Is this a good college list?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi, I'm working on my college list right now and I'm wondering if this is a good list. Are there enough safeties/matches? Am I applying to too many schools? Thanks in advance! </p>

<p>Dartmouth
Duke
Bowdoin
Colby
Washington University, St. Louis
Washington University, Seattle
Boston University
Cornell
Rice
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Tufts
Amherst</p>

<p>Here are my stats: </p>

<p>Weighted GPA: 4.35
Unweighted: 3.9/4.0
SAT: 2320 (800M, 800CR, 720W)
SAT II Math: 760, Bio M: 740 (retaking), Chem: 680 (retaking)
IB/APs: AP Stats (5) I'm an IB student so my IB scores don't come out until after my senior year</p>

<p>College Major/Career Goal:
Biomedical Sciences</p>

<p>Honors and Awards:
Certificate of Excellence in High School Spanish (10)
Certificate of Excellence in High School Science (11)
President’s Award in Outstanding Academic Excellence (9,10,11)
Certificate of Distinction in the CMC (9,10)
Harvard Book Prize award (11)
EARCOS Global Citizen (11)</p>

<p>High School Activities:
Tae Kwon Do Club (grade 10- present): Assistant Coach/Founder
Model United Nations (grade 9-present)
Strings Orchestra, 1st Violin/2nd Solo (grade 9-present): Treasurer (10), President (11,12)
Interact Club (grade 10-present)
National Honor Society (grade 10-present)</p>

<p>Community Activities:
Hospital Volunteer (Grade 9-present)
Orphanage Volunteer (9, 10)</p>

<p>Interest:
Tae Kwon Do (Grade 7-present): Black Belt 2nd Dan
Violin (Grade 3-present)</p>

2

<p>You have a lot of schools that are hard to consider matches for most. You have a good chance at most of them, but I would recommend adding a couple more matches or safeties. Also, I would say twelve schools is slightly too many to apply to. I would shoot for 8-10.</p>

3

<p>What other matches/safeties would you suggest?</p>

4

<p>Good state schools would give you a pretty good shot at getting in, while not sacrificing much in academics. Maybe UMich, UIUC, or UW-Madison.</p>

5

<p>With your stats, you can obviously apply anywhere you want, and have as good a chance as anyone of getting in.</p>

<p>What jumps out at me about your list, is a lack of focus. Let me explain – I see both Amherst and Boston University – both excellent schools. Both VERY different. Amherst is small and rural with a lovely defined campus. BU is an urban school. It’s in the middle of Boston, and really lacks the campus feel (I went there for grad schools, many years ago, so I know). Now many love the BU, NYU kind of feel, others hate it.</p>

<p>Given your stats, I see a good range of schools – I think more of these are matches perhaps than the previous poster, but who knows. I would recommend one or two pure safe schools.</p>

<p>Here’s how I would go about finding them.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Find a school that offers everything you want EXCEPT for the academics. If for example, Dartmouth (small rural liberal arts focus) is your dream school, look for others in the category that you will get into.</p></li>
<li><p>look for schools that offer significant merit scholarships. I say this for a couple of reasons. First, why not – if they’ll educate you for free or at a reduced cost, that’s great. Second, many of the schools that you think of as safety schools could become problematic because – well they are GOOD schools, and don’t want to be thought of as safety schools. The school will certainly recognize that you are likely to go to a more prestigious school and therefore unlikely to attend. No one likes being turned down. However, the schools that offer significant merit money are making a play to get students by offering these merit scholarships, so it’s less likely that they will turn down the students they are actively recruiting.</p></li>
<li><p>Look for pockets of excellence. Example, Purdue is a very good school, but as selective as the ones on your list (btw, it also offers merit money). However, it’s engineering school has an excellent rating. I’m pretty sure that in most fields there are schools with easier admissions requirements that have excellence in what you want to study.</p></li>
<li><p>Take all your applications seriously. When you do the supplement for a safety school, give it your attention. Point out reasons why that specific school is good for you.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>A couple of schools that come to mind are Tulane and Northeastern – both city schools with campuses. But you should do some research on this subject.</p>

<p>Final point – number to apply to. Tough to decide. However if you’re looking at the most selective schools (and Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell, Wash U, Tufts and Amherst all at least fall into this category), I’d recommend applying to at least 5 or 6 of those. My guess is you’ll end up with 8-12 applications, and hopefully get 6-10 acceptances.</p>

6

<p>U Miami is generous with financial aid as well.</p>

<p>“1. Find a school that offers everything you want EXCEPT for the academics. If for example, Dartmouth (small rural liberal arts focus) is your dream school, look for others in the category that you will get into.”</p>

<p>that’s really good…will be using that i the future on these boards!</p>

7

<p>Since you want to go into biomedical sciences, I would try and focus on schools that have good programs in biology, or good research opportunities. For example, Tufts is well known for international relations, while NYU is mainly known for Stern and Tisch, so while these are good schools, they may not be the best for what you personally want to do. Of the schools you listed, the ones that would probably be more suited to your goals are Wash U, Udub, Cornell, Duke and Rice.</p>

8

<p>Thank you all for the advice :slight_smile: I’m going to go research more schools now.</p>