Help Shorten My College List?!?!

<p>I have quite a few schools in my list and I don't know how to narrow my list down anymore. Everytime I try to remove a school from my list, I doubt myself and add it back on. I'm quite open minded when it comes to the size of schools and location, so it's hard to narrow it down that way. My intended major is bio/premed so almost every fricken school in the country offers it. Please help! Any suggestions will be considered.</p>

<p>My list:
Georgetown*
U Southern California*
George Washington
New York U
Southern Methodist
Baylor
Texas Christian U
Boston U*
Boston College
Barnard
Syracuse
U New Hampshire
U Vermont*
Emory
UC Santa Barbara
UC San Diego
UMD College Park
U Florida
College of Charleston</p>

<p>*top choices</p>

<p>I’d recommend definitely keeping UC San Diego on your list. They have an outstanding bio program - the top of the UCs in that department. San Diego/La Jolla is a hub for biotechnology if you want to explore that option for possible research opportunities. UCSD also has a med school and school run clinics you could volunteer at to get clinical experience for med school. Also, they have a medical scholars program you can apply to after you’re accepted and it guarantees you admission to their med school if you get into the program. On another note, it’s in a nice area and the beach is only a couple blocks away!</p>

<p>Have you looked at whether or not your family can afford the cost of the schools? You have many public Us which charge a great deal more for OOS students.</p>

<ol>
<li>What can your parents afford?</li>
<li>What is your home state?</li>
<li>Any preference at all in location?</li>
<li>What are your academic stats? Are they realistic for some of these schools?</li>
<li>Why 3 California schools?</li>
<li>Why 3 Texas schools?</li>
</ol>

<p>My advice to my kids and extended family members: 1 Lottery (eg. Harvard) + 2 Reach + 4 Match + 2 Safety = 9. That seems to be a fair number essay-wise and not too outrageous on application fees.</p>

<p>You have 4 ‘must applys’ identified: Georgetown, Southern Cal, BU & Vermont. Without stats my best guess would be that Georgetown is your lottery pick, USC a reach, BU a match and Vermont a safety. Answer the above questions and that should help fill in the other 5 slots.</p>

<p>Hard to tell without knowing your stats, but compared to others on list, academically College of Charleston would be a safety/match depending on financial situation.</p>

<p>Group I:
Georgetown, USC, BC, UCSB, SMU, Baylor, Florida, Maryland, Charleston, Syracuse, and TCU. </p>

<p>Group II:</p>

<h2>NYU, Barnard, GWU, BU, UCSD, New Hampshire, Emory, Vermont. </h2>

<p>Its hard to generalize so many schools but I would say Group II is politically more liberal and has more hipster/artsy types comparatively. Group I is more politically moderate and has more athletic types.</p>

<p>Here is a pretty decent list of a good range of highly known schools, but without more stats its hard to tell you what is a proper good list:</p>

<p>Georgetown
U Southern California
George Washington
New York U
Boston U
Boston College
Barnard
Syracuse
U New Hampshire
U Vermont
Emory
UMD College Park
Northeastern University
Syracuse</p>

<p>Easy ways to cut down your list:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Run the net price calculators on each school. If not affordable, check for whether getting a large enough merit scholarship is realistically possible. If not, remove the school from the list as unaffordable.</p></li>
<li><p>Identify your safeties which you know for certain you will be admitted to can afford to attend. Remove any school that you would not choose over your safeties even if it gave you the maximum possible financial aid or merit scholarship.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>For pre-med might look at Holy Cross and Tufts both have great programs.</p>

<p>Just FYI, BU is HUGE, has terrible terrible financial aid, and isn’t as good a school as many on your list.</p>