If you had to pick...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>If you had to pick a few schools based on the following criteria, what would they be?
(I'm wondering if I overlooked any schools during my college search)</p>

<p>•Great academics - I have a 3.73 GPA, and a 28 ACT. While money is a bit of an issue, I still want to have good opportunities coming out of college. While my interests are in no way definite, I think I might enjoy the following.
-------Sport medicine, kinesiology, phys. therapy, phys. sciences or related.
-------Business : management, entrepreneurship, marketing, advertisement, accounting (not my top choices, but i want to make money after graduation)
-------Biology: biophysics, animal studies, zoology, or related.
-------Landscape architecture?</p>

<p>•School size
-------CLASS SIZE seems more important to me, along with student:teacher rations, although ~10,000 seems about right. This is not all that important though.
-------I like the big school excitement, but would be more COMFORTABLE, most likely, at a smaller school. I guess I'm undecided. I like individual attention, so again, smaller classes</p>

<p>•School spirit/sports/social life etc
-------Football is a huge draw (not necessarily to play, but to go to the games)
-------Sense of community/friendliness (I like how Lehigh is described in terms of this)
-------Greek life that does NOT necessarily dominate the social scene, unless you see that as a plus
-------Intramural sports..namely flag football. But this obviously isn't a make/break
-------Coed
-------Simply put, I'm looking to go to school with good people
-------I want to party, but nothing absurdly distracting</p>

<p>•Location
--near East coast (ie. Carolinas), New England, Southeast (Florida-ish), Colorado area for skiing, maybe California. <Merely suggestions, so don't feel limited by this
-------Flexible: warm climate/near ocean = huge plus
-----------------if especially cold, then at least have things to do ie. skiing (CO Boulder/CO College?)
-----------------I live in Mass, so I can deal with crummy weather, so although not necessary to go South, it'd be nice
-----------------College towns with stuff to do = plus
-------•somewhat unrelated, but housing/dining matters a decent amount as well</p>

<p>•Tuition and fees
-------This one is somewhat flexible as well
In terms of my background, I'll give you a quick rundown:
-Widowed mother..24k/yr
-2 siblings, 1 in college already (@ CCU and I THINK she pays from savings, I will ask)
-No mortgage on house, ~500K
-Around 45k in stocks to be used for education expenses
-15k in primary family account, 3k personal savings
"Awards"
-Cum laude
-'scholar' at high school</p>

<p>I hope this isn't too vague. Even just a suggested school or two and a brief explanation is much appreciated. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance!!</p>

2

<p>Michigan?
They have a great kinesiology department, and Ross is one of the best business schools you could wish for. They’re always ranked among the top programs for almost every other major too.</p>

<p>It’s not really a small school though. Big public school. But a very good football program.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the reply!</p>

<p>I would’ve said yes to Michigan if it weren’t for the location/class size
•verrry cold, not sure of skiing options there. Are there any good ones? (I have Colorado in mind)
•I heard that the classes are rather large…is this true? Might not be an issue if they are reduced in size considerably as you move up in levels</p>

<p>•the tuition is also somewhat high…just as a side note</p>

<p>Keep 'em coming though!</p>

4

<p>It appears as though I’ve made a crucial mistake in narrowing down my choices…please correct me if I’m wrong, however.</p>

<p>I’ve been using Naviance to eliminate/discover schools from a list my counselor recommended for me. My process went something like this:
•look at a graph to see my chances of getting in
•if within the ball-park (assuming reach/match schools) I would then look at majors/degrees
•if the school didn’t have enough of what I was looking for, I would dismiss it
•there, I believe, is the mistake: I failed to distinguish between LAC and Universities in doing so…
Was this a huge mistake? Should I have realized that they are LACs and will just have a general course in each field? Please educate me on this ASAP.</p>

<p>To elaborate more on previous posts:
I love the idea of a community, and that teachers want to help you grow etc.
I also would like to have an active social scene, not totally dominated by frats.
Based on this, do you have any other recommendations? I’m looking at the big picture now of my school list and see that many of my schools are universities.</p>

<p><strong><em>Edit from the original post to start the thread: I want a sense of community, so maybe 10,000 is a little large?</em></strong> Please advise.</p>

<p>Thank you so much! I want to get this right and I’m running out of time…</p>

5

<p>I think 10,000 is a little large for the community feeling although there are some departments at large universities that manage to provide that. I think you need to focus on the most limiting factor and start a search from there. I think are of your majors are available in one form or another at most schools except for landscape architecture. If your serious about keeping that as an option, you should probably start from there.</p>

6

<p>How can money only be a bit of an issue when you only have $45K allocated to college? That won’t last one year at an OOS or private school. I hope you have an IS school like UMass on your list.</p>

7

<p>If the ACT was a bit higher, I would say Northwestern. Doesn’t fit your warmer climate, but in a lot of ways it’s basically a state school with 8,000 students instead of 28,0000. Kinda expensive, though.</p>

8

<p>What about UMiami? A little large but fits all your other criteria.</p>

9

<p>Thanks for all your replies!</p>

<p>@Erin’s Dad, you’re right. Money is obviously important. UMass Amherst is the only in-state that I have on my list at the moment, but I don’t even know if I’d like it there.</p>

