<p>When weeding through colleges and universities, I find (and I am guessing I am not alone) that I have so many schools to look at. when leaving highschool I did no college research and didn't care so I guess I am finding everything out now.
How did each of you narrow down your choices and when do you know it's time to stop adding more? I have safty/match/and reach schools abound but it is so hard to narrow it down and I want to explore even more! anyway, my goal is to have 4 transfer schools in addition to my local university...I have two definite and about 70 more maybes! how do you narrow it down?</p>
<p>meaning...you found schools where most of your aquired credits would transfer? most schools I have talked to including the ones I plan on applying to have said they wont decide what definitly transfers until the application review.</p>
<p>I decided based on competitiveness of admission process, grad school placement, transfer credit policy (i.e. where I would receive the most credit for the APs and college work I have taken) and prestige of school.</p>
<p>My order would be: prestige, transfer credit policy, admissions rates and post-undergrad placement.</p>
<p>2) Disregard all schools ranked below it as they will be more expensive and of equal or lesser quality.</p>
<p>3) Look through those schools ranked above your safety and pick ones that interest you based on general factors. If you're like me, you probably won't be knowledgeable about every school and will find yourself researching a lot of places. Be sure to have a lot of choices (I had about 15 at this point).</p>
<p>4) Research each school deeper, focusing on things such as student body, student happiness, grad school options, difficulty of grading, location, appearance of the campus even, housing options (grrr), financial aid.</p>
<p>5) At this point, you should be able to cut down your list some. Continue to research those schools by reading outside resources such as college guides, s t u d e n t s r e v i e w. c o m, theu.com, and if you can afford them, college ******* guides. All of these will help you get a better idea of the school.</p>
<p>6) If you can, visit those schools that interest you. I could not.</p>
<p>7) Your list should be cut down to 10 or less, give or take a few. By this time, I had 8, though laziness and further research cut it down to 4 by the end.</p>
<p>one big thing for me - uchicago was my top choice, and i knew i was going to apply to a number of schools in the uc system (i'm a cali resident.) however, i was also interested in a number of private schools like reed, northwestern, barnard, etc. ultimately, i decided that the price difference was so great between privates and publics that i'd only be willing to pay extra for a private if i'd be that much happier there than a public. in other words, i liked reed, nw, and barnard better than uc schools, but not so much better that i'd be willing to pay the big price difference. i only liked chicago enough for that. thus, i only applied to chicago and four uc's. the nice thing about this is that i ended up working on only two applications, since the uc's all use the same app. it allowed me to focus more on my chicago app.</p>
<p>so that's an important question to yourself - if i'm accepted to this school, can i actually see myself choosing to attend?</p>
<p>I like all of these ideas combined. Dearsyris, I think I'd almost go in an opposite order as you but all of the same ideas somewhat apply. I do like the idea of prestige in a school but it really isn't much of a deciding factor, more a way for me to discover new schools. I do have my safty choice (university of Pitt) and a few that I believe will not be pulled from my list but I want a diverse list in which I can see myself attending all/any of the schools. money is somewhat an issue but most likly not enough to effect my choice too far one way or the other.</p>
<p>I also tend to think everything is out of my leauge despite having a fairly good GPA which should rise higher and fairly good everything else so I tend to toss out schools with lower acceptance rates.</p>
<p>mojojo - on the contrary, I am a prestige whore as well, though I made sure to find prestigious schools that I actually liked - best of both worlds. You couldn't pay me to attend a school that I loved but would be a waste of the next two years of my life/money.</p>
<p>lol yeah I realize that. Especially after seeing the decisions thread for WashU this year and hearing that the acceptance rate (or whatever the hell it actually is) will be around 16%, I feel special. But I'm not going to sell my soul to a school just because it's good. Wesleyan seems to be better at law placement and is my personal preference so it sways my decision; the fact that WashU lied about housing to me and won't guarantee it makes my decision much easier...I just hope I have the choice.</p>
<p>haha yes make fun of dearsiryes but don't make it clear.</p>
<p>Oh and I did use transfer rates at first; forgot to mention. Transfer rates kept me from applying to places like Yale, Tufts, Boston College. But I don't advise paying attention to transfer rates from last year for LACs, as they seem to vary greatly. I still wish I'd applied to Colgate, which had a 15% transfer rate in 05 and I just found out had a 30% transfer rate in 06.</p>
<p>so, my stats right now are very much subject to change by the time I transfer but as of now my standings are...
GPA: 3.65-3.7 (not sure exactly) but should be able to bring it up to a 3.8 or 3.9.
SAT: 1280 (old), again retaking and actually studying for this time.
ECs: Judge of Elections (been doing for a few years), Business Club, Joining Econ Club and doing Math Tutoring (most likely) next semester, trying to form a small local record label but I'm not sure if this sort of thing would be looked at, other small community service things plus 200 hrs CS in highschool
Highschool grades: abysmal. graduated with a 2.3? can't remember but I've really done a turn around.
Recs: this one I'm not stressing yet but I have someone I could get one from as of now most likely.
Essay: again, to far away to even consider right now.</p>
<p>that's that Brand182. alot of it is what I could do but I think I'm on a pretty good track so far.
oh, also I've worked since September at a 20-30 hour a week job at a highly regarded pittsburgh restaurant.</p>
<p>I don't. I had no intentions of attending a college or university. I was planning on going into the food business and I worked in restaurants. I planned on working up through the system but realized that wasn't what I wanted to do. I'm extremly dissapointed with myself for slacking so much in highschool so I am trying as hard as I can now to do all that I can. thats why I'm hoping this turn around might help me. I will be applying for junior status also so HS grades are not considered as much which should be of alot of help.</p>
<p>There would be no point in me applying to schools like Harvard, Yale or Stanford even if I LOVED them because the odds of me being accepted were much, much lower than being accepted by NYU or Cornell or Chicago or WashU. That's what I mean by competitiveness of process.</p>
<p>I have no qualms with prestige being the first criterion on my list. I have wanted to attend a top undergraduate institution since I was a young child and made that a priority. Worthless goal? Maybe to some, but not me. Thus, why work so hard and push myself to the limit, if I can't get into the program that does the most for me? Often times (not in all cases), the prestigious school will provide the most opportunities for its students relative to a less prestigious school. That's just who I am. I'm not going to fight it. In terms of how my list of schools is structured right now its going to be, in order of preference: Chicago, Cornell, Northwestern, WashU and UT-Plan II. </p>
<p>Also, I'm coming from a fourth tier public school. I was accepted into Ivy league schools as a HS senior. Why would I not want to attend a comparable school? Thus, schools lacking in prestige, either departmentally or overall, I didn't want on my list. Then, schools that I would love to attend but would really stand no shot at went off my list as well. That left me with a list of schools that I would like to attend that I had a realistic shot of getting in to. Considering that my parents are paying for my apps and I had them spend a crazy amount of money in HS on apps, the last thing on my mind was putting them through another financial and emotional ride.</p>
<p>Don't be so quick to judge. I concede that I am not like you, mojo, in being able to tell Amherst to hold on while you apply to the California schools, but I do have strong reasons and convictions in my methodology.</p>