Liberal arts crunchy granola hippie student?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi, I am new to College Confidential and I am sort of overwhelmed by how informed everyone seems. I was wondering if anyone could give me suggestions on what schools to apply to in the fall. I am hoping to attend a liberal arts college and learn a lot, hopefully with wonderful classmates.</p>

<p>My stats:
GPA= 3.6 weighted GPA, 3.5 unweighted
Class rank= 43/344 class rank, will show up as top 20%
School type= Average MA public HS, ranked 17th in the state
SAT= 2340 SAT-- 800 critical reading, 770 math, 770 writing
SAT 2= 740 Literature (retaking in October), 740 Biology-E, taking Math Level 1 in Oct.
AP= 5 Bio, 5 English Language
Ethnicity= Asian female</p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities:
1. Debate= #1 in the country, dozens of state, national, and international awards, captain, president, etc
2. Amnesty International= 2 time president
3. Darfur relief= founded activism organization at school, holding events to raise money, president
4. Tutoring= 3 year tutor, founded tutoring club
5. Muslim club= public relations liason</p>

<p>Miscellaneous:
NHS, NM Commended, political campaign volunteer, assist with autistic kids, middle school debate coach</p>

<p>Schedule: Hardest offered except not taking AP US, Physics, or Calculus
AP classes= Bio (5), English Lang (5), English Lit, Psych, Stats, Latin Lit</p>

<p>Major:
probably anthropology or something more specific like gender studies, Middle Eastern studies, African studies, Asian studies, or IR</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help in determining safeties, reaches, and matches!</p>

2

<p>Do you have any preferences in the composition, location, flavor of schools particularly or are you just looking for excellence in those majors you cited?</p>

3

<p>I am the type of person who would be happy pretty much in any location, but I just want an intellectual student body, not athletics based or super prep school chic, but who can talk about critical race theory and Fanon and the best brand of cigs. I visited Swarthmore and I fell in love with it, but I also loved GW, so I am pretty comfortable anywhere-- I just love the liberal arts culture.</p>

4

<p>These aren't LACs, but they might be of interest to you anyway. I honestly don't know much about LACs.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley - Has hippies, is pretty intellectual, is top-notch in a lot of your preferred fields.</p>

<p>UW Madison - Maybe more athletics-based than you would like, but is highly regarded in a lot of gender/ethnic studies/history fields.</p>

<p>Tufts - You mentioned IR. They're tough to beat for IR. Also, they highly stress social conscience, political awareness, and the like in their campus community, and select for it in their applicant pool. Your ECs would be a good fit with them.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I am sort of overwhelmed by how informed everyone seems.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think the key word here is "seems". Take it with a grain of salt. :)</p>

5

<p>definitely reed</p>

6

<p>Have you considered Brown? It would be a reach with your stats, but you should come and visit us! You might really like it. You might also consider Wesleyan and the University of Michigan.</p>

<p>And... why would you retake an SAT II for which you got 740? That just seems like a waste of your valuable time and money. And since you're going to take calc, you'd be prepared for the SAT II Math IIC, not Math I. It'll be more impressive on your apps if you take the harder one, since your coursework has prepared you for it.</p>

7

<p>hm so what about a list comprising of</p>

<p>Matches:
Barnard
Bates
GW - Elliot
Reed
Scripps
Smith</p>

<p>Reaches:
Amherst
Claremont McKenna
Cornell
JHU
Stanford
Swarthmore
Tufts
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UChicago
Vassar
Wesleyan
Wellesley</p>

8

<p>so predictable:</p>

<p>UCB/UCLA: Reach (out of state)</p>

9

<p>look up crunchy granola hippie student in the dictionary and you'll find Carleton (MN) seriously...top ranking liberal arts school- and your from MA so you'd even be used to the cold weather in the winter</p>

10

<p>Look at Macalester</p>

11

<p>if you could just pick 10 schools (safeties, matches, and reaches) what would they be for me?</p>

12

<p>so predictable, what kind of debate do you do?</p>

<p>On a slightly more relevant note:
UC Berkeley
Reed
Swarthmore
Amherst
Carleton
UChicago
Smith
Wellesley
Brown</p>

<p>That's 9 schools. I can't think of a 10th. Your GPA is the main issue--thankfully liberal arts colleges tend to be less numbers-based when it comes to admissions.</p>

13

<p>I do pf, parli, and congress.</p>

<p>Yeah my GPA makes me sad. My junior year grades are pretty awesome as are my freshman grades but I had a really difficult sophomore year due to constant anxiety attacks. Oh well. I'm just hoping that my junior grades and my scores prove that I am not a terrible student.</p>

<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I am incredibly afraid that I am going to be one of the kids who do not get in ANYWHERE.</p>

14

<p>Also, a lot of those schools seem to be reaches. Are there any similar schools that are safeties and matches?</p>

15

<p>Hey, I was going to recommend Smith when I read the gender studies bit. For your African/Asian Studies or IR major, I'd say Macalester would be a pretty easy in. I'd second Carleton, and I'd also recommend Grinnell. Schools in the top LACs (Amherst, for example) will definitely be reaches, but I did it with similar stats and less than stellar ECs.</p>

<p>By the way, the debate bit caught my eye... make sure you specify what that means on your resume or whatever, because my GC used to give me a ton of trouble about that. Like, "1st place at NFL in Public Forum" or something. Don't just say #1 in the nation (although perhaps you were being intentionally vague) because that 1. sounds sketch, and 2. is the type of thing that's hard to quantify anyways without some sort of specific.</p>

16

<p>melanieek, there are a couple national tournaments that decide who is number 1 in the nation so it's not "sketch" to say that you won one of those. It's just not common.</p>

17

<p>yeah definitely being intentionally vague haha, and i specified everything on my bio sheet.</p>

<p>any other takers?</p>

18

<p>"Debate= #1 in the country"</p>

<p>CX or LD?</p>

19

<p>None of the above.</p>

20

<p>can anyone tell me more a/b Macalester...</p>