I want to do and want a school with flexibility and strong advising). I don’t want to go to a HUGE school, but some of the LAC’s I’ve visited seem too tiny.

I’m the only child and my parents have gratefully said that cost isn’t an issue.

UPenn (currently tied for top with northwestern)
UPitt (safety)
Northwestern
Tufts
University of Delaware (safety)
Johns Hopkins (haven’t visited)
WashUSTL (haven’t visited)
Columbia
UChicago
Dartmouth
William and Mary…? (don’t know a ton about this school, haven’t visited)

Thank you for your help and input!! I’m actually starting to get excited about this whole college thing :smiley:

2

It is a little reach-heavy, but as long as your safeties are safe both academically and financially and you would be happy to attend them, I think it’s a good list! If you were going to cut anything, I’d say cut one (or two) of the reach schools (obviously not UPenn and Northwestern if those are your top two). If at all possible (I know there isn’t a ton of time left) see if you can visit Johns Hopkins and WUSTL (and William and Mary if you’re still considering it) to figure out whether you still like them or whether they could be cut.

3

Thanks for your advice!! :slight_smile: I do plan on visiting Johns Hopkins and William and Mary but WUSTL is pretty far from where I live so I might not make it there, haha.

4

“GPA - Unweighted: 4.30”

4.3 out of what?

5

How about Emory? It would be a match for you (you seem to be lacking match schools) and you would be eligible for merit as well.

Tulane might be a good option, too. You could apply for rolling admission. You would probably get merit and would get a decision very quickly.

Personally, I would eliminate one or two reach schools. Will you be applying ED to Penn or Northwestern?

6

I’d cut W & M and Dartmouth, since neither is particularly strong for Engineering. I might add Rice, or even MIT instead.

7

Schools that might be closer to matches or low matches - BC, Wake Forest, UNC, Lehigh

8

@CHD2013 I don’t believe BC has an engineering program. Neither does Wake Forest.

9

(also, UNC is never a match for an OOS student)

10

It seems like several people think the OP is clearly on an engineering track. I’m not sure why.

11

If she ends up deciding she wants to do engineering (which she says she’s considering), she’d be outta luck if she ended up at Wake or BC. Why consider those schools when there are plenty of options out there that do offer engineering?

12

@Qwerty568 check your facts on Tulane rolling admissions

13

@GnocchiB What is that supposed to mean? I had two friends apply to Tulane early last year. One got a decision two weeks later (sometime in October) and received 35K per year in merit. The other got her decision in month with 20K merit. There was no set date when they received their decision, they just applied early. What am I missing here?

14

@Qwerty568,

From the Tulane admissions blog:

We aren’t technically a rolling school, but in many cases, the earlier you apply to Tulane, the earlier you will hear back from us if you apply early.

http://tuadmissionjeff.blogspot.com/2011/10/whats-deal-with-single-choice-early.html

Tulane refers to its programs as EA and SCEA.

15

Case Western, UVA, Carnegie Mellon

16

Tulane doesn’t want to call it rolling admissions, but that’s really what it is.

17

I happen to go to William & Mary if you want to know more about that school, I might be able to shed some light on it. It seems to fit everything you want in terms of size and interdisciplinary emphasis. The new college curriculum is especially focused on interdisciplinary study and there is the option to create your own major. I am not sure what you are looking for in terms of advising, but each student is assigned an advisor based off their major interests and can choose their own advisor when they declare their major. I have found mine pretty helpful, but how much you use them is up to you. William & Mary does have a 3:2 program with Columbia, but it does not have an engineering program of its own, so if you are explicitly looking for engineering you may not find it at the undergraduate level

18

Thank you to everyone for your input, I really appreciate it!! I have been doing a lot more looking. I’ve actually visited Carnegie Mellon and Case Western, but neither of them seem like they’d be the best fit, especially since I want a school strong in the liberal arts (communications, psychology) as well as engineering. The more I look the more I’m loving Northwestern, especially the quarter system enabling me to take a wider variety of classes (and possibly double major). Plus the school is strong in all areas I’m interested in. I forgot to mention that I want to continue music (as an extracurricular) in college. Penn doesn’t have a marching band but Northwestern definitely does!!

19

@Dunboyne
I wish I could clarify, but honestly my school’s GPA system confuses me. It’s supposed to be out of 4.0… so how I have a 4.3 unweighted I have no clue.

20

Lehigh sounds like your ideal school - have you visited?