HS Sophomore Worried for Future

College Search & Selection
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I’m a high school sophomore, and i’m pretty worried about college.

I’m really interested in pursuing a career in Cognitive Science/Behavioral Neuroscience, and I’m a pretty good student. I have a 4.2 GPA as of yet. I consistently get a score of 30-31 in my practice ACTs. This isn’t a ‘chance me’, I’m a bit early for that. It’s more of a ‘rekindle my excitement for going to college after it was dampened by every one of my dream colleges being trash-talked to high heaven on this website’.

For example, I was really excited about CWRU, since I only live half an hour away (I want to stay close to home because I have a baby brother) and it was an extremely good school according to my dad. However, in hopes of finding even more hidden treasures about Case on this website, it has been so brutally vilified that I can’t even consider going there anymore.

If anyone, since a lot of people on here are experts in their fields, can recommend a good university that I can set my sights on and work towards, I would greatly appreciate it :slight_smile:

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Really, CWRU is vilified on CC? I don’t think that’s true at all. It is a highly respected school. @bopper is a great source of info about all things CWRU and I am sure he can answer any questions you might have. Here is a link to the CWRU forum, which has a lot of great pinned posts: Case Western Reserve University - College Confidential Forums

I person would never judge a college based just on what you read here on CC. Use the Fiske guide, or Niche, both of which base their ratings on student feedback.

What other colleges were “trash talked” about on CC that are of interest to you?

There are many excellent colleges near and in Ohio, and far beyond. We need more information. What’s your budget? Do you prefer certain locations? What size? Lots of sports, lots of art, Greek life, other potential majors, urban, rural, and so forth.

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College is an awesome life experience. Based on the eager tone of your email, I think you will enjoy it tremendously. Don’t worry too much and remember to enjoy the journey.

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I’m also confused by your perception that CWRU is vilified on CC. My D was excited to be accepted EA. The only “negatives” I recall were comments about yield protection, but that is hardly limited to CWRU (it is called Tufts Syndrome for a reason). Please ask specific questions about CWRU and any other schools you are researching to get clarification. And as Lindagaf mentioned, do your research using multiple sources. Good luck and kudos to you for starting early; that will pay off.

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I do not recall seeing Case Western vilified on this site. However, I have worked with a couple of people who graduated from Case Western and they spoke very highly about the school. They felt that they got a great education. Also, they were very good coworkers and I appreciated working with them.

There are a lot of very good universities. Case Western is definitely one of them. Ohio State is also very good, although much larger.

There are some people who are stuck on “prestige”. Most of them are still in high school. Harvard, MIT, and Stanford are very good universities but so are perhaps 200 or more other universities. There is very little and probably nothing that they are going to teach an undergraduate student at Harvard that you could not have learned at either Case Western or Ohio State. By the time that you get to my age (not young) you will have worked with people who graduated from several hundred universities (definitely not all of which are in the US) and you will know for sure that there are exceptionally good graduates who come from a very wide range of universities.

Any university is reasonably large (some more than others) and has a lot of professors, a lot of labs, a lot of classes, and a lot of different opportunities. Any university will have at least one bad professor. Any university will have many very good professors and very good classes and very good students. Someone can talk about a bad class that they had pretty much anywhere – it is still a great school for most students who are there for a very wide range of schools.

You appear to be doing very well. Strong students such as yourself will usually thrive when they get to a good university – you are what these universities are set up to help.

Think about what you want in a university. Do you want a large school or a mid sized school? Do you want to be in the middle of a big city or in a suburb or a smaller town? What are the various majors that you might consider and what subjects are you good at? Then figure out what your budget is, come back here to CC in a year, and lots of folks here can recommend many different schools.

If you want a very good moderate sized university in Ohio, Case Western is very likely to be one that people will be recommending.

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CWRU has certainly faced a lot of disparaging remarks concerning social life and things like that. I’m not super interested in Greek life, but I do want to feel like part of a welcoming community, which CC and Niche have proved missing in Case. In terms of budget, I am still a sophomore, but my parents have told me time and time again that they would prefer that I go to an averagely prestigious school with full tuition rather than an extremely prestigious university which they would have to pay for. So, a university that awards merit scholarships would be great, but not compulsory. I’d still like to be part of a relatively small college so I could form meaningful connections with classmates and professors. In terms of location, I’m really good with anything from Case’s downtown location to Kenyon’s rural Gambier. Over the summer, the colleges that I’ve researched have run the gamut from NYU to Colby College, so location in terms of city doesn’t really matter, but in terms of proximity to Cleveland, it does. Other potential majors for me would be Pre-Med, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, I think you get the gist. I’ve used sources besides CC, of course. Niche, PrepScholar, REDDIT, they’ve also all played key roles in my research. I hope this helps clear things up.

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Thank you so much for your thorough consideration of my question. I appreciate it! Yes, I am not one of those people who are hung up on Harvard or MIT or Stanford, I’ve passed that stage (thank God). I’m doing well in AP Bio (94%), and I generally do well in math, (right now I’m taking H Algebra 2 - 93%). I LOVE writing, and I do extremely well in English, (right now I have a 98%). I also am taking Journalism, and my second article EVER got published on Best of SNO! I’m co-president of my school’s Speech and Debate Club. But I digress, I would like to attend a mid-sized/small college. Honestly, best case scenario, I’d like to go to a university that is at least recognized, nothing Ivy League for me. A full tuition scholarship to a SUNY college would be great. I hope you understand better now, I’ll definitely drop in again in a couple years. Oh, also, I think I should mention, by the time I send out requests for teacher recommendations, I’ll be 15 years old, maybe that throws things off a bit, for better or for worse.

