So about a week ago i posted a discussion asking about information on colleges i was looking into, however, many people replied saying how i was still young and just need to focus on high school atm. I realize that and I’m not 100% dedicated to any of these schools. I just want to know more about them from people who have had experiences with the schools. I have looked into the website but I want to hear from people who have gone to the schools, have tried applying, or have had friends and family attend the school and have honest opinions about the schools. So, once again, here’s the list, and this time I just want information, not so much advice (although the advice was appreciated, thanks).
university of notre dame
university of arizona
university of michigan
university of california, los angeles
university of hawaii, manoa
oxford university
pennsylvania state university
university of alabama
florida state university
ohio state university
i am also open to suggestions. I prefer bigger schools with a diversity of students. I am also considering joining a sorority because my sister joined one in college and she has made many good friends from her sorority. I also want to go to a “fun” place; somewhere that’s not boring like delaware(where i am from), somewhere like california or hawaii. I want a college that is on the easier side to get into but at the same time also competitive (i currently have a 3.9 gpa and intend on keeping it that way all through high school). I would like to major in either business or law (however this might change once i am actually deciding on colleges). So, if anyone has a suggestion of a school that fits this description, please let me know. And obviously, if anyone has information on these schools, please tell me so it’s easier once the time comes to pick a school (although, in 3 years, this list might change quite a bit lmao).
also, many of you mentioned budget and grades on my last post. I don’t want to sound spoiled or like im bragging or anything but money isn’t really a problem in my family and considering that I have straight a’s right now, i’m probably going to be applying for scholarships to some of these schools so ignoring those aspects, i just want to know what these schools are like.
What specific information do you want to know?
Well, at big public flagships, there is usually plenty of fun to be had, so Ohio State, Penn State, Arizona, Michigan etc. Keep in mind, admission to top flagship public universities like Michigan, is MUCH tougher for out of state students (non-residents of that state) than for instate students and requires higher stats etc. for acceptance. The admission statistics for these schools is not usually broken down between in state and out of state students, so it is hard to know what stats and profile an out of state student needs to be a match for admission. Also, admission to specific programs, such as the business school, is often more competitive than for for other programs. Another consideration, Notre Dame is the only religious school on your list, the undergrad student body is about 80% Catholic – and there is no greek life, though there are plenty of parties, especially home football weekends.
In terms of course of study, there is no undergraduate law program, as such, in the U.S… A student completes the undergrad degree and then applies for admission to a 3 year law school program. The common view is that any major works for law school, though the reasoning skills in a Philosophy major are useful in terms of preparing for the law school admissions test. Many law school students were Poli Sci or Econ in undergrad, but really, there is no “right” major for law school-- law school admissions requires high undergrad gpa and high LSAT scores (like the SAT, only for law school admissions).
Also, plenty of schools give merit based scholarships for achievement in high school, but lots of others do not or do it so rarely it is futile to expect it. Many public flagships do not give merit aid at all, or if they do, it is only to their in-state residents. The same can be said for financial aid at many public universities – not generous financial aid (need based aid).
Get some college guides from the library or from your school counseling office. Fiske, Princeton Review, and others. Also see the forum for each of these schools here at CC and look for YouTube videos, official and unofficial.
Most importantly, check out each school’s website.
Law is not an undergraduate major. It is a graduate program only. (It doesn’t matter what major you choose for the purpose of law school admissions)
I agree with the suggestion of getting a college guide. Read about the schools you’ve named, and others. Go to the websites of schools that interest you. Many have online tours so you can get a feel for the place. Look at the majors offered, housing information, and anything else that matters to you.
There are school specific discussions here on CC, under Colleges and Universities. You might want to read those in addition to, not instead of, the guides recommended above.
If you go to the forum page for each of the colleges you are interested in, scroll through to see if there’s a recent thread from a current student, or look for the threads titled something like, “should I go to U of Arizona or U of Michigan?” … those often get more specific details on pros/cons of each school.
It’s hard to respond to an open-ended request for information about 10 different colleges.
You might want to post questions/requests to forums dedicated to each school.
Here, for example:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/
A good source of information about a college is its Common Data Set.
You can browse for it on each school’s site, or Google for “[College Name] CDS”.
Example:
https://www3.nd.edu/~instres/CDS/CDS.shtml
In each CDS,
- Section B shows the percentage of enrolled students by racial/ethnic category
- Section C shows GPA, class rank and test score profiles for entering students
- Section F (“Student Life”) shows the percentage of men in fraternities and women in sororities (for Notre Dame, the percentage is zero for both)
- Section J indicates the number/percentage of students graduating in business (and other fields)
I’m not sure if anything in the CDS will indicate whether a college is a “fun” place. That’s pretty subjective. You might get some insights from the “Student Life” section. This may be one line of questioning that is better pursued in the CC individual college forums. There is also a web site that gathers student reviews (positive/negative) about many colleges (Google for it) as well as various sites that identify the best party schools.
