<p>Haha, well I've heard that NYU is the stingiest of them all : P</p>
<p>Thanks for the continued recs! I've heard of Fordham, I think...I'll look into it. The fact that it's in NYC is a HUGE plus.</p>
<p>It's also Catholic though, don't know how that'll affect your decision.</p>
<p>Brandeis could be somewhat of a match?</p>
<p>Fordham has a Catholic affiliation but welcomes students of all faiths and is a very appropriate choice for non-Catholics. One of my former advisees is a junior there now and is thriving, even though she, too, was hesitant to attend a Catholic college. She is very politically active and quite left-leaning, so she was wary at first, but she's had a terrific experience and has taken full advantage of Fordham's NYC location.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, do note that Fordham has two very different campuses. One, Rose Hill, is located in the Bronx and has the feel of a "real" college campus. The other is at Lincoln Center, smack in the middle of all the Manhattan action and with a different ambiance than you'll find at Rose Hill. </p>
<p>So prospective students checking out Fordham need to be aware of these options. The two-campus choice isn't unique, but it is unusual and thus potentially confusing.</p>
<p>Northeastern is a great option for a safety. Its the fastest rising school in the rankings over the last 4 years.</p>
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<p>Yes, Bryn Mawr is still a women's college, but it's also part of a consortium with Swarthmore, Haverford, and Penn, all top-notch schools. This gives you a very rich set of course offerings, as well as more social opportunities than you'd get at a stand-alone women's college. Of the four, Bryn Mawr has the highest acceptance rate (44%) and slightly lower stats (1200-1420 25th/75th percentile SATS, v. 1290-1500 for Haverford, 1320-1530 for Swat, and 1330-1530 for Penn). I don't know that I'd call it a "safety" but if you're competitive at Wellesley and Barnard, you should certainly be in the running at Bryn Mawr. It's got an outstanding reputation for academic excellence, and its location in suburban Philly, on the Main Line a quick 20 minute train ride into the city, sounds like it's right up your alley.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone! Based on research (aka browsing through CC and recent college visits), my heavily revised list goes like this:</p>
<p>Reaches:</p>
<p>Yale
Amherst
Columbia
Pomona
Harvard (maybe. I don't want to go to a college that's 10 minutes away but I'm a legacy through my dad. Getting your pHD at a school qualifies you as an alumni, right? He kind of counts on me applying.)</p>
<p>Matches:</p>
<p>Wellesley
Tufts
Bryn Mawr/Barnard (trying to decide if I should keep one or both)</p>
<p>Safeties:</p>
<p>UMass-Amherst (in-state, financial safety)
Northeastern</p>
<p>That's 10-11 colleges. Just right? Too many? Should I load up on more matches?</p>
<p>Tell us more about your grades, courses, test scores, interests, accomplishments, etc. It's impossible to assess whether this is a sensible list without knowing all of that. Certainly admission committees will see much more than what we see on this forum, so it's really not all that responsible to assess anyone's "chances" here ... but, of course, that's never stopped us before. :)</p>
<p>lg, for art and theater in the not too selective, not too leftish, I'd recommend Conn College, Hamilton, Skidmore, and somewhat to the west, Kenyon.</p>
<p>In the reach category, Williams is surprisingly great in the arts, much more so, I think,than Amherst, Pomona or Wellesey. I would consider adding in Wesleyan instead of one of the others.</p>
<p>I don't think 10-12 schools is too many when you have super-selectives on your list (though I would note that for someone who'd like to get away from Boston, you seem to be heavily weighted toward Boston schools). As long as you have safeties that you really wouldn't mind attending, then it doesn't much matter if your mid-range are reach-y matches or safe matches. </p>
<p>I like both U-Mass and Northeastern but I think as big impersonal universities they are very different from the schools on your wish list. I'd suggest you do more research in the less selective small to medium category. Women's colleges can be very good values in that category.</p>
<p>Ha ha Sally_R, the very thing I've been trying to avoid is a "chances" thread, but here I go anyway:</p>
<p>GPA: 9.8/11.
