Help me find some colleges!!!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So, I'm a rising junior (class of 2010), with an idea of what type of college I want (largish public or a meduim size "tech" school), but few actual colleges to research. I live in Wisconsin, and would like to go OOS, but no one from my high school goes OOS, meaning everyone here knows nothing about "outside" schools.</p>

<p>I've started a small list, but could use some help!!</p>

<hr>

<p>Stats</p>

<p>Location- Rural Wisconsin, middle class family
Gender- White female
GPA- 4.0 UW (assuming I keep my grades up for junior/senior year), school doesn't weight
Class Rank- 1/216 (class size will be down to maybe 170 by graduation, though)
ACT- 36 composite - 36E, 36R, 34M, 36S, essay - 8 (ouch!!)
PSAT- 218 - 79CR, 75M, 64W
SAT IIs- US History and Math IIC- just took in June, expecting great USH, not so great IIC (didn't prep at all)
APs- sophomore -APUSH - still waiting on score
next year (junior) will take Calculus AB, Biology, English Language, and US Government.</p>

<p>My school only offers 5 AP classes, and I will have taken them all by the end of my junior year. Normally, that is impossible to do, but I'm a year ahead (by my school's system) in every subject. In short, I will have exhausted all curriculum in my HS by the end of junior year. So, senior year, I will be taking 18 credits at UW LaCrosse (the school district will pay for 18 credits, no more than that). My college classes will likely be: Calculus 2, Calculus 3, and Linear Algebra with Differential Equations, Macroeconomics, and Comparative Political Systems.</p>

<p>My academic weakness is that I am only taking 2 years of a foreign language, because the teacher's can't teach and I hate it. In college, I would love to take Arabic or Latin.</p>

<h2>ECs- heavily involved Girl Scouts (12 years, Gold Award), involved in my church, lots of Band stuff, etc</h2>

<p>My list currently includes UMich, MSU, Rose-Hulman IT, UW Madison (safety), MIT (reach), Caltech (reach).</p>

<p>I would want to major in math, computer science, or physics.</p>

<p>Any ideas?</p>

2

<p>Do you have any math/science ECs? With that exception, you're a strong candidate for MIT and CIT.</p>

<p>Why are you looking at state schools OOS? If you're truly middle class, incme under $60K, privates will cost you less.</p>

<p>You would be a shoo in at tech schools like Harvey Mudd, CMU, RIT and would be a strong candidate at many great privates that are not tech schhols, many with merit aid.</p>

<p>Also, forget about the teacher and take the third year of language for your own benefit.</p>

3

<p>I'm very small town Wisconsin here. Math/science ECs don't exist in the boonies :D </p>

<p>I'll still apply to instate schools, but I've toured many of them with my older sister, and am not feeling the love :D I'm looking more at publics because I want a bigger school. I could be happy at a small tech school, but a small private would most likely drive me crazy. And my parents' income is maybe 90k a year, but they are sending my sister to private school, so they can pay maybe 5k a year for me. Does that make us higher than middle class?</p>

<p>My language problem is the other reason I'm mainly looking at publics.</p>

4

<p>How are you going to go to an OOS public or only $5K/yr? For that you need merit aid schools.</p>

5

<p>A lot of publics give OOS merit aid. I have a 36, will probably be National Merit. And if the FA isn't enough, I can always stay instate.</p>

<p>Like MSU: Scholarships</a> for Incoming Freshmen</p>

6

<p>also, being a female will help at tech schools</p>

7

<p>Yes but with your 36 you can do so much better than MSU!!</p>

<p>Big plus good tech plus good aid, try Stanford.</p>

8

<p>okay, thanks!!</p>

9

<p>^^newyorka, why single out MSU for your comment? There are lots of kids with those stats including many even higher. Plus, the MSU Honors College would put book<em>worm right in about the middle. MSU's a very good school, a complete college experience with many excellent programs on a drop dead goregeous campus. Your comment sounds elitist. Why shouldn't book</em>worm include MSU? Why on CC does it always seem really good students like book_worm always shoot for the most elite schools (based on GPA/SAT). Most people believe MSU's an excellent safety. What's your point?</p>

10

<p>Also look at Carnegie Mellon, Rice, and Georgia Tech. Good luck!</p>

11

<p>His point is that with a perfect ACT score, Michigan State wouldn't challenge the OP. Even for a safety, the OP could do better.</p>

12

<p>maybe Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech if you feel like warming up and going the the south. Carnegie Mellon also (but thats not warm). maybe Bucknell or Lehigh for some high safeties/matches.</p>

13

<p>Well..I'd just like to point out to both newyorka and bigp that it would be rather difficult to say that Michigan State would not challenge the OP, if the person who stated this in question did not attend Michigan state in the first place. Most if not all large state schools have opportunities for higher learning (even community colleges can give you a great education, believe it or not!), and MSU is no exception. As I'm sure the OP knows, MSU offers professorial assistantships which is individualized research (paid) with a professor starting freshman year among other opportunities. How is that not possibly challenging? I highly doubt that even HYPS students (which by the way, OP, are schools you seem to be well-qualified for) have this opportunity, not to say that there aren't other terrific avenues for learning at those colleges as well. Also there is a good chance that the OP can receive a full ride at MSU. Ok, enough of that :p</p>

