I don't want chances, I want suggestions

College Search & Selection
1

Please suggest any schools to apply, and if possible, ED/EA. Also, keep in mind I will apply to Univ of Florida as a safety

GPA: 4.0/4.0 (4.48 Weighted)
Class rank: top 10%
SAT: 2160
ACT: 34
Classes Junior Year (projected to get 5’s on all): AP Calc AB(5), AP Spanish (5), AP Bio (5), AP Macro (5), AP Micro (5), Honors English 11 (A),
Classes Senior year: AP Calc BC, AP English Lit, AP Physics C, APUSH, Microbiology, Multivariable Calculus,
SAT II: Find out soon but taking Bio and Math 2. Expecting 800s (lol hopefully)

ECs:
Elected Honor Council 2 years by student body
English Tutor Intern
Math Club Mentor, secretary
Math Lab Tutor
Science Tutor, most hours of anyone
Spanish Club
Classical Piano (10 years)
Acoustic Guitar (2 years)
First Degree Black Belt Shotokan Karate (12 years)
* some silver medals at AAU states
Varsity Golf (senior year)
Community service (maybe 200-300 hours)
JV Soccer (sophomore and senior)

Shadowed surgeon in Brazil (was cool)

Global Scholars Program at my school
*went to Costa Rica for Community service

  • take credits in school to become aware of cultures outside US
  • complete huge research project
  • Attend several events throughout year
    *At the end, awarded GS Diploma along with high school diploma

Honor Societies:
NHS
Mu Alpha Theta
Science
History
Spanish

Major Awards:
- Mu Alpha Theta
*11th place nationals theta individual, 10th at states
*6th place nationals theta team, 5th at states
* many other awards
* going to do a lot better this year
- USA Bio Olympiad, still have to wait for semifinalist announcement
- AMC 12 = scored 96
- National merit scholar, and national hispanic scholar
- National Spanish Exam Silver Award for 2 years

Rec Letters:
Math Club sponsor and calc teacher, great rec, likes me a lot,
English teacher likes me, good rec
counselor rec was great also, she likes me

Extra:
Ethnicity: Hispanic (cuban)/brazilian
Languages: 3 (Portuguese, English, Spanish)
School: Amazing Prep school in Florida

I plan on majoring in either biology of physics, GO SCIENCE! (and math!)

2

What do you want to major in??

Let’s talk finances. How much can your family afford to pay in tuition/ room & Board?
Are you looking for a large school or small school?
Urban, rural, suburban?

How far from home-- and where is home?
Public or Private?

What research have you done so far? What schools are you considering?

There are thousands and thousands of schools in the country that you can get into, and I suspect you know that. But no one can find you a school unless and until we know what you’re looking for in a school. And that work has to be done by you.

3

I would send your ACT and not spend money on also sending your SAT for a 34 is higher. And like said before me we need your preferences for environment

4

I don’t really have any preferences environment wise. Finances are not an issue. Distance from home doesn’t matter. Honestly, I just want to be challenged academically, but also have time to enjoy my college experience. So i guess, that’s the only requirement, prestige and social environment

5

Run the Supermatch engine on the left side of this page.

6

That’s like going to a real estate agent and saying “find me a nice house. I don’t care how many bedrooms or bathrooms, where it is or how much it costs. Just find me a nice house.”

Take the suggestion of the previous poster and run the Supermatch. Take a look at some of the websites. Consider visiting some schools. After visiting a large and a small school, my son realized he wanted small. Great, that cuts a few off our list.

But your request is too vague for anyone to be of any help to you. You’ve got to do the preliminary work yourself before anyone can help you.

ETA… OK, how about this: I’ll give you the same parameters my son is working under.

We’re both teachers in Catholic schools, with 2 younger kids still in middle/high school. So finances are most definitely a consideration. We’re only looking at schools with a Cost of Attendance, including room and board, in the 20’s or very low 30’s. Low 20’s would be far more manageable.

He’s looking at schools within a rough 4 hour drive from our house. So that’s a ballpark 250 mile radius.

He wants a smallish school, of under 6,000 or so students.

He wants them to carry his major (sports management) and he wants more of a business (manager) than Phys-Ed (coaching) emphasis. If you have some idea of a major, think of what requirements you would want from it.

We’ve looked at internships. Because of his major, that means he’s hoping to be within commuting distance of a city that has some Pro teams. From our house on Long Island, that means probably somewhere near Boston, NYC, Philly or Baltimore.

He HATES the heat. So that makes Baltimore more of a long shot than the other 3 cities.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Each successive item on his list narrows down the list. We’ve seen 3 schools so far… we would have seen more, but this has been a brutal winter and I refuse to schlepp around a college campus in the bitter cold if it can wait. We’re hoping to hit a few of the upcoming spring Open Houses.

Why don’t you start with similar parameters, and see what you come up with??

7

Let’s be clear, prestige is not the same as challenging academic environment. UChicago has always provided a challenging, top-notch academic environment, even when its rank was 40 (or whatever it was) and relatively unknown. Likewise, Berkeley is a great university despite being placed at 20 or so.

If you care about your social environment, then chances are the non-academic factors are important. You may have to visit a few schools first. Find out what a very large campus feels like compared to a tiny one. Then, see where a medium sized campus fits. Visit a rural school, then an urban one. Now what about the suburban school or one in a small city? What about the male-female radio? Sports? Traditions? You may be surprised by your reaction.