School: intensive boarding school (um, I think my profile pretty much gives it away). Sends around 70% to Top 20 schools, around top 25% are competitive for Ivies. Most popular schools: Harvard, UPenn, Columbia and Georgetown. I'm around top 15-20%? Average GPA for my year around 8.0 (B).
Courseload: very rigorous (can't say "most" because we have about different 30 math levels here, and only the true geniuses can ascend pass BC Calculus or Orgo Chem).
Basically all classes here are considered APs, so there's no weighting.
SAT: 2320 - reading 800 writing 800 math 720</p>
<p>ECs/awards: centered around 3 points: art, writing, and community service.
won several distinguished poetry/short story awards, painting awards, featured in galleries, won't mention c.s. achievements b/c they are very, very, specific and would probably give my identity away. Suffice to say, they are pretty awesome. I plan on making good use of the one-page attachment the Common App allows you to add to your EC credentials.
I'm also in StuCo and played one JV sport but that's kind of filler crap.</p>
<p>As you can see, my strengths are skewed waaayy towards humanities : ) I would <em>not</em> say I'm well rounded; my GPA is pretty good because my grades in History/English/French are way up there and my grades in math/chemistry are way down there, so it all balances out. Will have completed BC Calc by senior year, though. Surprisingly, I did well in bio and physics.</p>
<p>Possibly majors in college: psychology, philosphy/econ (econ appeals to my practical side)</p>
<p>Thanks, l_g. Sounds like your list is sensible. (Note disclaimer in previous message about not having access to the info that the adcoms will have.) Another factor, too, is the "competition" from within your school. A parent from a prep school comparable to yours (and I know there are few, but this was one of them) told me yesterday that 51 kids from the senior class had applied to Middlebury. My guess is that many of them were highly qualified. I don't know how many of that group Middlebury admitted, but I can assure you that it wasn't remotely close to 51. </p>
<p>This could be all prep-school grapevine hearsay. Those figures may not be accurate, but they're probably in the ballpark. The key point is that, although admission officials will typically say that applicants aren't competing with their own high school classmates, that's not exactly the straight scoop. </p>
<p>So, depending on how many (dozens of) others from your school have similar lists and how strong those others are, your odds could go up ... or down ... at your target colleges.</p>
<p>I still think you should add Smith. Assuming there are no skeletons in your closet, Smith sounds like a "Safe" choice for you. And, if finances are a concern, you might want to aim for some of the big merit scholarships at schools like Emory, BC, and BU.</p>
<p>momrath: I absolutely loved Williams when I visited, but in the end I had to ask myself, will I survive for four years in the Berkshires? The campus is beautiful and the kids were just the right mix of preppy/arty/academic/whatever, but I would probably go insane without a city nearby, or at least a consortium like Amherst/Pomona has. </p>
<p>And ha at the Boston thing; I just realized that too. Harvard <em>is</em> the closest though -- like, claustraphobically close. </p>
<p>re: safeties, I've decided that if I were to attend a safety college, I'd rather attend a large one than a small one. Normally I'd prefer a small-to-mid-size college, but at a larger university (for a safety), there'd be a wider range of people and honors colleges.</p>
<p>Sally_: thanks for the reply. No, you're absolutely right: the competition at my school is absolutely INSANE. It can get ridiculously cutthroat at times, even though most people are good at hiding it. All the grade-grubbing and sucking up and ECs-just-for-the-heck-of-it would put that chick from Election to shame. Out of the 100+ people that apply to harvard each year (that's 1/3 of the class), only around 15 get in. It's not unusual for kids here to apply to 12-15 colleges...in fact, I bet it's the norm.</p>
<p>Given that you have UMass as an all around safety, you should be good to go. The way many kids do a safety if by applying early action or rolling to a school and getting it in their pockets by the time they send out their RD apps. You can do that if you are not applying to single choice schools. Since you need financial aid, it is not prudent to apply ED, unless you are willing to take the chance at a school that it will meet your need and you would not be comparing financial offers.</p>
<p>Because your stats are so very strong, you are very likely to get into a number of your schools. Many kids in your situation would not even have a safety school. Schools that would ordinarily not be a safety would be for you if you show good interest in the school with visits and/or interviews.</p>