Help me refine my college list!

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I apologize in advance for the length :). I currently have what I think is a pretty solid college list, but I’d like to get some feedback to refine it, narrow it down, and add any schools that I’ve overlooked. I’m hoping to ultimately apply to ~15 schools, with UCs counting as one application.

Some stats!
Ethnicity: Multiracial (asian & white)
GPA: 3.94 UW, 4.32 W (10-12 GPA 4.00 UW, 4.50 W)
SAT: 2210 (took the old SAT)
SAT II: German: 740 (retaking), World history, US history, English lit (haven’t received scores back yet)
APs: Will have taken 9 APs, 4 honors upon graduation. Rigorous, but by far not the most anyone has done at my school.
School Type: Large public, well ranked
State: CA
Class Rank: School does not rank, but in top 9%
Intended Major: International Relations, also considering Political Science

Extra Curriculars: Leadership positions in multiple clubs, internship at local newspaper, worked on local politician’s campaign, volunteer as a tutor, Youth&Government, awards in martial arts and violin, presidential gold service award, attending Yale Young Global Scholars in International Affairs & Security this summer

Wants: Urban (although it needs to have an actual campus! Think Northeastern but not GWU) or suburban (did like Williams though, which is rural). Size wise 5,000-10,000 students preferred (again, though, I did like Williams). Socially vibrant but not heavy on Greek life. Good internship opportunities.

Will not need financial aid, some merit aid is good but just an added bonus.

My college list so far —

Extreme Reach “Dream Schools”:
Yale
Brown (ED)*
Johns Hopkins
Claremont McKenna

Reach:
Georgetown*
Tufts*
Williams*
UCLA
UC Berkeley

Matches:
Northeastern*
Brandeis*
NYU (a little too urban, but still made the list)*
American*
Scripps
UCSB
UCSD
UCI
UCD
Bucknell
Macalester
University of Richmond

Safeties:
UC Santa Cruz
University of Washington
University of Oregon

*Visited and liked

Are there any other schools I should be considering that fit my requirements? Any on my list that don’t seem like a good fit?

2

If you are looking into IR/politics for an intended major, I would say that Tufts or Georgetown is the best college for you. Brown’s programs are somewhat weak relative to those two schools. Also, both tufts and Georgetown students have a larger salary on average after graduation if that’s important to you (you can compare them on Startclass). Tufts is also very similar to Brown in terms of feel and student body, but it’s in Boston, which is a much better city than Providence imo. I enjoyed Brown and applied to it, but realized that I was chasing prestige rather than doing what I should have done: focused on fit. Yes, Brown is a great school, but for its reputation, student outcomes aren’t the best. You would have a much more promising career path, I feel, in politics/IR if you were to go to tufts or Georgetown (American is also great for politics). Also, your wants are also very broad, and they match hundreds of schools. Why Brown, specifically?

3

So based on where my DD and her friends have gotten jobs (graduating this weekend), I totally disagree with the above comments about Brown’s programs and placement. Tufts is in Medford, not Boston - although near by. Boston and DC are both better cities than Providence. Brown’s location is nice as its on a hill above Providence, so urban-ish feel. DD worked in DC for two summers and had a great time there. The prestige of Brown opened a lot of opportunities for her, so I don’t know think there is any issue for “student outcomes.” My DD has gotten virtually every job and graduate school opportunity that she has applied to.

4

Bucknell is wonderful, but fairly rural and is known for it’s Greek life. You might look into Wesleyan in CT. It’s in a good sized town and I don’t think Greek life is big.

5

@ap012199 Georgetown and Brown are actually my top two choices! I loved the campus and the general vibes at Brown, and they do have the Watson Institue. The reason why I would choose to ED at Brown is because Georgetown doesn’t offer ED and I would like to maximize my chances of admission, because I could see myself being perfectly happy at either school.

6

@citymama9 Thank you for your suggestion! My concern would be that Wesleyan is too reach-y given its accpetance rate, what do you think?

