I need help in deciding what schools I need to start looking at

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>First, I'll tell you all a little bit about myself! </p>

<p>White male, living outside of Chicago. Going to a small Catholic school. I'm a junior right now.</p>

<p>Rank: 3/105-ish (I would be #1, but I took an extra class that lowered my GPA even though I got an A in it)</p>

<p>GPA: unweighted - 4.0 Weighted - somewhere around a 4.5</p>

<p>My school only offers one AP class, and I'll be taking it next year. But there is a decent 'honors' program....and I've taken the most difficult courses available to me.</p>

<p>ACT: 34 SAT: 1380 (this was disappointing. I know I can do better, and the new format will surely help me. My strength is writing.) I've not taken any SAT IIs yet. I should get on that. ha.</p>

<p>Other stuff: </p>

<p>-Varsity soccer for four years. All conference as a sophomore, All sectional honorable mention as a junior. We'll see what happens senior year.</p>

<p>-Freshman and JV basketball. captain of JV team sophomore year</p>

<p>-varsity letter in tennis as a freshman</p>

<p>-varsity letter in track as a sophomore. could possibly go down state this year. I don't know if that helps anything though.</p>

<p>-Student council (class senator as a sophomore, executive treasurer as a junior, likely will be executive president next year)</p>

<p>-participant in school's big brother/big sister program for freshmen</p>

<p>-active in school service projects</p>

<p>-National Honors Society (would run for office if I thought it would be helpful)</p>

<p>-member of school jazz ensemble (I play bass). play in the pit band for school musicals</p>

<p>-member of various other clubs</p>

<p>uhh. That's all that's coming to me off the top of my head. So what I need to know is....is it even worth my time to look at ivy league schools? do I even want to go to an ivy league school? I'm a very social person, and some people have told me that for that reason, I would hate the ivy league. What kinds of things could I do to improve my chances if I do decide I'd like to go to an ivy league school? Do I need to decide what I want to do with my life before I decide where I want to go to school? I sure hope not, because I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. What are some high-quality, lesser-known schools? What top schools would maybe throw some money my way?</p>

<p>Yeah, I have lots of questions. My school's guidance department is in shambles. I don't even know if this is in the right forum. oh well.</p>

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<p>I think the problem with a lot of people is they want ivy just because it's ivy. If you don't really know or care about the schools, I don't think you should apply to them. I think you look pretty good, possibly ivy possible, but I think HYP would be tough for you, especially with your SAT score. As for good schools, what do you want to major in?</p>

3

<p>Hello, Hyper, welcome. You will get lots of good advice from parents and kids. Prowl the old threads, lurk on the boards, particularly parents boards, and read the ED threads from "Ivy" schools. My daughter was in your position last year (Aahhh, clueless) and she was accepted ED to her first choice school, so it can be done!</p>

<p>First of all, forget that the Ivies exist as a category, if you look at the Yale, Princeton and Columbia ED threads, you will see one reason why. The other, more important reason, is that the Ivies are just a football conference of old schools, and, just as there is a big difference between Northwestern and Ohio State, and some difference between Ohio State and Michigan, but not quite as much - so the "Ivies" are different each from the other. If you do well on SATs and your holiday homework, you can come back to the Ivies, they aren't completely a no go, they should just be last.</p>

<p>Christmas homework - 1) begin studying for the SAT and take some SATIIs (your ACT score is quite respectable, same as my daughter's, she's going to Dartmouth; you might be able to get away with just the ACT, particularly being from the Midwest, but study and take the tests first, cross that bridge after you're finished testing).
2)Go out to dinner with the 'rents, and have a long, heart to heart talk with them about money and expectations. Since you are on this board, introduce them to the board as well. The Ivy ED threads and some of the posts on the old board from last spring will give you and them a dose of reality, and a common base of knowledge.
If your family is low income, you will have one plan of action, if middle class (which can be 40K up to about 130-150K) another, and if your family is a full payer, still another plan of action - private unis are breathtakingly expensive, and starting life with 100K in debt is not good.
3)Start thinking about what you want - to do in life, particularly engingeering or not, not all schools have engineering, other specific programs like pharmacy or turf management ;); how far from home do you want to go (the 'rents might have input into this one); do you want a "traditional college" scene, a big sports school, highly academic/intellectual atmosphere, small school, close relations with faculty and small classes or the anonymity of 300 people, how important is a residential atmosphere, then money (AGAIN, it keeps coming back to that one).</p>

<p>After you and your family has done some thinking about money, and goals and "fit", it is time for a road trip. At a minimum, you should try to look at a small and a large school - in your neck of the woods, NU, U of C, and a LAC,?Lake Forest. are very doable. Try to get down to UIUC. Your may want to most of your Internet research right now on LACs, I would guess you have the least knowledge about those (we did), and the widest variety to choose from.
Good luck, keep us posted, this will be an exciting year.</p>

<p>When you have done all that (about Feb if you are gung-ho, April if you are not)</p>

4

<p>Consider Tufts as a match school.</p>

5

<p>damn. Finding this forum was the best thing I've done in a while. Thank you so much for the responses. I really, really appreciate them.</p>

<p>That was a whole lot of information to digest. I'll have to check back a few times and let it all sink it. Thank you so much.</p>

6

<p>You might direct your post in the College Search and Selection forum instead of the What are my Chances forum for more answers. And perhaps read some of the posts there too to learn more about possible college matches</p>

<p>Welcome to CC!
The old archive can be found at <a href="http://www.collegeconfidential.com/discus/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeconfidential.com/discus/&lt;/a> if you want to do some exploring/searching. :)</p>

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<p>hey hyper music! i'm no expert on what your chances are or where you should look, but i just thought i would say good luck to you! i'm in the same boat right now..a junior, starting to get nervous about colleges, wondering what on earth i can do to make myself stand out, and trying to figure out what is so great about the ivies besides their name (actually...that is a little harsh. i've only been to harvard and yale. harvard i liked, mostly because i thought cambridge was awesome, but yale just sort of turned me off. either way i've seen schools that i can see myself much happier at). anyway...from a completely uncritical, not assessing your chances point of view, i think you have impressive stats and i wish you the best of luck!</p>

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<p>I consider myself an incredibly social person. I LOVED Dartmouth for this reason, its four years of bonding with amazing classmates. i would say its the 'social' Ivy. Penn is bigger and less communal, but a great school. Brown is similarly less communal but also has a good social scene. You have a solid shot at all three. </p>

<p>I would recommend applying to these three along with Duke, Stanford, and maybe Northwestern. You would hate U of C, I did.</p>

9

<p>I never finished, but, what I was going to add was, after you've done some researching, made a few visits, finished some testing, and, most importantly, know from your discussions with parents whether or not you need merit aid, or need-based aid or both or neither - then post stats and a tentative list of schools, on Parents or College Search and Selection, then you will get a flood of other schools to check all kinds of ideas. Good luck.</p>

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<p>And that's another thing. I have no idea what I want to major in. Journalism (I hear Northwestern has a great journalism program)? English? I'm all about writing, and I hate science. I'd kind of like to look into a career in music, but I don't know what the possibilities really are.</p>