<p>@DJEureka: good school, but I most likely wouldn’t get in there. And while I’m planning on figuring out most of my finances later, if a school is very expensive I better be sure I like it. Good suggestion though :)</p>

<p>@thsfan345: UMiami is on my list! I liked everything about it (haven’t visited) but the size of school and idk if I’d fit in there…</p>

<p>From what I’ve read, Colgate seems like the perfect middle ground type of school…hard to get in though. Are there any other schools like this? What about similar ones to UMiami, but smaller?</p>

<p>*Also, please look at post #4 on this thread, did I make a mistake in doing that??</p>

10

<p>Wake Forest fits all of your criteria but is a bit iffy with financial aid. Tulane would be worth consideration as well.</p>

<p>[Wake</a> Forest | Department of Health and Exercise Science](<a href=“http://www.wfu.edu/hes/]Wake”>http://www.wfu.edu/hes/)
[Wake</a> Forest Schools of Business](<a href=“http://business.wfu.edu/]Wake”>http://business.wfu.edu/)</p>

11

<p>Is the GPA you listed weighted or unweighted? If this is the GPA that’s on your transcript, than it’s most likely weighted. With a weighted GPA of 3.73 and ACT of 28, most of the schools mentioned will be reaches. What is your rank? How many APs have you taken, and how many does your school offer? Will you be taking the ACT or SAT again? If you can pull up your score, your options will be more plentiful.</p>

12

<p>I liked a lot about Wake, except for the ‘Work Forest’ reputation, and cost. Their supplements will take a long time and are kinda strange as well. One good thing is that they don’t need test scores, so they’d only see my GPA right? It’s a good school, but idk if I could handle the workload, finances, and get the app in on time (Jan 1).</p>

<p>Tulane: I don’t know much about…are they still rebuilding in New Orleans? I have little knowledge of the area</p>

<p>Are there any cheaper ‘Wake Forests’ out there?</p>

13

<p>3.73 is unweighted. I haven’t taken any AP courses (there’s not many besides math/science). I’m not sure if I have time to take another ACT (the test I seem to do better on). BTW, my scores for the two ACT tests I’ve taken are as follows:</p>

<p>English= 28…34
Math= 29…28
English= 25…25
Sci= 26…26
Writing= 9…9
Comb. eng/writing= 27…32
Composite= 27…28</p>

<p>Should I submit both? Notice the differences in scores. Also, I got an 1860 first try on SAT which is my best score there, and when I took it again recently I did much worse due to illness, but I did better in one section. Should I submit both or just the first test?</p>

<p>Thanks! See other, more important posts above as well please :)</p>

14

<p>What do you think of my tentative list so far? Any and all advice is welcome!!</p>

<p>•Colgate -$$$
•Elon - unsure of social scene
•Emory - worth applying? (grade wise I’m fine, website says SCORES OPTIONAL-is that right???)
•Lafayette
•Lehigh - $$$
•UMASS Amherst-InState, but idk if I’d like it there. Any other instate you’d recommend?
•UMiami - BIG
•Skidmore
•UVM - cold (but skiing), rather liberal</p>

<p>other schools recommended:</p>

<p>•American U
•Bucknell
•U CO Boulder
•Colorado College - will I like the block plan?
•George Washington U
•Franklin & Marshall College
•High Point
•Gettysburg
•Holy Cross, college of
•Muhlenberg College
•Tulane
•Union College
•UVA
•Wake Forest - $$
•William & Mary (some connections)</p>

<p>Is my list too reach heavy? My HS is pretty well-liked I guess, and reports higher admission to some of these schools</p>

15

<p>There’s not going to be a school that has everything you want, is affordable, and you can get into…</p>

<p>You may have to compromise on some aspects</p>

16

<p>:( bump…sorry, time is just a big factor here</p>

17

<p>Like Erin’s Dad, I’m concerned that you aren’t being realistic financially and you are out of time. Have a conversation with your mother right away about what she can afford and how much in loans she is willing to sign for. Apply to your in-state U Mass schools (Boston, Amherst, Dartmouth, etc…) at a minimum. You can visit and decide later which one you prefer. University of Colorado at Boulder sound like potential fit - but can you afford it? I’m not familiar with most of the other schools on your list but your starting point should be what you can afford.</p>

18

<p>Thanks for the post. She is willing to sign whatever loans I may need. So please ignore finances.</p>

<p>If a school has low tuition, GREAT. If not, no big deal.
What do you now suggest?</p>

19

<p>Ajax, I wish you the best of luck and am glad you are getting lots of good suggestions. Please listen to the concern about money–someone is going to have to repay those loans! You really DO NOT want to start your life saddled with debt. </p>

<p>Again, best to you.</p>

20

<p>Thank you, again, for your concern. I’m meeting with my accountant tomorrow morning. But in the meantime, please ignore finances. I’ll go over things tomorrow with him. If a two schools are about the same otherwise, pick the lower tuition etc, obviously, but please, for the most part, disregard finances.</p>