Help Me Find Safeties

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Here are my stats:
White female, public HS, suburban, middle class</p>

<p>The typical Ivy-Leaguer-wanna-be repertoire:
SAT: 2340 (800 CR, 740 M, 800 W)
SAT II: World History 800, Literature 800, (taking Math IIC this fall)
GPA: 5.1 weighted, 3.9 unweighted
Class rank: 2/650
Extracurriculars: Yearbook editor-in-chief, Key Club (committee member, treasurer, VP), Young Democrats (co-prez), Habitat for Humanity, Speech and Debate team, Spanish tutor, Peers Educating Peers, NHS, choir, latin ballroom dancing
IB Diploma Candidate
AP scholar
Work experience: administrative assistant at a clinic, intern for a professor</p>

<p>The interesting stuff:
I just returned from a year abroad in India, where I got to do such interesting things as participating in a seminar on Tibetan culture at the Sera Je Monastery, assisting with tsunami relief, hiking and whitewater rafting in the foothills of the Himalayas, and going to formal with a Bhutanese prince! Also, I formed a partnership with my school in Indy which ended up raising $1200 to support a local orphanage.</p>

<p>In ninth and tenth grade I spent 11 months working on Howard Dean's presidential campaign. I was a Dialing for Dean precinct captain and the Youth Coordinator for my region.</p>

<p>I was suspended for participating in a walk-out against the invasion of Iraq. So um....will this help me or hurt me?</p>

<p>I am totally serious about cooking. I love to cook. My crepes suzette are earth-shatteringly magnificent, if I do say so myself. </p>

<p>I'm taking AP physics C through the EPGY program at Stanford.</p>

<p>One of my essays is about tsunami relief in India (though I may change it). My other one is about Ramen noodles. Let me know if you want to see either.</p>

<p>My Colleges:
Yale (1st choice)
Brown
Swarthmore
Pomona
U of Chicago
Reed</p>

<p>I'm not really sure whether I want to major in the humanities or the sciences (I'm better at the former, but more interested in the latter). I'd like to go somewhere that has reasonably good scientific facilities and can provide me with a grant if there is a specific project I want to undertake. I don't want to go somewhere with a core curriculum, but distributional requirements are ok. I'd rather not go to a school with more than 20,000 kids. As far as politics, I'd be more comfortable with a moderate or liberal school than a conservative one. Basically, I just want schools with a good liberal arts curriculum, good class choices, and good professors.</p>

<p>So help me find some safeties!</p>

2

<p>bumpity bump</p>

3

<p>Scores and grades: The stats of the student profile of your safeties (or safety) should be under your SAT scores mmmm 500 points (old SAT scoring) ? Gpa ..don't know.... my gpa was a little low, so for a while I thought I might actually be attending my safety! </p>

<p>Money: the tuition/ fees should be well under what you can afford without killer loans (in case financial aid is a bust at other schools)
Campus/ academic programs: you need to really like the school and think you will be happy there for 4 years or 1 or 2 years and then transfer. </p>

<p>Search through the books like Princeton Review, Fisk, and Harvard Schmarvard and do some stat comparisons.
On you suspension ...do an essay about it....celebrate it.
Also your cooking...that could figure into a great essay. Compare putting a particular meal together with some aspect of your life....</p>

4

<p>Schools like Tulane, Whitman, Occidental, U of Rochester, Lafayette, Skidmore, Pitzer, Case Western, Dickinson, Kenyon might all be considered safeties for you. I suspect Reed would be as well. Good luck!</p>

5

<p>Your stats are amazing. I don't think that you will need to resort to a safety. In my opinion, the suspension will not hurt you, especially since your schools are mostly considered liberal. It is nothing like being suspended for fighting or cheating. Carolyn's safeties sound good. You could also look at Barnard and Grinnell.</p>

6

<p>wesleyan sounds like a great fit for you, and they especially would be impressed by your activism</p>

7

<p>Thanks!!!!</p>

<p>....any more advice?</p>

8

<p>You don't really need safeties, IMO, with stats like that. You will assuredly get into some of the schools you listed.</p>

9

<p>Thanks, but I'm not going to presume anything at this point. I could get straight C's or D's this year. Not really likely, but it could happen.</p>