8

I will add one more vote to encourage you to try the free SuperMatch tool on the left side of this page. There are so many factors to consider in selecting a college. SuperMatch goes beyond what we always start with (big/small, urban/rural) and adds in other items that also make a difference in your college experience. I really like that the user can add their own weight to various factors, too.
As a forum issue, maybe the SuperMatch button needs a more prominent location or explanation. It’s such a useful beginning point in creating a list, and many students spend time on CC without ever trying SuperMatch.

9

Vanderbilt, Tulane, Lehigh, Cornell, Tufts, Pitt, Notre Dame, USC . . .

10

Since you’re HIspanic, why not target a few top schools that want more URMs…might as well take advantage of that…

11

Chiming with the SuperMatch recommendations, but also that you start narrowing it down based upon social environment. There are dozens of rigorous, challenging schools with biology majors that you could apply to.

Finances are also really important. The really tip-top schools will meet 100% of need. But do you want or need a school at which you can be in the top 25% of applicants and get some merit money?

12

Cornell, WashU, MIT

13

When you say finances don’t matter, do you mean your parents have a quarter million dollars in a college fund for you or that you don’t want to narrow your list because of finances?

“prestige” is meaningless… just take the USNWR rankings and look at all the top 25 national universities and LACs. That’d still be 50 schools… and you can only apply to 20 through the Common App. So what would matter?

14

Wow, I didn’t expect so many responses over night.

First and foremost, thanks for the responses everyone. I’m sorry if my requirements were unclear, but the reason for that is I have literally ZERO idea for an ideal setting. I have never stepped foot on any college campus, and frankly, I’m not a very picky person. I live in Florida, but also love the cold. I don’t mind large campuses, as long as I may make plenty of friends.Although, in all honesty, I would prefer a private university. Super match offered schools such as Yale and Harvard, but those seem to difficult to be accepted into.

In response to financial aid: My parents are not wealthy (don’t let the prep school fool ya), but are more than willing to invest in my college education. Furthermore, I do qualify for financial aid at most universities.

I also made a mistake in saying prestige of the school matters. Perhaps I just made the connection between prestige (ivy leagues) and academically challenging.

In case I did not make my intended major clear: Physics(not sure on specificity) while Pre-Med

I will add however, because @bjkmom said, I am interested in completing research and taking full advantage of any internships available.

once again, thanks!

15

Have to agree with @bjkmom (and I think my Catholic school might be a rival to the one she works at). I think you should probably pick a list with 1-2 high reach schools, 2-3 reach schools, 2-4 match schools, and then 2-3 safety schools.

With physics, for the most part at least, it’s basically generalized at most top schools. The programs won’t vary too much and it mostly depends on what kind of experience you want specifically. You could look into a program like biophysics or biomedical physics, or try to find a school that puts a large emphasis on undergraduate research. A school like Harvey Mudd has a lot of great offerings in the STEM fields, but it’s far away, expensive, and very competitive.

I’d pick one school that’s a huge reach (MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, etc.), a couple that are moderate reaches (Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, USC, Tufts), a few that are matches or that you’d qualify for scholarships at (Northeastern, Univ. of Rochester, RPI, Tulane), and then another safety to go along with University of Florida. There are a few things to consider though. First, if a school is really academically challenging, it may be hard to get a good enough GPA to get into a competitive medical program. Second, if a school has a very rigorous physics program, it may be hard to fit in all of the required courses for a pre-med track. Third, you may want to try and save as much money as possible undergraduate, because med school is quite expensive.

I think a school like Northeastern might be a great option. You can get guaranteed internships/co-ops, you can do undergraduate research, and it’s a big up-and-coming school that would probably give you a nice $10-20k/year scholarship (I have similar stats to yours and got a $16k/year scholarship).

16

Hey, so last year I was like you–“never set foot on a college campus” and had literally 0 preferences. I thought that I might enjoy a large school, though. But I visited a bunch of different schools back in August, and found that I MUCH prefer liberal arts schools, which I had never even considered. So if I were you, I would definitely visit several different types of colleges so that you can figure out what you like. Even though you say you don’t care, you may find (as I did) after visiting that you do have preferences.

17

^as GB said: go visit a few different schools (Selective LAC, flagship, directional, private regional U…) and get an idea for your likes/dislikes: do you want interactive classes and a relationship with professors? Do you want big, D1 spectator sports? Do you want Greek life (competitive or inclusive?), present but avoidable, or NO Greek life? What are the offerings for your major? Does study abroad matter to you and if so how does it fit with your preferred major?

Run the Net Price Calculator: Just because you need aid doesn’t mean colleges will provide it. Only about 80 colleges out of 3,700 do that, they’re called “meet 100% need colleges” (about 60 + 20 that meet at least 95% need such as Clark or Dickinson).
(Below is a website for first gen students. Lots of useful advice.)
http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/colleges-that-meet-100-of-student-financial-need/

For physics, the obvious college for you is Lawrence (top 10 PHD producer, LU-R1 research program…) Demonstrate interest (fill out the “request info” form, email admissions about physics, etc.) It’s likely a safety for you as long as you demonstrate interest.
https://www.lawrence.edu/academics/research/off-campus/lu-r1