Of all the schools on your list, which one has the best balance of everything you want?
IMO: probably UMichigan or UCLA.
Ohio State or Penn State might be good, somewhat less selective back-ups.
Oxford seems like a case of “which one doesn’t belong here”.
However, if you think you have the chops to get into Oxford, you might want to consider some of the 8 Ivies, such as UPenn (the so-called “social Ivy”).
A few comments:
–People who come here are volunteers. You are asking people to take time out to give you information on ten colleges that you may or may not ultimately be qualified to apply to, that you may or may not ultimately be interested in attending etc. I suggest that you don’t use up the time/goodwill of volunteers until you are in a better position to know what you want.
–I reiterate my comment on your other very similar thread that as a freshman it is too early to be looking at any specific colleges.
–It appears that you have not done even minimal/basic research on your own. There are many excellent guide books that can give you descriptions of the schools (ex. Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide). These books can be purchased or can likely be found in your HS guidance office or library.
–Each of the schools you listed also has a website which has a wealth of information.
–If you google each school followed by common data set you should get more data.
–Most of the schools you listed has a forum on CC where you can read through the posts.
Yup, it seems like you are just asking us to dump out info that you could find fairly easily on your own. People on this thread have given you some suggestions that you should take.
Also, regarding scholarships, even straight As won’t get you scholarships at more than half the schools on your list. Lots of the applicants have straight As or close to them at top schools.
I have been looking at the websites and even the forums on here. A lot of these schools are schools my sister and her friends have looked into when they were applying to college, which is why i have taken up an interest on them. However, a lot of the information I find on the websites can be misleading because none of the schools are going to advertise on their websites that they have a hard application process or their classes don’t teach anything. All im asking for is firsthand experience anyone has had with these schools so that I can know about them better. If you feel like i am just asking for information that can be fairly easy to just look up, i’m not trying to. but a lot of the things that have been mentioned like the guides have helped, so thanks.
Well, that isn’t Oxford. Also, it isn’t a ‘fun’ school.
I will only comment on UCLA. Very diverse but competitive school. If you are not a California resident or have an unlimited budget, UCLA might not be a good option. If you are OOS, they offer little to no financial aid and you should expect to pay around $65K/year to attend. By the time you apply, it could be even more.
To be a competitive applicant, target around an UW GPA of 3.95 and SAT score of 1400 and ACT of 32. Also EC’s and essays are very important so you want to focus on Leadership and community service.
Some nearly Auto admit, some Selective and some very selective but none are an uber reach for a 3.9 UW with a solid set of scores and ecs. Ones that you can target to gain admission and meeting your basic requirements. IMHO.
Monetary questions aside.
U of Hawaii
Loyola Marymount
Sand Diego State University
Texas A and M
Elon
College of Charleston
University of Oregon
Washington State
Santa Clara University
UCSB
Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Florida State
University of Arizona
Arizona State
Texas Tech
U New Mexico
UC Irvine
University of South Carolina
Smaller:
Furman
Lynchburg
DePauw (colder)
Gettysburg
I can help a little with the University of Alabama as I’m an alumnae and my D18 just went through the application process. We toured the Capstone this past February, so hopefully this will help (note my D18 was looking at this as an in-state safety and did not want such a large environment so my feedback is more how I was selling it to her and what aspects she found appealing!) One very notable aspect that many do not know about The University is the student body is about 55% from out-of-state. So unlike some other flagship state schools such as Texas, UNC or UVA, Alabama is very interested in recruiting out-of-state and overall their admissions is not too selective (around 55%) However we understand that for OOS they tend to look strongly at those with a better academic resume than the campus average (regardless of what is published on the website, most students have between a 28-30 on the ACT) and admissions is more interested in your numbers stats (test scores, GPA, are you a NMF) than your ECs or essay. It is certainly a large school (over 35,000 undergraduates) but also has very well run colleges under the bigger University umbrella which makes it seem a little smaller once you are there.
Two other ways to make it seem a littler smaller are the Honors Program and the Blount Scholars Program (a living and learning community within the University that has about 380 top academic students across a wide spectrum of majors-this was what my D18 really was interested in). The amazing Honors Program (if you are able to get in) offers much lower class size. The Honors Program isn’t just a diploma designation but has really fantastic programs (service, internship, research) that its members can take advantage of if they choose. Alabama has one of the top business schools in the South, a fantastic Engineering program, one of the toughest Nursing Programs to get into, as well as, a very strong Communications School. Alabama also has an excellent Law School and I think you can still major in pre-law through the Business School (mostly business classes with a few poli sci thrown in) or through the Art & Science School (heavy poli sci/history/English curriculum to get you use to writing briefs!) but you can major in anything and still do well on the LSAT and get in… but watch those grades! Must be top of the class - the Law School is very competitive - my BIL graduated Law Review from there and has a Business undergraduate degree from Alabama as well.
