<p>I’ve wanted to go to Penn State since I was six, visited and loved it. Elmira gave me a $72k scholarship. DePauw was to get my friend to shush. HWS has a good chance of accepting me, and it’s worth a try. Va Tech was a whim, mostly because my friend (who is just like me) visited it and recommended it. I tried to apply to schools across the spectrum. My personality is multifaceted.</p>
<p>Yeah, it was a crap statement. I figured. Thanks for the help, guys. :]</p>
<p>And I would not say that Penn State is preppy, dominantly Greek, jock-oriented, and/or conservative. The school is so huge that there’s a niche for every type.</p>
<p>While I agree that large schools generally are diverse enough to allow most any student to find their niche (if they look hard enough), there are only a handful of campuses in the U.S. that take football as seriously as Penn State… with Va Tech being one of them. I have been to Va Tech many times for football games and know several PSU alumni, including my sister-in-law. When football dominates campus culture, you tend to draw a certain type of student - the type I described above. There is nothing wrong with that (I am a huge college football fan myself), but the OP just seems to be looking for something quite different.</p>
<p>Call me crazy, but I just don’t see someone who is a good fit for Goucher or Earlham also being a good fit for Va Tech or PSU, and vice versa. I guess I just don’t understand why people apply haphazardly to a wide variety of schools. Part of the application process is finding out what you like or dislike, and there really should be some sort of commonality between schools on one’s list.</p>
<p>I don’t think that PSU/VA Tech is at all similar to Goucher/Earlham–but the OP seems to have made up her mind based on gut feeling, which I respect. Heck, I’ve gotten weird looks for considering Yale and Beloit together, and they have discernably similar areas (academically).</p>
<p>Well, whoever doesn’t want me to apply to so many is getting their wish – my guidance counselor is making me take off schools due to problems with my fee waivers, so I’m no longer applying to Amherst, DePauw, Hobart, Fredonia, Purchase, Stony Brook, or Skidmore. I guess that leaves me with this;
Bard
Beloit
Elmira
Goucher
New Paltz
Penn State
Potsdam
Vassar
VCU
VT</p>
<p>My GC says that I still need to eliminate three more, but I just can’t decide. I am hopefully going to have a job soon, so we’ll see…:/</p>
<p>What does VCU stand for? I also don’t think VT would be a good fit–you’re not going into engineering, are you?–but it’s up to you. Kumquat for Penn State except that I can tell your enthusiasm for PSU, not so much for VT.</p>
<p>You might also reconsider Bard; it is, I believe, a reach for you and they don’t do the best job of meeting need. Earlham meets 95% on average, really good for a school at its level; especially compared to Goucher at 79%. Remember that if a school meets 95% of your need, that’s 5% more that you’ll have to come up with on top of your EFC and the rest of your FA package.</p>
<p>Are you really only allowed to apply to 7 schools? That’s not optimal for iffy aid circumstances, which you have–worst case scenario, you can only afford to attend your safeties even if you get into matches or reaches (which may not meet your full demonstrated need).</p>
<p>It’s not about only being allowed to apply to 7; my GC is making me pull some out because I wasn’t aware that I could only use four fee waivers.</p>
<p>As of this morning, my dad said it was okay to have to pay for a few places. My GC is still making me withdraw from a few, which is okay with me, although I’m sure she won’t be happy with my adding two more in place of two I am withdrawing from, since my dad randomly wants me to apply to Carnegie Mellon…</p>
<p>About Bard, I really like the idea of going to that school; it seems quirky and fabulous and it even reminds me of Shakespeare. I’m hesitant to remove it. If I do, it’ll be a last resort thing; I would rather wait to see their aid package than remove it altogether due to money. I’m still on the fence with VT. My college list seems much less tailored to me with all of this cutting; I would much prefer to apply to places like Carleton and Reed, if only my GPA weren’t so low…</p>
<p>Actually, for what it’s worth, my ideal list would be Grinnell, Oberlin, Reed, Carleton, Macalester, Brown, Brandeis, Swarthmore, and Colby, but I’m not getting into any of those. :[ Maybe I should apply for transfers next year?</p>
<p>Current list (still debating with Earlham, since I don’t really want to go all the way out to Indiana and the “crunchy granola” thing sort of scares me)
Bard
Beloit
Carnegie Mellon
DePauw (about Indiana – my friend would be wicked disappointed if I didn’t try, ehh)
Elmira
Goucher
Penn State
SUNYs minus Stony Brook