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Being that you live 30 min from Case you may be suffering from ‘Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country’ syndrome.

CWRU is ranked #42 in National Universities by US News and World Report.

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Cannot imagine how a kid as smart as you would let an anonymous message board dictate your college options.

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Don’t worry about it at all! Your job right now is to focus on schoolwork and enjoy your family. Also, extracurricular activities will be coming back, so think about how you can distinguish yourself in things other than grades and ACT, too, so that you will have lots of choices.

I haven’t seen any trashing of CWRU. And don’t believe everything you read about social life at schools. As long as you find a core group of people with whom you have something in common, which just about anyone can do at any school, you will be totally fine.

Relax. Put CWRU back on your list, also Ohio State U as your safety, and then start adding schools from there. 10th grade is really too early to be starting your college search, in my opinion. Focus on creating the record that will make schools want you. Then, in late 11th grade, or the summer before 12th, you decide which schools you want to apply to.

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Hmmm. I’m frankly confused. CWRU gets an A+ on Niche, with an A- for student life and a B- for party scene, so I am not buying that Niche is filled with disparaging remarks about it. CC is also not filled with disparaging remarks about CWRU. There must be some other source for this misinformation, because neither this site nor Niche proves anything about CWRU being an unwelcoming place. Furthermore, CWRU has one of the highest retention rates in the country, at 95%. That means students are happy. Unhappy students don’t stick around at a college they don’t like.

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Thanks so much! I felt a weight lift off my chest! Really helpful response :)))

I’ll come back in a year or two, you haven’t seen the last of me yet :smiley:

For now, I’ll re-infatuate myself with Case. I’ll work towards their ACT and SAT scores and extracurriculars.

Thanks to everyone <3

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Another CW supporter and recommender here. Students I know who have gone to it have been quite pleased and as @Lindagaf said, their 95% freshman retention rate speaks for itself. I expect you’d be happy there.

Otherwise, students from my school who consider CW also consider Pittsburgh (larger and OOS for you, so not necessarily what you want) and the University of Rochester (run an NPC for them before considering).

Since you said you like small, also consider Washington & Jefferson in southwest PA. For a small school, they seem to do well with pre-med, though honestly I’m not sure if they offer majors you prefer. You’d have to check.

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Hello! Definitely have heard of and researched Pitt, although, as you mention, it is a bit far from Cleveland. I’ll consider it as a target when I cross that bridge. Haven’t really delved that deep into Rochester, but I’ll see. Thanks! (also, what do you mean by NPC?). Thanks so much, though :)))

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NPC is the net price calculator. It’s in colleges’ financial aid section.

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The only thing I have seen as negative to CWRU was someone arguing that since their yield is low, nobody really wants to go there.

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Remember that you have one of the top Universities as your in-State choice - Ohio State. If you ever feel that it doesn’t get enough love here, take a walk in your hometown, and count the Buckeye flags, or shout “O, Aich!!” and listen for the dozens of “Eye-Os” coming from the houses.

It isn’t that healthy to hold any college in that regard, since admissions are often strange, especially at private colleges. However, what is a more likely scenario (I would expect that you will be admitted if you keep up those grades and activities) is that CWRU doesn’t hold up to your expectations. Dreaming about a college for years can raise many unrealistic expectations.

My kid is an undergrad majoring in Neuroscience/Cognitive Science at Middlebury college, and your very own OSU has a Neuroscience Major with a Systems/Behavioral Specialization.

If you want a great reach, U Chicago has an excellent Neuroscience undergraduate program.

There are many colleges and universities with excellent Neuroscience Majors. In fact, there are enough that, as you finish your Sophomore year and go into your Junior Year, you should start thinking about all of the other things that you want to have in any college you attend - size, atmosphere, locations, etc.

As for being trash-talked on CC? In truth, it is meaningless. People here have their favorite colleges, and colleges for which they hold an illogical dislike. CWRU is hardly ever trashed, compared to, say, U Chicago, If somebody posts something good about U Chicago, people start popping out of the woodwork to trash talk the university. There are multiple threads started just to trash talk U Chicago. They mean nothing except that these individuals who are regulars on CC have their irrational dislike for this university. It means nothing at all about the university.

CWRU is an excellent choice for just about any major, and if that is where you end up attending, you will have a great time and do very well.

Now go back and continue doing well in high school, and avoid negative posts about Case.

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Thanks so much for your detailed insight! This definitely helped.

While I am aware that OSU is an excellent university, it is a bit on the larger side for my liking. I will definitely look more into it, but it also seems like they have a really big emphasis on college sports, which isn’t anything bad, of course, but it’s just not exactly CWRU. I’ll try to hold off on raising unrealistic expectations of Case as well.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but U Chicago definitely seems like a long reach. Just based on their ACT range, they have 33-35. I consider a college like Barnard to be a little more feasible as a reach, with it’s 31-34 ACT range and really cool-looking ‘Neuroscience and Behavior’ major.

I’m aware that Barnard also has its caveats, but I think it’s just a little more plausible.

Thanks for your encouragement and advice! Please consider following up on this :slight_smile:

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From what I know, Barnard is more of a liberal arts college setting. Also, as I’m sure you know, it’s women only.

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Yeah, of course. I happen to fit right in to the women category :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, although I know Barnard has its own separate atmosphere and set of values, I think it’s really cool that I could potentially take classes and get a degree from Columbia. That’ some of the main reasons I would included it as a reach