7

You have a nice list of matches. Good Luck!
If you are really serious about those reaches you should consider retaking SAT or ACT. Also, your safeties are much larger universities than your other choices. You may want to find an option more similar to your matches and reaches for a safety just in case…
I predict you will have options!!!

8

I would verify that all the schools will accept the Old SAT. I believe the UC’s starting Fall 2018, we only accept the New SAT but no confirmation as of yet. Consider retaking it just in case.

9

Wesleyan may be a reach, but I could see you having a good shot. You have nice stats and ECs that tie in with your future major. You also may stand out by having different interests than the typical artsy humanities type or the typical economics major. I would think someone who likes Brown would like Wesleyan so it might be worth checking out.

10

Have you taken the ACT? If you get a good score on the ACT with writing, you probably don’t need to fuss over retaking any SAT Subject tests…Given the number of tests you’ve taken, I’m not sure why you’d retake a 740 score in German anyway. The most you’d need for any school is three subject tests, and you’ve got way more than that already. I’d focus on trying to get a high score on the new SAT and/or the ACT.

Have you looked into joint programs with Sciences Po? You spend the first two years studying in France and the last two at the partner institution. They have joint undergraduate programs with both Columbia University and UC Berkeley, as well as a bunch of European and Asian schools, and they have a 5-year BA/MA with Hopkins. English is the language of instruction on three of the Sciences Po campuses.

As a match/safety, you might want to add GWU. It’s no more urban than NYU, offers merit aid, and has the Elliot School of International Affairs.

11

If you’re set on IR apply ED to Tufts (if you love it). If you’re more set on general politics, Georgetown is probably the best.

I would be wary of applying to Brown ED to maximize your chances for admission. The larger percentage of accepted students is mostly all due to recruited athletes, legacies, and developmental cases applying and getting in ED. This goes for most mid-sized schools with ED admissions. But if it’s your #1 school, and you don’t have any reservations, certainly go for it.

I stand by my point that for the level of its “prestige” Brown does not have comparable jobs placement when you look at the other Ivies and other top schools and the starting salaries of students from them.

12

@Gumbymom I believe that the UCs will accept the old SAT until 2020 (thankfully!!) Thank you for bringing it to my attention though!
(http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/q-and-a/new-sat/index.html#1)

@naviance and @LoveTheBard Do you think the old SAT will work against me? I took it early sophomore year and haven’t done any test prep for the SAT since then since I was pretty happy with the score. I’d like to retake my lit subject test in August, and I’m just not sure that I could start prepping for the new SAT and achieve a decent score in time for college admissions (and have three solid SAT IIs for Georgetown!) Of course if having the old SAT scores would majorly disadvantage me, I could take the new SAT, but I want to make sure that doing so will definitely benefit me.

@LoveTheBard Thank you so much for your suggestions on the joint programs! I’ve briefly looked into them and they definitely seem like something that I would really enjoy, so I will definitely look into them further.

@ap012199 I do have legacy status at Brown :slight_smile: However, I definitely understand what you’re saying though about Georgetown and Tufts being more known and possibly better for IR/politics, and I will definitely look into Tufts more. Unfortunately, I was only able to do an informal campus tour during a weird time of the day, so I wasn’t really able to get a good feel for the school, so I would be hesitant to commit to ED.

13

karmacharma - if you have legacy status at brown be sure to take advantage of their alumni advising program. Its excellent and free!

14

When you say size wise, 5-10K, are you talking the whole school, just the undergrad, or maybe just the freshman class? Georgetown is about 8K undergrad and 9K grad, and all the UCs would be larger than your ideal size.

Your choices do need to be refined, there may be no two different schools than Williams and Berkeley, I live near UCB and have visited Williams. Same with Scripps and Washington.

