<p>Hi. I'm currently a week away from finishing my junior year of high school, and am beginning to search around for colleges that I will be interested in applying to next year so I can start gathering information and hopefully visit them over the summer. Here's some relevant info about me:</p>
<p>-White male living in Illinois, mom graduated from community college and dad dropped out of state university</p>
<p>-GPA is approximately 4.1 weighted (we'll see how I do on finals!). Hopefully I'll be in the top 10% of my class, but I'm very borderline. I've pretty much taken the very hardest courses offered in my school, which is very competitive. By the end of my senior year I'll have taken approximately 10 AP classes, all the rest honors.</p>
<p>-36 on the ACT (woohoo) with a 10 on writing section. Didn't take SAT or any SAT IIs and I won't because standardized tests are dumb.</p>
<p>-Only real extracurricular activity to speak of is my four years of work experience during high school, doing technical work + announcing for my high school's swimming, diving, and water polo meets. I'm too much of an entrepreneur to do much volunteer work when I can get paid for doing the same thing :)</p>
<p>I'm most likely going to major in History or Economics, but that's subject to change. I've considered University of Chicago, but I'm not sure if I'd get in (?). Picking a private college is somewhat difficult for me because I don't fit very neatly into the liberal or conservative stereotypes. I'd be completely out of place at some hippy school (I don't do drugs, I am more republican than I am democrat, etc...) and it'd be just as awkward at a typical conservative institution (I'm not religious, my family is not rich, I'm the complete opposite of a social conservative). My two best friends are going to Notre Dame and Oberlin, and I'd probably have to shoot myself in the foot before I joined either of them.</p>
<p>brandon, congratulations on a fine highschool record. The first question is will your family require financial aid for you to attend a private college or university? If yes, then will you qualify for need based aid or will you require merit aid? These are the most important points to settle before you even think about making a list.</p>
<p>There are quite a few colleges and universities that are middle of road politically. Most faculties lean to the left, as do most student bodies, but some offer more balance. I would suggest that you take a look at Dartmouth, Kenyon, Hamilton, Carlton, Bowdoin, Williams and Amherst for starters.</p>
<p>Some of these schools require SATIIs, though, even with the ACT so be sure to check the rules.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry so much about lack of extracurriculars per se as colleges, even the most selective, understand that many kids need the income that after school jobs provide. </p>
<p>What you do need to do in your application, however, is convey your interests and personality. ECs are usually a good vehicle for doing this. You'll have to be more creative in how you present yourself.</p>
<p>My first thought was to suggest Claremont McKenna College, part of a five-college consortium near L.A. Lots of emphasis on entrepreneurship there. </p>
<p>[Academics[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Also Chapman University in Orange, CA, might suit you academically and politically and being less selective than CMC, it might pay significant merit aid.</p>
<p>It is great all around but comparatively its not as strong as the others. Brown is better for liberal arts majors rather than econ/quant/math based academia.</p>
<p>Georgetown, Wharton, U of C and Northwestern (maybe slight reaches) and
U of I, BU for safeties. But have someone look over your app., you can't just say that you didn't have any EC's. If you are entrepreneur, you can play up your work experience, or whatever. It's almost as much as how you sell yourself as anything else. Your stats are as good as anyone who gets into an Ivy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is great all around but comparatively its not as strong as the others. Brown is better for liberal arts majors rather than econ/quant/math based academia.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uhhh....Economics and Math are both liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>Gourman Report undergrad
MIT
Chicago
Stanford
Princeton
Harvard
Yale
U Minnesota
U Penn
U Wisc Madison
UC Berkeley
Northwestern
U Rochester
Columbia
UCLA
U Michigan Ann Arbor
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Brown
UC San Diego
Duke
Cornell
NYU
UVA
UC Davis
U Washington
U Maryland College Park
Michigan State
UNC Chapel Hill
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Texas A&M
Boston U
Washington U St Louis
Purdue West Lafayette
USC
U Texas Austin
Vanderbilt
Ohio State
Iowa State
SUNY Stony Brook
U Iowa
U Mass Amherst
UC Santa Barbara
U Pittsburgh
Virginia Tech
Claremont McKenna
Rutgers New Brunswick</p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad history</p>
<p>Yale
Berkeley
Princeton
Harvard
Stanford
Michigan
Columbia
Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Wisconsin
Cornell
Indiana U
U Penn
Brown
UNC Chapel Hill
UCLA
Northwestern
UVA
U Texas Austin
U Rochester
U Illinois UC
U Notre Dame
U Washington
U Minnesota
U Iowa
Duke
Rutgers
UC Santa Barbara
UC San Diego
NYU
Vanderbilt
Washington U St Louis
U Maryland CP
Ohio St
Missouri Columbia
Emory
U Pitt
Rice
SUNY Stonybrook
Dartmouth
Brandeis
U Kansas
Boston U
UC Davis
SUNY Buffalo
Michigan St </p>
<p>Rugg’s Recommendations History</p>
<p>Albion (MI) ……..