<p>A suggestion; Northwestern in IL might be a good fit. It's large, a great school that you'd likely get into and has great programs for your prospective majors.</p>

14

<p>Do you have a preference as to which part of the country and/or what type of winters you'd like in college? How about type of community--rural, suburbs, or major metro area? And how big is big for purposes of "a bigger school"? (For example, Rice and MIT would normally be considered small/medium schools with 3000-4000 undergrads, but if you aren't looking to cheer on big time football/basketball teams, they seemingly should be big enough . . .)</p>

<p>Also, don't let the foreign language thing drive your decisionmaking without looking into what individual schools actually require for admission--and if a school that you are interested in "requires" three years of foreign language, talk to the admissions office before ruling them out. Your explanation may well carry the day even at many selective institutions. </p>

<p>On the bigger school thing, if you think you'd be happy at Caltech (900ish undergrads), you should also look hard at Harvey Mudd, which was mentioned above and is about 1/2 hour away. On its own, it is a tiny tech school, but it is part of the Claremont consortium, which consists of 5 contiguous undergrad institutions with joint athletic teams and extremely easy cross registration gives you a number of undergrads in the same ballpark as MIT (4000+). A guy with your stats (assuming that your Math IIc, when curved, turns out to be close to or at 800) would most likely be a strong candidate at Mudd--and your gender gives you a boost. (Mudd is also among the tech schools with scholarship programs for outstanding students who aren't the traditional white/asian male techie--but at the same time, its entering frosh in 08 and 09 are about 40% female.)</p>

<p>What about UCal Berkeley? Neither of my boys (at Mudd and Rice) applied there because it was too big for their tastes. Great school that easily meets the "bigger" criterion--and you'd stand a good shot at getting in, even as an OOS applicant.</p>

<p>Finally, you might want to take a look at some of the Ivy League schools, depending upon what "bigger school" means to you, and if you aren't totally adverse to the the whole idea of applying there. (Both of my kids had/have HUGE negative opinions of Ivy league schools). The financial aid resources are quite good--to the point where it might well be cheaper to go to HYP than to Berkeley OOS.</p>

15

<p>I posted this link on another thread, but I think it will be usefull for you as well. [url=<a href="http://www.myusearch.com%5DmyUsearch%5B/url"&gt;http://www.myusearch.com]myUsearch[/url&lt;/a&gt;]
From what I've seen is a very complete site.</p>

<p>Lots of luck!</p>

16

<p>"Do you have a preference as to which part of the country and/or what type of winters you'd like in college? How about type of community--rural, suburbs, or major metro area? And how big is big for purposes of "a bigger school"? "</p>

<p>I would like to stay decently close to home (within about 300 miles). Plan tickets are expensive :D</p>

<p>As for weather, I'm not a big fan of cold, but I'm used to it. I think that I could adjust okay to just about any type of weather, but I'd prefer a milder climate than Wisconsin.</p>

<p>"Bigger school" to me means roughly 5000 > undergrad + grad students (if applicable). I would like a diverse student body (not just ethnic diversity) and usually the only way to get that is in large groups.</p>

<p>I like the smaller tech schools because out of those maybe 1000 kids, 1000 are "smart" and commited. Being part of an entire grade level of students that cares about school would make the small school worth it for me.</p>

<p>Berkeley looks interesting.........
I might apply to a few Ivies just to see how it works out.</p>

17

<p>On the cost of plane tickets, remember that you might not be home that much. Our eldest came home at winter break and despite working on campus over the summer, decided to come home for a two week visit this summer. In the big scheme of things, that isn't much (especially since we lucked out and have outstanding Southwest service to both of the boys' schools).</p>

18

<p>For $ 5000 per year, there aren't many choices, unless you can obtain a very large scholarship (there are some available). MIT - unlikely to do that; Caltech probably the same; Duke - maybe. You need to look at schools where you will be among the top students entering, based on GPA and test scores. If you really don't want to go far, maybe Purdue, IIT, Washington/St. Louis, and consider Rochester for physics. Look at the stats of students who receive merit scholarships in such schools to see how you would rank among them.</p>

19

<p>book_work, I wouldn't worry too much about admission. It looks like you're following a really amazing path that will lead you to success. I wish I could help you out, but I'm just a clueless rising senior. Keep it up!</p>

20

<p>I encourage you to look at Smith College. Smith is an elite, highly-ranked liberal arts college, and a member of the "Seven Sisters," the colleges that were the women's counterpart to the Ivy Leagues before they admitted women. Smith is part of a 5-college consortium (with Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Univ Mass). You can take classes at any. There is a free shuttle bus to get to classes at the other campuses.</p>

<p>Smith provides STRIDE scholarships where high achieving women do research with professors. They have a number of other scholarships and financial aid as well.</p>

<p>Smith has awesome math and science. If you think you might be interested in engineering, Smith’s Picker Engineering Program is terrific. The quality of the engineering program is such that every Smith College engineering student with a 3.5 GPA is GUARANTEED admission to the graduate engineering schools at Princeton, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, and University of Michigan! </p>

<p>You can find more information on the program at: Smith</a> College: Picker Engineering Program</p>