<p>Hey guys, I need some help with narrowing down my list of schools to apply to in the fall. I would like to have about 10-12 schools total on my list. So far, I have been considering these schools in Naviance:
American Univ
Boston Coll
Boston Univ
Brown Univ
Carnegie Mellon Univ
Cornell Univ
Drexel Univ
Duke Univ
Georgetown Univ
Harvard Coll<br>
Johns Hopkins Univ<br>
MA Inst of Tech
Northeastern Univ<br>
Pennsylvania State Univ
Univ of Pennsylvania<br>
Princeton Univ<br>
Univ of Virginia<br>
Washington Univ in St Louis
Yale Univ</p>
<p>I would like at least one safety and probably two or three matches (they don't have to be on this list, but I would prefer if you recommended similar schools). As far as what I want in a school:
Medium size (not too big, but not too small either)
Research available to undergraduates
Study abroad programs
East coast (not farther south than UVA)
Close to or in a somewhat large city
Established science program (I plan to major in bio or eng)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>You know Duke is below Virginia right? 
So I suppose you could cut that one off the list</p>
<p>Lol thanks for that, it was a brain fart on my part.
Any more help?</p>
<p>These are all reaches excluding Drexel and American</p>
<p>And if you aren’t 100% against going to the South, you may wanna try Georgia Tech. (MIT of the South). It’d be a good safety. (depending on what your stats are).</p>
<p>The Southern US isn’t as bad as people say, especially if you’re still on the Atlantic Coast. There are a good bit of bad seeds though.</p>
<p>Nekogami, you’re telling me Northeastern and Boston University are reaches for me too?
34 ACT, 3.9 GPA, many leadership positions, etc. </p>
<p>I have to disagree. </p>
<p>Other advice is appreciated!</p>
<p>Nekogami mentioned general reaches and matches since you DID NOT POST YOUR STATS in the original post.
Safety’s :
Penn State
Northeastern
Boston U
American U
Drexel</p>
<p>Rest of them are matches/reaches.</p>
<p>Take this with a grain of salt because its the only thing I’ve ever heard about Drexel and it was from one person, but their financial aid is awful. Like, really awful. Something to just double check and see if it’s true if that’s an issue for you!</p>
<p>Sorry I did’nt mean to be snappy lol, I just figured people would look at my chances post and decide for themselves that way. Would it be more helpful if I posted that here? I can paste it</p>
<p>Um… why would you assume people would go look for your chances post when you did not post a link to it? Yes, it would help. How could anyone know what a safety/match/reach would be for you if you don’t provide that information?</p>
<p>Okay, I’ll do that, no need to get irritated :)</p>
<p>Test Scores
PSAT: 223
-CR: 70
-M: 73
-W: 80
SAT: 2260
-CR: 730
-M: 740
-W: 790
ACT: 34
-English: 33
-Math: 32
-Reading: 35
-Science: 35
SAT II
Math II: 720
US History: 730
AP
US History: 5
Calculus AB: 5
English Language: 4</p>
<p>Schedule (Cumulative GPA 4.2) Top 7% (41/560)
9th Grade
-H Environmental Science (A-)
-H Geometry (B+)
-H English 9 (A)
-H US History (A)
-Spanish II (A)
10th Grade
-H Biology (A)
-H Chemistry (A)
-H English 10 (A)
-H Modern World History (A)
-H Spanish III (A)
-H Pre-Calculus (A)
11th Grade
-AP English Language (A)
-AP Physics NM (B)
-AP US History (A)
-AP Calculus AB (A)
-H Spanish IV (A)
12th Grade
-AP Biology
-AP Physics E/M
-AP Spanish
-AP Macroeconomics
-AP Calculus BC
-Honors English </p>
<p>Extracurriculars
Soccer, JV and Varsity (9-12)
TopSoccer Buddy (10-12)
Key Club Officer (10-12)
Young Doctors Club President (11-12)
Auditioned Choir member (9)
Piano player (9-12)
Civic Association Affiliate Board Member (11-12)
Hospital Transport Volunteer (11-12)
Science Olympiad, Spanish Club, Asian Culture Club, Scholar’s Bowl member (11-12)</p>
<p>Awards/Honors
High Honor Roll (9)
Distinguished Honor Roll (10-12)
National Junior Honor Society (9-10)
National Honor Society (11-12)
National Spanish Honor Society (11-12)
Varsity soccer letter (11-12)
National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist (probable Finalist)
National Hispanic Scholar
AP Scholar</p>
<p>Thanks for helping guys!</p>
<p>I think that you are a great candidate for many schools on your list. I think that you could probably take HPY and MIT off the list though. IMO without national level or even state level honors (and for MIT without significant science research), its too hard to get into those schools - especially since you are not the very top of your class. Since you are not sure if you want engineering or bio for a major, I would put schools like Wash U, Brown and Tufts higher on your list since they will be more flexible for changing between engineering and bio. Other schools like CMU you need to apply to your major and its more difficult to switch within the schools.<br>
If you are in a position to make a choice about ED and ED2 - I would really use those options. You are the kind of candidate that would do very well with ED. You are very strong and meet the GPA/SAT standards for a lot of places - but you don’t have anything that seems to really jump out and distinguishes you from a lot of other good candidates.<br>
you probably don’t need so many safeties either - unless you are shopping financial aid packages. Since you are NHRP - maybe look at one of the schools that offers good scholarships to for National Hispanic Scholars as a safety.</p>
<p>Thank you for your helpful input!</p>
<p>Since engineering is a possible path for you, remove American, BC, and Georgetown since they don’t have it. And Harvard is still not on par for engineering with other schools on that list, though they aim to change that in the future (not soon enough for you…)</p>
<p>What school is your safety? Are you certain that you will be admitted, and are you certain that you will be able to afford it?</p>