<p>ahh i was lookin at Boston College and Notre Dame as my reaches, Santa Clara and USD as my safeties, with USC as a sure bet match (double legacy) but i kinda wanna get out of southern california....</p>
<p>my problem (well not problem) is that i just got a 1460 on my SAT (up from my 1260) and am now thinking i should apply to some higher reaches... i am planning on visiting a bunch of schools over the winter, so any one want to throw any names out for me? also, now i can pretty much throw out USD and Santa Clara and get some safties that are a little better, those were kind of my last resort schools.</p>
<p>my stats are now:</p>
<p>4.4 GPA - top 10% in an unranked class of 450
competitive public HS in southern cali
800 math SAT I
660 verbal SAT I
math 2c writing and US History taking in November (cant even guess what they're gonna be- IIC will probably be high, im good at calc and i hear its precalc on the test, but i dont know)
good EC's - lots of church and community service, helped coordinate a walk-a-thon that raised $40 K and wrote an essay on it.
just read my counselors rec- its amazing, and im sure my teacher will be pretty good.</p>
<p>i already sent in my Notre Dame application for EA... just figuring where else i should apply</p>
<p>If you like BC and ND, then the obvious next choice is Georgetown, where you have a decent shot. After that if you want match mid-size schools with good reps look at Emory, Vanderbilt, and maybe even Northwestern (reach). As for Ivies level you might want to try Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, cornell, brown, but they are pretty much reaches.</p>
<p>Well, what was wrong with the old list? (just because a school is harder to get into doesn't necessary make it any better - and "fit" is more important than selectivity, which simply tells you about who doesn't get to go.)</p>
<p>You've got a whole country out there outside of southern california to choose from.</p>
<p>no nothing was wrong with my old one and i'm definitley going to apply to those, i am just trying to see where else i can look at, i'm not going to pick a school on reputation, but i would like to know what are the "best" schools i can get into so i can atleast check them out and consider them. I'm kind of frustrated with how many good schools there are and not being really able to narrow my search, but oh well.</p>