Anyway if you’re a legacy at Brown and really like it, apply ED, that’s when legacy gives the biggest advantage. If you don’t want Brown ED, then apply to Georgetown EA and maybe Washington (honestly I’d swap Washington with Wisconsin and Oregon with Michigan). You should get into all the UCs except UCLA and UCB, and you’ll have good chances at those. You’re selling yourself a little short, you’re an ELC so just apply to 4 UCs max, pick UCLA, UCB and two others, San Diego would be a good one.

So since you have legacy at Brown, I’d put it as reach, your only extreme reach is Yale, JHU’s numbers are skewed because of pre-med, for poly-sci, their acceptance is probably higher than Georgetown. And Berkeley and UCLA are matches for you. American is a safety (I know, but trust me on this:-))

You’ll have to make a decision on LAC vs non-LAC, if you decide that a bigger school is what you want, I’d keep just a couple and replace the others with one of USC, Northwestern or Chicago. All three have very good I/R and poly sci programs. If you’re ok living in Massachusetts or DC, you should be ok in the midwest.

15

The old SAT will not hurt you but for super reaches it would be better to have a higher score (2300 or higher.) Also, double check and make sure your schools are accepting the old SAT scores. I know that they accepted them this last cycle.

16

@stemmmm I just checked it out and registered! Thank you so much for suggesting that I had no idea that that was offered!

@theloniusmonk Yeah I’m definitely a little all over the place :(. I meant 5-10k undergrads! I come from a pretty large high school (2,000+ students) so I think the idea of going to a college that is the same size as my high school is a little weird to me, but I know I would feel overwhelmed at a very large school, so I think medium sized would be my best bet. I think I would be happiest at a school like Georgetown, Tufts, or Brown with a smaller sized campus but medium sized student body, located in an urban or suburban area but with a real campus feel. However, when I visited schools that are different than that (Williams on one end of the spectrum, Northeastern and NYU on another) I did see myself being happy at those schools, although perhaps with some adjustment time needed. That’s why I have so many different types of colleges on my list! Maybe I do need to be more decisive, though.

What’s the reasoning for Wisconsin and Michigan vs. Oregon and Washington? I haven’t visited the UDub campus, but I did visit the Seattle area and liked it a lot, and know I would get good merit aid at Oregon. I’ve always thought of UMich as a match, so I would be curious to see what you think. As for your other suggestion, I will definitely look into them, thank you!

17

Wisconsin and Michigan have stronger IR/poly-sci programs than Oregon and you may not get the merit aid though at those schools. You wrote that F/A was not a factor, or a big one, that’s why I suggested those two. Wisconsin would be a safety and UM a match, agree there. SInce you’re not into the large schools, if you do end up at a UM say, you can apply to their LSA honors program which would make it a little smaller.

18

The University of Washington is home to the Jackson School of International Studies, a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs.

https://jsis.washington.edu
https://jsis.washington.edu/about/
https://jsis.washington.edu/programs/
https://apsia.org/graduate-schools-programs/member-directory/member-profile/?schoolID=1377

The APSIA member list includes a few more schools you could investigate:

http://www.apsia.org/member-schools/

If you apply to Washington, you should consider applying to its Honors Program:

http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/apply/freshman/faq/

19

@theloniusmonk @UWfromCA Thank you both, the advice was very helpful! I will keep UW on my list, but remove Oregon and add Wisconsin instead.

@naviance does have a really good point that my safeties are all larger schools (around 40k students for both Wisconsin and Washington, I believe). Are there any smaller safety schools with good IR programs that anyone knows of?

Also, I’ve been thinking about Northwestern & WUSTL as reaches, and Villanova, William & Mary, University of Rochester, and Hamilton college as matches. Does anyone have any input on if those colleges might be a fit for me in terms of both programs and my preferences?

20

for safety schools, I’d probably go with a smaller enrollment CSU, not all of them are huge and look at their I/R and/or poly sci programs. Maybe some less selective LACs like Saint Mary’s College, maybe Chapman.