<p>With your stats you have a chance at any university. Like anyone, the chances at the very top schools, both research universities and LAC’s, are a roll of the dice, just because they are so selective and have far more applications from perfectly qualified individuals like yourself than they can enroll, sometimes by a factor of 3. In other words, Harvard could arbitrarily tell all 2000 they have enrolling this year goodbye, take the next 2000 they rejected, and not lose any quality. They might even be able to go one level beyond that. But if you apply to all the Ivies and the top 5 or so LAC’s, if for whatever reason that is your goal based on prestige, then you are likely to get into one of them. Just be aware that the Ivies have no merit scholarships. Most of them do, however, have caps on how much they expect you to pay based on your family’s income. I have heard these formulae can be a bit convoluted, however.</p>
<p>In any case, if you are willing to go beyond those schools, there are many incredibly good ones that have some merit aid, including full scholarships in some cases. The competition for these is stiff, but you have as good a shot as anyone, at least based on what you can tell us. Also you will no doubt be a NMF, since you qualified. Your stats are just too good for it to be otherwise. That gives you a little money at many top schools, and can mean full scholarship at others, but they are not prestigious in reputation like the Ivies or the next tier or two. Doesn’t mean they are not good schools, but just reality that they are not near that level of prestige. However, they would make great financial safeties if you can find a couple you can live with in case the higher schools don’t work out for some reason. I will just say now do not even think of going into major debt in order to go to a highly ranked school. Major to me means more than $25,000 total after four years.</p>
<p>So some really top schools that have at least some major merit scholarships are Duke, WUSTL, Chicago, Vanderbilt. I think UVA has some for OOS also. There are others and you can probably find them on another thread, as mentioned. However, these tend to be extremely competitive so no guarantees.</p>
<p>Tulane was mentioned, and they have a full tuition scholarship called the Deans Honors Scholarship (DHS). I mention it separately from the ones above because your stats would give you a higher chance of getting this than getting the equivalent ones at the other schools. There are 75-100 DHS awarded every year, and usually about 1300 qualified applicants. But as I said, your qualifications would make you stand out. They say they recommend an SAT of 2250+ or an ACT of 34+, so your ACT score gets you there.</p>
<p>So if I were you I would apply to all the Ivies and the top 5 LAC’s. This assumes you would be OK being either in a big city (NYC for Columbia for example) or a small town (Hanover NH for Dartmouth). If location matters to you (and you say big city preferable so maybe you can eliminate Dartmouth and Cornell, Princeton probably close enough to Philly to suit you), you can eliminate the ones that don’t fit. Also apply to Duke, WUSTL, Chcago, Vandy and Tulane, and a couple of schools that give full scholarships for NMF winners. Be very careful to completely check out what scholarships are offered by these schools and which require separate applications for those scholarships. I know that is a lot of applications, but it seems like in your case it is needed. Then after you see who accepts you, what scholarships you get, and what financial aid packages are awarded, you can make a decision that fits you.</p>
<p>Nearly all the schools being mentioned are GLBT friendly, I wouldn’t worry about it. New York, Boston, and New Orleans have very active GLBT communities. Probably
some of the others do too.</p>
<p>Hope that helped. Again, I feel obligated to say we didn’t really talk about fit much. But if urban area, music scene, and GLBT friendly are the main things, you would like most of these just fine.</p>