I heard that Native Americans are in high demand, especially those with stats like yours. You will have wonderful choices according to my magic ball.
@aspiringgirl Wow Congrats… Well if they gave you that much esteem then I hope you show gratitude by helping them and sharing their culture with others.
I deleted Smith, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke from my list. I kinda want a party school and I do want to go to school with guys.
Have you looked into Questbridge yet? You need your full (extensive) application ready by September, that’s not a lot of time to get it all done. However it’d allow you to apply (equivalent of 8 ED) “early” with guaranteed full ride at Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Williams, Wellesley, etc, etc.
You’re right not to reveal your tribal affiliation on a public forum such as this! Good for you, we don’t need to know. (I still remember the student who wouldn’t remove an identifying picture. :s)
And congratulations on being elected Princess. 
What about Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Hamilton?
You should keep Bryn Mawr and add Barnard: both function along with a partner college. There are even guys in the dorms at Bryn Mawr (and of course in classes + you can take classes at Haverford) and Columbia is literally accross the street from Barnard and you can take whatever classes you want there.
Don’t worry about parties at “non party schools” - all colleges have lots of parties. A school that doesn’t have a reputation as a party school doesn’t lack for parties - Put 18-22 year olds together with limited supervision and you’ll have all kinds of crazy antics. You will have a social life regardless of reputation.
A “work hard, play hard” is a double edged sword. There’ll be pressure to go out and get drunk every night and also pressure to perform academically. The trick is to take the balance seriously - 5 days of hard work, 2 days of fun in whichever form you prefer. If your parents are wealthy it’s not a big deal if you mess up freshman year so some students don’t care (it happens to a lot of students who take college seriously but then go out instead of studying in the library because their roommate is going out and it’s fun and midterms are weeks from then… But the consequences are different if you’re a legacy or a scholarship student.) Partying on weekends while working hard during the week is not as easy to maintain when everyone around you seems to think grades don’t matter :).
Your list looks very good @aspiringgirl . Just throwing out there that Amherst College has a NA-specific overnight event - https://www.amherst.edu/admission/diversity/NAO - it is an all expenses-paid fly-in weekend and the app deadline is August 14th this year. Amherst’s financial aid is also very generous.
I feel like Dartmouth may have something similar.
@OHMomof2 Dartmouth has Dartmouth Bound and the Native American Community program. I will be applying to the latter when it opens.
It’s worth repeating that if you apply through Questbridge, you can apply ED to Dartmouth, Amherst, Stanford, etc (8 top colleges at once, it’s the only exception to ED.)
@MYOS1634 ^ sort of. It’s a match process. So she can’t really choose just Dartmouth which sounds like what she wants. Unless she chooses just Dartmouth in the match, which may defeat the purpose.
Though with QB, a full FA package with tuition R&B is guaranteed for 4 years.
https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/rankings
She can rank Dartmouth as #1 and if she gets it, all other choices are cancelled. Imagine Yale as.#2, Stanford #3 : if she doesn’t get into Dartmouth and Yale, she still gets the benefit of an 'ed ’ for Stanford, while Dartmouth and Yale move her to the Regular pool. If she ranks Williams, Amherst, Barnard next, same idea as previously. The ranking is important.
But in any case she can explore Questbridge. I don’t really see a downside to it, especially since it’d a loan free full ride.
I am definitely applying to Questbridge! @MYOS1634
These are the colleges that I will be ranking. Most likely I will shorten this list. (I copied and pasted them, so that is why they are capitalized)
AMHERST COLLEGE
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
EMORY UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
RICE UNIVERSITY
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
YALE UNIVERSITY
If you were interested in all-women’s colleges, but wanted men too, look into Barnard. It’s all women, but it’s part of Columbia University which is just across the street. Barnard classes have men in them and vice versa.
At the level of colleges that you are applying for, I wouldn’t shorten the list. Admissions at this level is very unpredictable.
With Dartmouth indicated as your first choice, you might consider that you could find similarity in Bowdoin, Hamilton, Middlebury, Colgate and Amherst.
I think your college list is really well balanced and that you will definitely get into at least one (if not a ton) of the schools on the list. Just make sure that you are absolutely sure that you’d be absolutely willing to go to even your safety if it came down to it!
I personally think you could apply to more far reach schools, and if you can, try to look up overnight programs for some schools, such as Dartmouth, Columbia, and some of the liberal arts schools you noted. They often will fly students out for free, and you can see if you like the school culture!
Best of luck! You sound amazing and I hope you are accepted into your first choices.
Thank you! And I have forced myself to actually research my safety school. I don’t regret it one bit. I love it so much!!!
It’s my understanding that if you get into any one of the schools you rank, you are obligated to attend, with exceptions only for 2-3 scea schools. So if she ranks Dartmouth #1 and Williams #2 and is matched to Williams, she has to go. She can’t wait and see if Dartmouth accepts her Rd.
Anyway that’s an issue for next fall.
@OHMomof2
That is correct. So I am thinking about only applying to Dartmouth and non-binding schools.
- DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
- YALE UNIVERSITY
- STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
If I get a little more interested in Emory or Rice, I might add those schools.
@MYOS1634 Should all of OP’s Questbridge choices be Reaches? I’m not sure how the whole thing works.
Questbridge only offers reaches. You apply to the other colleges if you don’t get matched to a college.
Here are the Questbridge Partner Schools (Schools that you can apply to under Questbridge):
AMHERST COLLEGE
BOWDOIN COLLEGE
BROWN UNIVERSITY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
CARLETON COLLEGE
CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE
COLBY COLLEGE
COLORADO COLLEGE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
DAVIDSON COLLEGE
DUKE UNIVERSITY
EMORY UNIVERSITY
GRINNELL COLLEGE
HAMILTON COLLEGE
HAVERFORD COLLEGE
MACALESTER COLLEGE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
OBERLIN COLLEGE
POMONA COLLEGE
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
RICE UNIVERSITY
SCRIPPS COLLEGE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
VASSAR COLLEGE
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
WELLESLEY COLLEGE
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
YALE UNIVERSITY
@aspiringgirl, I was wondering why Brown & Princeton Universities never made the list. Which college accepted you, & which one did you decide to attend. Your areas of interest and cultural identity are very closely aligned with my daughter’s. .
I matched to Oberlin College through QuestBridge’s NCM. Although it was a binding decision, I have full-ride to Oberlin. I also found out this past week that I was accepted to a volunteering program that I applied to at Oberlin called Bonner Scholars. I will now be getting paid $2,500 every year to go to college.