Help me Find Match Schools (Northeast Area)

College Search & Selection
1

I want to go to a school preferably in the Northeast. I don’t care as much about size as long as it has a great academic program.

I am from Montana, so I would love some tips for good schools that would be a match for my academic profile

I am Full IB, unweighted 4.0. I want to major in philosophy. Financial Aid will not be a deciding factor for me.
ACT-none yet. Because of Covid.

ECs: Speech and Debate (4 time All-State, State Champion, Academic All American recognition), BPA (regional places in 8 events), MUN (award for position paper), Mock Trial (State witness award and 3rd place finish), Track (lettered), Orchestra (multiple state and district Superiors for Music Festival, concertmaster, private lessons)

Community Service: NHS, Food bank, Math tutoring, began remote lessons after schools shut down, created anti-discrimination curriculum which I have implemented in elementary schools across my town, student teacher, Meals on Wheels, social media head for small nonprofit (pretty recent though).

Honors: Honor roll, social studies, language distinction
Recommendations: Fine, I don’t know since I can’t read them

Any recommendations for match schools would be appreciated!

2

UPitt is strong in philosophy.

3

What about the school’s setting? In a city, easy transportation to or from airport for breaks? Rural area, 2+ hours from an airport?

Structured core requirements or open curriculum? Greek life? Athletics?

You really need something to use as a starting point so we don’t just start listing names of almost 700 colleges in New England, NY, NJ and PA…

4

Ditto on what @helpingmom40 said.

We need more info about what you are looking for in terms of school culture.

Beyond that, larger schools with strong philosophy programs include NYU, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, and Brown.

There are good programs at some LACs, but as @helpingmom40 said, we need more info to go on.

5

University of Rochester’s (NY near Toronto) a high-match/low-reach school, especially if you have strong stats. Juniata College and Allegheny College (both in PA) are safeties that offer decent partial-tuition merit awards. Both Juniata and Allegheny are small LACs (with no application fee,) while UofR has a LAC-like feel but with the resources of a research university.

I second @LoveTheBard 's recommendation of Brown, although I’m obviously biased since I go here. Brown’s Open Curriculum makes it extremely easy to study multiple interests—~20% of undergraduates double concentrate (major!)

Hope that helps!

6

Recently you expressed an interest in computer science and technically focused schools such as RPI. How committed are you to your newly stated direction of philosophy?

7

I’m interested in a city, or at least an area where everything is walking distance. I like open curriculum. Athletics aren’t super important to me, but it would be nice to go somewhere with good greek life (though its not a major part)

8

I’ve been looking at your other posts, an I think that you need to take a few days to figure out what you really want to do.

You have great academics, great ECs, and, in general, seem to have done very well in high school.

However, you keep on jumping around with your major and what you are looking for in a college.

The problem with all of this is that people are giving you a lot of excellent advice, but, since you have asked about a couple of different majors, and a couple of different directions for what you want from a school, the amount of advice is increasing, but is probably pulling you in even more directions.

Based on your profile, finding great schools for safeties, matches, and achievable reaches will not be a problem - the problem will be to shorten that list.

So I would recommend that you take a few days to sit down and organize your thoughts regarding what you are looking for in a college, and what you would like the college to provide to you. Make some lists, if it helps.

Then you can come back here and get some more focused advice for the best colleges for safety, matches, and reaches.

Good luck!

9

UofR has greek life, at least according to my alumni interviewer. However, as I don’t attend the school AND my alumni graduated at least 10+ years back, idk to what extent—reading CC threads/YouTube would be your best bet to find out more.

10

A nice little NESCAC will do it, to start looking. Get an idea what they offer and then drop down to find safeties.

Right, CC will give you endless lists of school names, whether or not they really fit you. You can get better in a good college guide. Fiske or Princeton Review. Get one now.

Everything on campus is usuallly “walking distance” or they have busses. Don’t overestimate how much time you’d spend off campus. Especially the first years. And now with covid.

Btw, you don’t get admitted based on what you want. It’s when you match what they look for. So while you figure out where your interests truly lie, get a better read on what these college want to see in your app and supp. Not just what you cited, but the sort of person you are, enegrgies et al, and how to show that.