Hi I am in the process of finalizing my college list as it is due to my counselor tomorrow for early action and I have too many schools. I don’t know which ones to get rid of.
GPA: 3.9W/3.8UW (I didn’t do well freshman year, but have only gotten 1 B since)
ACT: 35
7 APs, 3 Honors
EC: dance (studio and school), volunteer at VA Hospital, work at real estate office part time, 3 clubs (VP of one)
I also go to a very well known difficult public high school in CA ( I think it is ranked as number two in the state)
University of Michigan (EA)
Villanova (EA)
University of Oregon (EA)
Penn State (EA)
Ohio State (EA)
Santa Clara (EA)
Tulane (EA)
University of Virginia
Notre Dame
NYU
Boston University
UPenn (Legacy)
UNC Chapel Hill
USC
UCLA
UCSC
UCSB
Berkeley
UC Davis
SDSU
Cal Poly
My top choice is University of Michigan Ross Business school, but I know it is a reach. I want to go to a large school with good social life and preferably a football team.
You have 7 EA schools on your list, I’d advise applying to those. See what happens. You are competitive at all of them, though you could get accepted or rejected to most of them (just supply and demand, not a commentary on whether or not you are qualified . . . you are). See what financial aid you get (assuming that is an issue).
I know the UCs have an early application deadline, and you can apply to several on the same app. So you’d want to do that as well.
Then apply to any of the other schools that would work better for you than your top choice among your EA/UC acceptances.
That said, UVA (I believe) and UNC are also EA, but I know UNC notifies relatively late, so you’d probably have to apply to most of the RD schools before you hear from UNC.
From what you say, I’d eliminate NYU and BU. Great schools, but more urban schools without the traditional college experience of most of the others on your list. The same is true of Penn. You’re a legacy there, so that’s a consideration. But at least until 2-3 years ago, and probably now, it is a big advantage to apply ED to Penn, and the school has very, very low RD acceptance rate. Just a note, at my alma mater, a top-ranked public university, admissions said the legacy advantage is largest for ED applicants–then they know it is really the family school and not just A choice, with perhaps the legacy advantage in mind. I"m guessing research shows that multigenerational families donate money at a higher rate.