Help! people are confusing me!

<p>Well basically what i mean is, people are telling me that i should be applying to more competitive schools:some of my very optimistic friends, my mom(kind of), some of my mom's friend (one lives in michigan and seems to have a lot of knowledge on how it rolls around in the us, since im a korean in germany)....</p>

<p>Now i dont know if its allowed here or not but i dont care so: my sat is 2240 (verbal 700,writing 760,math 780 and essay 10), toefl 113, my act from october is 33. I go to an international school and my gpa is 6.54 out of a 7.00 scale. My activities are not so great: i did some community work over the summer, took part in the school creative magazine, and been in the school math team(our team got 9th in some competition with a load of international schools from all over). I was in the varsity tennis team in 11th grade and i got 2 awards from the uk math challenge. Not much and this is really it.</p>

<p>Ok, now so far i applied to SUNY binghamton and UNC chapel hill EA. For regular i want to try rice, virginia, johns hopkins, rochester, emory, duke and vanderbilt. Somehow people are telling me why im not applying to any ivies:brown or columbia or what not. I thought i was being down to earth, but now some people are bombarding me these suggestions. i plan on going for psychology or some subject related to biology</p>

<p>I have no idea what i should do. I spend a lot of time working on the list and i thought it was a realistic targetting list, but now i really dont know what to think...apparantly ill regret having applied so "low" (if you can call my list low that is, i am confident that they're all good schools). Please HELP!!!!!!!!!IM CONFUSED....</p>

<p>Depends on what you plan to study, but based on your SAT scores your list is realistic & includes highly prestigious schools.</p>

<p>Your RD list does look like a "realistic TARGETING list" - i.e., those schools are pretty easily matches for your grades/stats (with the exception maybe of Duke). Most students in the US compile a list of safeties (which your EA schools clearly are), targets (your RD schools), and reaches (Duke) - why not add a couple of more reaches (i.e. ivies, washu, northwestern, etc.) if you are at all interested in them. If you're not interested, then your list is great! And, yes, your ECs are probably weak for the reach (and even some of the target) schools.</p>

<p>I thought UNC was extremely difficult for out of staters, especially for foreigners since they only accept a very limited number.....and my counsellor has suggested a 9 school list as max, i guess she doesn't want to do so much work...</p>

<p>It is really only a tiny bit more work for you counselor to do an additional application. Nearly all of his/her work is in preparing the first one (I know--I did that job for years). I expect your counselor is trying to spare you both extra work and expense. Applications to those sort of schools will require a great deal more of your time than it will of his/hers. Actually, I think you should ask your counselor the question you posed here--he/she probably knows more than your mother/aunt/classmate/random stranger, especially in terms of how students from your school have fared in the past.</p>

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I thought UNC was extremely difficult for out of staters, especially for foreigners since they only accept a very limited number

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<p>This is true, same for UVA.</p>

<p>Since you're applying to 2 schools early, that gives you time to alter your list a little based on those results. For instance, if you get into UNC EA, you might want to replace a couple of your match schools with reaches. Just look at the applications and supplements for possible additions and see how much extra work they will take as far as additional essays, short answers, etc.</p>