<p>My list of schools is way too long. I need to start working on my applications now, but I can't choose my schools. I have posted in this forum before with similar questions but this time I'm getting down to the grind. Please help me!</p>
<p>Some things to consider:
1. I have one safety that I love. There is absolutely positively no way that my safety can reject me; it's the law in Texas.
2. I am applying to a lot of Ivies because of the availably of need-based aid. I am not "just a prestige whore."
3. I can apply to between 8-10 schools and do well on my apps.
4. I CANNOT VISIT ANY SCHOOL NOT IN TEXAS. I am going to visit schools if/when I am accepted. This is a financial consideration and there is nothing I can do about it.
5. My list is all over the place in terms of location, size, type of student body, reputation, emphasis on athletics, rural/city, whatever. I am an indecisive person and I want to apply to a plethora of places (i.e., someplace sunny and someplace snowy...someplace in the middle of nowhere and someplace in a city...a LAC and a huge university) and then make my decision about what kind of life I really want for the next four years when April rolls around. I know this is a weird way to look at things.</p>
<p>My list:
1. University of Texas-Austin (my safety)
2. Princeton
3. University of Virginia
4. Harvard
5. Yale
6. USC
7. UNC-Chapel Hill
8. Duke
9. Notre Dame
10. Amherst
11. Middlebury
12. Dartmouth
13. Stanford
14. Vanderbilt </p>
<p>Here's a super-quick overview of my stats:</p>
<p>-Hispanic female from Texas
-3.96 unweighted GPA, 4.2 weighted
-ranked 14 out of 500 at a public school
-IB Diploma candidate - hardest courseload possible for 4 years
-varsity sport (JV in 9 10, lettered in 11, varsity 11 12)
-student body VP
-VP of another organization
-Speech & Debate team with awards at regional level
-heavy involvement in a couple other ECs
-working at a restaurant 6 days a week to save money for college
-400-500 hours of unique community service
-essays and recs should be great</p>
<p>-National Hispanic Merit Scholar
-National Merit Commended
-AP Scholar
-SAT I: M 650 CR 800 W 800 (1450/2250...will be retaking to pull up math score)</p>
<p>Sorry, I guess that stuff is kind of important to know.</p>
<p>no...the important stuff is size, location, diversity, interests (academic and extracurric), party life?, greek life?</p>
<p>youve made like 8 threads about this and im sure gotten the same responses. if you want a chances thread on these schools make one. otherwise stats are unnecessary. figure out answers to the above questions and we can help it. it sounds like you prefer reputation over anything else though bc u picked big name schools and have no "smaller named" schools.</p>
<p>ps yes i read the info above. you cant DO that. make a decision now mainly on size id say and leave one or two of your eight or nine as the anomaly in size. thatll shorten your list. seriously how do you expect us to help you is the main point of my post</p>
<p>I've read some of your other threads, and you seem to be all over the map in terms of what you want in a college (quite understandable, regardless of what some people here say). I have a suggestion... it might be of use (and then again, it might not). Group similar schools and then cut each group down. You might group these differently, but this is just an idea.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Group 1: Public Universities (size 15,000+)
UT-Austin
UNC-Chapel Hill
Virginia</p>
<p>Group 3: Balance of Sports and Academics
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Stanford (could go in group 2)
Duke
USC</p>
<p>Group 4: Liberal Arts Colleges
Amherst
Middlebury</p>
<p>Then, cut down each group. This is just an example (you can cut bases upon further research into these colleges) :
G1: UT-Austin, Virginia
G2: Princeton, Dartmouth
G3: Vanderbilt, Duke, Stanford
G4: Amherst</p>
<p>Voila! You're list has been cut to a reasonable 8 schools. :)</p>
<p>REASONABLE REACH: Don't cut any of these. You have a STRONG shot at getting into one or more of these, but you never know. Worth every minute spent.</p>
<p>Princeton
Harvard
Yale
Stanford</p>
<p>SLIGHT REACH: Keep all three of these. These are some of the best educational/ social experiences in the country and in case HYPS doesn't work out, you should get into 2/3 of these.</p>
<p>Duke
Dartmouth
Amherst</p>
<p>MATCH/ SAFE MATCH: WAYYY TOO MANY. You are getting into 90% of these, do you really need 6 safe options!!
