<p>The situation:
Okay, so I'm having trouble narrowing down my search. I want to narrow it to 6-10 schools to apply to. Please help me, I am lost... Also, I won't take any college visits until I am accepted, considering a lot of these are reaches for me. Any info is helpful!!</p>
<p>What I want:
- Great academic reputation
- Balance between education and fun (not a bunch of drunk imbociles, and not a bunch of obsessive nerds)
- Nice weather
- In a city
- Varied area activities
- Good looking campus, preferably with a lot of grass/trees</p>
<p>Please look at my table (and even my stats if it helps) and give me any advice you can.</p>
<p>just from reading what you said you wanted definitely keep Rice on your list it has a grat balance between work and play, is in a huge city, but has the most amazingly beautiful green campus</p>
<p>What about under Undergrad/Grad and Students?</p>
<p>UVA offers little aid to out of state students, and I see that you will need aid, so keep that in mind. Why not get a ton of scholarship $$$ at U of Iowa and save for grad school?</p>
<p>its a lot to go through, and i will try to look at it more later, but at first glance BC is not a reach for you at all, and the more i learn about it, the more it seems way too overpriced for the type of education youre getting there…if i were you, i would take that off the list</p>
<p>really great stats by the way…keep up the great work!</p>
<p>Here’s a rough pass based on your own criteria:</p>
<p>– Great academic rep: eliminate U of Iowa and American U (which have fine reps but not great ones)
– Study/Fun balance: eliminate U of Chicago, JHU, and CMU (by reputation)
– Nice weather: eliminate Penn, U of Chicago, CMU, U of Rochester, UW-Madison, U of Iowa, BC
– In a city: eliminate U of Iowa (despite your size scheme, Iowa City is not the same as Madison or Palo Alto), UNC, and U of VA
– Varied activities: too vague to use
– Nice campus: I can only vouch for Stanford, Duke, Rice, UNC, Chicago, and UW-Madison (last two eliminated above) - others are unknown to me.</p>
<p>This leaves you with:
Stanford
Duke
Rice
Vanderbilt
Berkeley (which you should count as HR because you are OOS)
Georgetown
GWU</p>
<p>You need to bring back in at least one “safety”, so I would say UW-Madison based on “nice campus”. I’d also suggest bringing back one of your matches, and note that your prospects at UVA are probably a little better than at UNC because they are more open to OOS applicants.</p>
<p>Add Fordham Rose Hill Campus (main- in the Bronx) or Fordham-Lincoln Center. Outstanding school with a fabulous reputation, Division I sports, lots to do in NYC, a GORGEOUS campus (Rose Hill), and otherwise meets all your requirements. They are generous with scholarships to the deserving few.</p>
<p>Thanks Descartesz, your input is very helpful.</p>
<p>I plan on keeping U of Iowa as a cheap (instate) safety. I’m looking negatively on UW-Madison because, well, it’s just <em>too</em> big. I don’t want small, but I also don’t want to get lost in a gigantic student body. I’m thinking (very roughly) 10-25k would be optimum, but I am not going to remove any from my list sheerly because of the student population, as I really have nothing to compare population to – I mean, I might not even notice the difference between 20 and 30 thousand.</p>
<p>Gbold, I looked at that and would definitely at least apply for it. However, there are probably a lot of schools that would offer me near full-rides, I don’t really want the price to be a determining factor in where I go. I don’t dislike Iowa, but I definitely want to keep my options open and hopefully get away from the monotony of Iowa life.</p>
<p>I would replace UCB with UCLA. It still has a gorgeous campus, but is more in a city, has a great balance between work and fun, and is big in athetics (I don’t know if this would qualify under “a variety of activities”)</p>
