<p>I've narrowed down Early Decision possibilities to Bowdoin, Hamilton, Kenyon, Middlebury, and Oberlin.</p>
<p>Which should I choose? Which are pipe dreams and which are reasonable ED reaches (considering that most of these colleges have significantly increased rates of acceptance for ED applicants)?</p>
<p>Scores
GPA: 3.5 UW, 4.06 W
ACT: 33
SAT II: Lit (750), US history (720), Spanish (680)
AP: English Language (5), US History (5), Spanish Language (3)</p>
<p>Recognition
School high honor roll
NCTE nominee
National Merit Commended</p>
<p>EC/Sports/Work
EC: I haven't done a particular activity for four years, so my ECs are spotty. I've done NHS, a volunteer club, class board, student congress, more volunteering, small leadership roles (very small), and one larger leadership role. Currently involved in school literary magazine and radio.
Sports: JV swimming, cheerleading (each for one year)
Work: Summer job</p>
<p>Senior courses
AP Calc AB
Spanish 5 Accelerated
AP Gov
AP Macro
AP Psych
3 English electives (radio, film, creative writing)
AP Themes</p>
<p>Misc.
I'm a strong writer, so I hope that helps. I've had a few outside things with writing. Not particularly notable for the college app.</p>
<p>… Which one is your favorite? 
Isn’t that the point of ED?</p>
<p>You raise a good point! Haha
Trouble is, I can’t decide which I like best.</p>
<p>I’ve been told I don’t really stand a chance at getting into Bowdoin or Middlebury, so I guess I should send my ED to somewhere more realistic… though I think my essays may be able to, for lack of a better phrase, save me.</p>
<p>I think you should only apply ED if there isn’t a doubt in your mind about the school. Otherwise you may discover something later about one of the schools and regret committing yourself to a different one before you were sure.
Have you visited them?</p>
<p>I hate to admit this, but I’m being forced to ED, and if I’m going to do it, I might as well choose a college I really, really like.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I’ve visited none of these colleges. All I have is months of research and their guidebooks. I’m in need of much advice.</p>
<p>Aaaah I see.</p>
<p>To me you sound like you’d like Kenyon a lot, but is it okay that it’s not near a city?</p>
<p>I’m willing to give up the city for these schools, and I don’t mind the isolation. As long as there is some variety of entertainment on campus, I’ll be good.</p>
<p>Also, I know that Asians are an ORM in the collegiate world, but could I technically count as a URM at a LAC seeing that their percentages of Asians are relatively low?</p>
<p>Hm, I don’t think so, although I don’t really know. :P</p>
<p>Update: Took Middlebury off my list. Too much of a reach.</p>
<p>Here is a bit of what I can do to pigeonhole these schools. Note that these differentiations are going to be exaggerated, because they are all small liberal arts colleges and have a lot of similarities.</p>
<p>Bowdoin: focus on commitment to the common good, fairly sporty culture but probably not to the extent of exclusion
Middlebury: big focus on languages and international studies, as well as environmentalism and sustainability (which are still big as Bowdoin), maybe sportier than Bowdoin?
Kenyon: I’ve heard that the writing program is exceptional, probably less preppy/sporty than a NESCAC LAC
Oberlin: seems very big on social activism
Hamilton: don’t know much about it</p>
<p>As I said, these are exaggerated distinctions, and there would be many commonalities between these schools.</p>
<p>LACs do have trouble attracting Asians, so for that reason I do think you should send an app to Middlebury. Middlebury is 5% Asian, which is the national average - many top schools (non-LAC) are about 15% Asian. Will that be enough to get you in? Maybe not. But I do think it is worth sending an app in. Same with Bowdoin. They may be big reaches stat-wise, but you don’t know exactly how much they are trying to bring in diversity.</p>
<p>Sounds like you would have excellent odds at most LACs. If you decide to to ED, assess which one you would be most happy attending. It does help significantly to have a non-academic “hook” (Sports, music, legacy), with Bowdoin and Middlebury though.</p>