UVA: Keep it. Great school, you'll get in on stats.
Notre Dame: Dump it. Unless you strongly fit in, it can be an intimidating environment and the other schools on your list are more balanced.
USC: Dump it unless you 1) want to live in SoCal after college or 2) are going into film.
UNC-Chapel Hill: Keep it. You're in. Great school.
Vanderbilt: You're in! I would keep it.
Middlebury: You ARE IN! Great school.</p>
<p>Safety
University of Texas-Austin (my safety): Gotta keep it.</p>
<p>SO, I got rid of two! If held to eleven, I would personally dump Vanderbilt next.</p>
<p>j07 said:
"4. I CANNOT VISIT ANY SCHOOL NOT IN TEXAS. I am going to visit schools if/when I am accepted. This is a financial consideration and there is nothing I can do about it."</p>
<p>With all of the help you got from parents (some actually gave you templates for you to fill in the blanks), are you not going to send messages to schools to see if you can get some invitations to visit before applications are due?<br>
EM</p>
<p>"Group 2: Ivy League Schools (good merit aid)"</p>
<p>Ivy league does not give any merit aid. It's all financial need-aid. Stanford isn't an ivy league anyway, so it can't really go into that group. But then again, it is of ivy league caliber.</p>
<p>14 is not too many if you can afford the application fees. You are undecided about where to go, so apply everywhere. Decide in April after all the aid packages come in. Choose the highest ranked (USNWR) school from the list of all the ones that give you suffcient aid.</p>
<p>
[quote]
14 is not too many if you can afford the application fees. You are undecided about where to go, so apply everywhere. Decide in April after all the aid packages come in. Choose the highest ranked (USNWR) school from the list of all the ones that give you suffcient aid.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have to disagree with collegebound about the last part. You should not choose the school that is ranked the highest. Isn't the point to find the right college? Besides, if you got into Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Stanford, who the heck cares if you go to the #1 school or the #4 school in the country? There are more important things to consider when choosing a college.</p>
<p>I say you should whittle the list a little: If you get into 10/14 of those colleges (a possibility with your stats) it'll be that much harder to visit and choose a college than if you applied to 8 and got into 6. 1) It'll cost your family money for you to visit- the more colleges, the more money. 2) If you visit 10 (very good) schools, it might be harder to choose "the one".</p>
<p>To entomom, I have definitely appreciated all the comments and advice from parents and I'm working on those letters now. However, I think it is more likely that I might get offered fly-in visits to some of the smaller schools, such as Amherst, rather than the larger and more prestigious such as Princeton. I was just stating that in the thread so that people wouldn't comment "WELL WHERE HAVE YOU VISITED?" It surely was not an instance of ignoring the helpful advice of parents.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody for the great posts. The idea of splitting the schools up into groups seems to work wonderfully.</p>
<p>You may want to cut a school or two based on the difficulty of traveling back and forth from home. How far are you from a good-sized airport? Traveling to Middlebury, Dartmouth or even Notre Dame will eat up most of a day - too much to come home for short breaks. Also, think hard about the weather. Have you ever lived in the snowbelt? It isn't just pretty white stuff, it's freezing cold, and the spring and fall are chilly and rainy, like your winters or worse. A lot of people from warmer climates find the northern states' weather to be depressing.</p>
<p>forever i had a really huge list too (longer than yours)
i'm REALLY indecisive... so I know how you feel but I'm now down to like, less than 8 schools and I'm SET on a couple schools which is pretty bad. Things that helped me the most were talking to people in that college... or anyone that knows anything about colleges (I guess here is good)
Well if I were you..... Middlebury is cold but my friend LOVES IT.
I don't want to be mean but your math score has to go way up to get into Ivys, so go find out the hardest ones to get into and cut them out.</p>