<p>I agree with other posters that I’d recommend you expand your horizons with your applications and then next April 1st decide where to go and if ASU is still your first choice go for it.</p>
<p>That said I would not add schools purely by their prestige ranking. Determine the attributes about ASU you like and maybe there are other schools which you will naturally be drawn to that share these attributes.</p>
<p>Given you’re talking about Duke and MIT as examples then I assume you’re an excellent student … it sounds like you’d like a college town … and prefer access to nature (does it have to be mountains?). Just throwing some schools out while typing (I know more northeast and mid-atlantic schools) … what about
- U Colorado … Boulder is fantastic
- U Washington … in big city but fantastic nature all around
- U Vermont … great college town in the mountains
- Lehigh … excellent school with a beautiful campus built into the side of a hill
- Williams … terrific school in small town in beautiful natural area
- Smith … great school, great college town, beautiful area
- Etc ( I could go on but you get the idea)</p>
<p>There are lots of terrific options. I’d also suggest that you and your parents discuss how much they are willing to pay and run financial aid calculators to see what level of financial aid is likely. For top students if their application list is broad enough there will typically be less selective schools which present a much cheaper option than some of the more selective schools … now is a great time for your family to start thinking about what of you got a big merit scholarship to ASU but also had an offer to attend Williams with $x of financial aid.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>My two oldest did not build lists using the reach, match, safety process (of which I am not a huge fan). Instead they determined the attributes they wanted in a school and sought schools that met those criteria ignoring selectivity … they ended up with lists of schools that were similar in many dimensions and also whose selectivity was varied (their list naturally had a mix of reach, match, and safety schools).</p>