Amherst (MA) …..
Barnard (NY) ….
Boston Col. (MA) ….
Boston U. (MA) …….
Bowdoin (ME) …….
Brandeis (MA) …..
Brown (RI) ……..
Bryn Mawr (PA) .,
Bucknell (PA) …,
California, U. of (Berkeley) …
California, U. of (Los Angeles) …
Carleton (MN) ……
Centre (KY) …..,
Chicago, U. of (IL) ….’
Claremont McKenna (CA) ………
Colgate (NY) ……….’
Colorado Co. …..
Columbia (NY) ……,
Connecticut Co. ….’
Cornell (NY) ……..
Dallas, U. of (TX) ……….,
Davidson (NC) ……
Dickinson (PA) ….
Drew (NJ) …..
Duke (NC) …..
Emory (GA) ….
George Washington (DC) ….
Georgetown (DC) “,
Gettysburg (PA) …..
Grinnell (IA) …..,
Hamilton (NY) …..
Harvard (MA) …
Haverford (PA) ..
Holy Cross (MA) ….
Kalamazoo (Ml) …….
Kenyon (OH) ….
Lafayette (PA) …..
Lawrence (WI) …….
Macalester (MN) ..
Middlebury (VT) ……
Mount Holyoke (MA) …
North Carolina, U. of ….
Northwestern (lL) …..
Notre Dame (IN) ….
Oberlin (OH) ……..,
Pennsylvania, U. of ……
Pomona (CA) …….
Princeton (NJ) …
Reed (OR) ………
Rhodes (TN) ….,
Rice (TX) …….
Smith (M~) …………..
South, U. of the (TN) ….
Southwestern (TX) ….,
Swarthmore (PA) …..’
Texas Christian U. (TX) …..
Trinity (TX) …
Tufts (MA) ……
Tulane (LA) …….
Union (NY) ….,
Vanderbilt (TN) ..
Vassar (NY) ….
Virginia, U. of ….
Wabash (IN) …….
Wake Forest (NC) …
Washington & lee (VA) ….
Wellesley (MA) ………,
Whitman (WA) ……’
William & Mary (VA) ……,
Williams (MA) …..
Yeshiva (NY) …….</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database
Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 3657 Swarthmore College 16
2 3229 Grinnell College 7
1 5082 Williams College 7
2 4561 Carleton College 7
3 17855 Harvard University 6
4 1167 Agnes Scott College 6
5 11348 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5
6 8270 University of Chicago 5
7 12941 Yale University 5
8 2059 California Institute of Technology 5
9 11101 Princeton University 5
10 3945 Macalester College 5
11 16662 Stanford University 4
12 3578 Pomona College 4
13 7067 Oberlin College 4
14 5840 Wellesley College 4
15 4917 Trinity University 4
16 3740 Bowdoin College 3
17 2410 Earlham College 3
18 2763 Berea College 3
19 4179 Amherst College 3
20 1753 Wabash College 3
21 2106 Bard College 3
22 1061 Rocky Mountain College 3
23 2495 Coe College 3
24 7081 Wesleyan University 3
25 12784 College of William and Mary 3
26 4597 Colby College 3
27 13622 Columbia University in the City of New York 3
28 1954 Hillsdale College 3
29 4361 Franklin and Marshall College 3</p>
<p>You are a solid candidate for Chicago. Claremont McKenna sounds like a great match for you, too. Many people who like Chicago also like Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and Columbia.</p>