Vassar
Virginia Tech?</p>
<p>Your ideal list makes sense, save for Colby, which is an upstate Maine school known for preppy Ivy rejects. Did you mean Middlebury, which does have a distinct minority of a laid-back granola contingent?</p>
<p>Indiana is certainly a mitigating factor re: Earlham, but I wouldn’t cross it off for “crunchy granola,” a label also applicable to Bard, Beloit, Grinnell, Oberlin, and Macalester, in about that order.</p>
<p>Your reasoning for Bard makes sense, but I still haven’t seen any concrete reasons for VT, though you surely must have some.</p>
<p>And I notice that I’m sounding awfully pretentious, giving all this blanket advice; for comparison purposes, since I think I am like you in several ways, here’s my own current list: Yale, Pomona, Swarthmore, Amherst, Vassar, Oberlin, Grinnell, Macalester, Beloit, URochester, Lewis & Clark. (Plus guaranteed in-state UDel and possibly Goucher or Denison, if I decide I want more merit aid options, as income-wise we’re on the fence between merit and need.)</p>
<p>That was probably way more information than you needed or wanted to know, hehe. I also considered (multiple times) Carleton and Earlham. I found them perfect in “vibe” but not an academic fit for ME–you don’t have that baggage, so I would wholeheartedly recommend them. In fact, if you wanted to throw another Amherst-like reach on, Carleton would probably be a better fit.</p>
<p>I do think I meant Middlebury. I don’t know why I get the two mixed up. Maybe crossing VT off, but a friend of mine whose list includes almost everything on my ideal visited and enjoyed it. We’ll see, I suppose. And you don’t sound pretentious – it all helps. I’m just concerned because my GC has already sent out so many copies of my transcripts and recommendations, and she’s already ticked at me about the fee waiver incident. Maybe I’ll just replace VT with Carleton altogether; both are reachy. My GC won’t be happy. I don’t think I really care. =D</p>
<p>Bates probably has a better granola quotient than either Colby or Midd… while Midd has the whole Vermont outdoor thing going on, it also has probably the largest and most successful D3 athletic program in the nation. Sports are more of an afterthought at Bates. Though Middlebury is, by all accounts, a much nicer college town than Lewiston, if that is a big consideration.</p>
<p>As an afterthought, would I have a chance at any of these places as a sophomore transfer, considering that my current college GPA is a 3.8 and should likely be somewhere around there by the end of next year?</p>
<p>Taking off VT. Like I said, even though my GC won’t like it, that leaves me with an opening.</p>
<p>Have you considered St. John’s in Maryland and New Mexico?</p>
<p>I would prefer not to go to a school named after a religious figure. :**)</p>
<p>Chances at Carnegie?</p>
<p>There shouldn’t be a problem applying to the SUNY’s if you qualify financially to apply under EOP. Most SUNY’s waive the fee if you check the EOP box. You can check the qualifications here: [SUNY:</a> Educational Opportunity Program (EOP)](<a href=“http://www.suny.edu/student/academic_eop.cfm]SUNY:”>http://www.suny.edu/student/academic_eop.cfm)</p>
<p>Sk8ermom: I actually attempted to apply for EOP, but was rejected from each school I tried to apply to with it, but my guidance counselor signed the fee waiver form, anyway. I mostly took those off because I found bad things out later.</p>
<p>I did take off VT, and it turns out that Hobart didn’t even have a fee to begin with (which I didn’t know, having applied on paper). Interesting.</p>
<p>New Goucher answer (I can’t help it, I love being wordy):
The first thing that caught my attention about Goucher was its name, and I learned from there that everything else is just as quirky! Diversity runs through the superior vena cava of Goucher’s system eventually floods every capillary that branches out to the body of its students; its multicultural clubs lull sirens for the purple-haired student clawing her eyes out to escape from a homogeneous high school in the middle of Podunk, Nowhere, 00000. Goucher finds itself a worthy peer of every institution in Baltimore, from Johns Hopkins to Towson, and is one of the hidden gems of the American collegiate system. When given the choice between a large, well-known university that breeds anonymity, or a small one where one could tread the current of shared knowledge between educators and pupils and exercise his or her brain, which is the more obvious choice?</p>
<p>Try Eugene Lang
It’s right in NYC and its pretty crazy liberal. I went on a tour the day after election day and talked to a bunch of people, not one of which were upset with the results :)</p>
<p>Zefranzter – I think I’m going to throw in an app! It means another application fee, but my parents are okayish with that.</p>