In regards to Greek life, it is strong on campus and it is super fun!! Even though only about 40% of students participate so you don’t HAVE to join to enjoy being on the Capstone (TTown is a great city for both Greeks and Independents alike!). I was in a sorority ‘back in the day’ and loved my experience however with the introduction of the new physical ‘houses’ for the sororities (about the size of a small town country club!) the dues associated with sororities at Alabama have increased exponentially in the past 20 years. You said that money doesn’t matter so that should be much of a concern for you… first year bills run anywhere from $6,500-8,000 depending. Unlike the University, the sororities WILL be looking for PNMs who were involved in high school and not just cheerleading and dance team but leadership roles get lots of points; grades are key there too as they are all looking to keep their house GPAs above the schools average and several National sororities have grade requirements (if you keep yours up it will not be an issue); being involved in volunteer/service activities is also a plus as all sororities are expected to hold fundraising events for their National philanthropy
Hope this helps! I could tell you about Auburn too as my D18 considered it briefly but if you are coming all the way to Alabama you want to be at the best school! Roll Tide!
Re money:
Until you have solid numbers from your parents, don’t make any assumptions about that. Even if they look to have scads of spare change, they might not have anything specifically in college savings for you, which means that a job loss or illness or windstorm that takes the roof off the house can drastically change the money side of things.
Except for places that offer automatic scholarships for grades/test scores, don’t assume anything about your ability to get a scholarship for grades. That varies widely, and wildly from one place to another and can change drastically from one year to the next at any given college or university.
Another place you can look is the website called niche. You can put in each school and see reviews from student at those schools. It’s like Yelp but for colleges.
Searching for a college can be overwhelming–I agree. I hope that you have already looked at one of the college match surveys available online. Big Future at collegeboard.org lets you put in all sorts of parameters to shape your search-- it may give you some ideas you haven’t considered.
Your school may have Naviance or a similar site that gives information on where students from your school/district have gone to college, including what their scores/GPA were and whether they were accepted/rejected/waitlisted. Our school system has access to this through student/parent Blackboard accounts.
And about the cost issue–you do need to ask your parents. If they really can afford $70K every year for 4 years, then you have pretty unlimited opportunities. If your family income is low enough to qualify you for generous financial aid, then you have many choices as well.
If, however, you fall into the middle (like our family), you do need to take a look at this, at least after you generate an initial list. While looking at colleges for my child, we found that many schools do give generous merit aid–those schools stayed on the list. Other schools give need-based aid only–this is a wonderful policy that allows many students to attend schools that they otherwise could not afford. But for our family, those schools came off her list because they would require going into debt (while relatively equal colleges would not if they gave merit aid) For most schools, you can go on their website and search “merit aid” to find their policy.
And, of course, any in-state options that you may have would probably be affordable (although it sounds like you may want to go away for college.)
Good luck in this exciting time in your life!
I agree that choosing a college is overwhelming. You’ve gotten some good advice here about college guides and niche. You can also do an online college match search. Big Future at collegeboard.org lets you set a lot of different parameters to shape your search–it may turn up some schools you have not thought of. There are some other sites that do the same thing.
Your school may use Naviance or a similar service to gather information on where students from your HS/school district have gone to college and what scores/GPA got them accepted, rejected or waitlisted. Our school system has it available through Blackboard accounts. Check with your guidance office.
And about the money piece–you do need to check with your parents. If your family is able to cover $70K a year for 4 years, then you have unlimited possibilities. If your family income qualifies you for generous financial aid, then you also have a lot of opportunities.
If, however, your family is somewhere in between (like my family), you will need to consider the costs of schools. Many schools do give generous merit aid/scholarships, some of them automatically if you have certain grades/scores. Other schools have chosen to award only need-based aid, which could mean that you will be expected the full cost of attendance (or borrow in order to do so). After making an initial list of colleges, we eliminated schools that do not give merit aid because they would certainly require going into debt while an equivalent-level college that gives merit aid would mean graduating debt-free. If you search for “merit aid” on most colleges websites, you will find their policies. [Once you have things narrowed down more, you can look at the “net price calculator” on each school’s site for more specific cost numbers.]
Going to an in-state school will also (most likely) be affordable, but it does sound like you would like to attend college away from home.
Good luck in your search!