Looking for a few very specific LOW MATCH/SAFETY colleges...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm trying to round out my college list with a <em>few</em> more low match/safety schools, but I do know pretty much exactly what I want and I'm having trouble finding it. Any help is appreciated to help find me a school or two that matches these criterion!</p>

<p>My stats:
Frosh GPA - 3.95 W (maybe a 3.7 UW??)
Soph GPA - 4.2 W (maybe a 3.8 UW??)
Junior GPA - 4.35 W (maybe 3.85/3.9 UW)</p>

<p>Note - I've seen people on here with 4.7 and 4.8 GPAs... that would be pretty much impossible at my school, as that would require an A+ in seven AP courses every single year.... and we are limited to 5 APs per year and no APs freshman year with the exception of Calc for the super-brainy. So take that into mind, my GPA is quite good/competitve for my school.</p>

<p>My school does not rank
Small, competitive private in CA</p>

<p>Completed 3 APs, recieved 5s in all exams. Will graduate with 7 APs total.
9 Honors courses completed (VERY rigorous... for example Honors Bio uses 75% AP curriculum)</p>

<p>SAT - 2250 (800 CR, 720 M, 730 W) on first and only sitting
SAT II - US History 800, Lit 790, French 720, Bio 760</p>

<p>Interesting and uncommon ECs, have been selected to traveled internationally to participate and won awards.</p>

<p>Essays, recs will be excellent.</p>

<p>What I'm looking for in a school:
Between 4k-20k students
Excellent academic quality - availiability of courses outside my chosen major, professors who invest in their students, etc.
"Campus" feeling with good school spirit and community - I don't mind if it's in the city (ie Georgetown) but it has to be a campus (ie not NYU!)
West Coast or Northeast (no further south than NC, no Midwest, probably no Texas)
Good Pysch program
Availiblity of UG research, focus on the undergraduate
Good local atmosphere and ability to get out sometimes to do culture stuff haha
Good quality of life/food/health facilities/dorms
Greek life is good, I'd like to join a sorority... </p>

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

2

<p>The following list are based on your size, state limitations, and have at least a 60% graduation rate. Can’t say anything about Greek life, etc. I do wonder about your size range. If you take the top limitation off, it adds 25 more schools and I just don’t think there is much difference between 20,000 or 30,000 students. As for undergraduate research, there appears to be some schools that make it very easy to do undergraduate research while others basically just hand students a list of questions to ask a professor and say “go.” </p>

<p>American University
Bentley University
Boston College
Boston University
Brown University
Carnegie Mellon University
College of William and Mary
Columbia University in the City of New York
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Duquesne University
Elon University
Fordham University
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Gonzaga University
Harvard University
Ithaca College
James Madison University
Johns Hopkins University
Lehigh University
Loyola Marymount University
University of Vermont
Marist College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University
Quinnipiac University
Ramapo College of New Jersey
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Saint Joseph’s University
Santa Clara University
Stanford University
SUNY at Binghamton
SUNY at Geneseo
Syracuse University
The College of New Jersey
Touro College
Tufts University
United States Military Academy
United States Naval Academy
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of Connecticut
University of Delaware
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus
University of Rochester
University of San Diego
University of Southern California
University of Virginia-Main Campus
Villanova University
Wake Forest University
Yale University</p>

3

<p>Check out Miami of Ohio, and Lehigh (I don’t know about their psyc departments)</p>

4

<p>I think I may know the answer to this, but are you open to women’s colleges?</p>

5

<p>@CJaneRead - potentially. I know there are some that are very much isolated, and I think I’d feel uncomfortable in those situations simply because I get along with guys very well and I like that dynamic. However, when I toured the Claremont colleges, I was okay with Scripps (for example) because it was literally surrounded by co-ed schools. (FYI I ended up not liking the Claremonts, so none of them is really an option, just using Scripps as an example) So a women’s college in an area with lots of co-ed schools would potentially be an option for me. </p>

<p>Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming :)</p>

6

<p>What does your budget look like? If your parents are happy to shell out $60k each year for four years it is one thing. However, if all they can scrape together is $30k things will be very different, and obviously even more different yet if they can only pay $1k.</p>

<p>Don’t fall in love with any place until you know you can afford it.</p>

7

<p>Holy Cross and Tufts</p>

8

<p>Can you elaborate on what you didn’t like about the Claremonts? That might be helpful in finding a fit you do like.</p>

9

<p>@CJaneRead: I’m honestly not sure. I think they were a bit too similar to my current school - seemed a bit cold, cliquey, isolated in the town of Pomona and small so that everyone knows everyone else’s business. I don’t know, more of a gut feeling than anything else. It was beautiful, though.</p>

10

<p>Here’s a women’s school (other than Scripps) located in the immediate vicinity of several co-ed schools:</p>

<ul>
<li>Bryn Mawr (Haverford, Swarthmore, U Penn within 20 mins)</li>
</ul>

<p>Also, if you attended Bryn Mawr, you’d be able to take some classes at Haverford, Swat and Penn through the Quaker Consortium cross-registration deal.</p>

<p>I was going to mention Barnard (across the street from Columbia and with cross-reg options), but you said that you’d like the school to actually have a campus… and Barnard is tiny, like just a few acres.</p>

11

<p>University of Denver might be a good safety school. It’s not in the West Coast, but it is in the western part of the US.</p>

12

<p>What can your family afford? A safety must be affordable.</p>

13

<p>Taking the following into account: you are interested in participating in Greek life, you want something strong in the sciences/psychology where undergrad research is a possibility, you indicated wanting an LAC-type focus on the undergrad with a traditional campus in a place with access to cultural offerings – here’s a suggestion that requires a bit of flexibility but might be a good safety/match choice:</p>

<p>Rhodes College in Memphis
1700 students (so, yes smaller than you indicated), but access to Memphis which will have cultural offerings that transcend the “typical South” stereotype that some have.
Active Greek life (about 50%)
Beautiful campus
Really good undergrad opportunities</p>

<p>Another cc poster, curmudgeon, has a daughter who passed up an Ivy to attend Rhodes, had a great experience there and has go on to do great things – perhaps pm him for more details.</p>

14

<p>I’ll second the U of Rochester - great Psych and/or Brain/Cognitive Science program and fits pretty much everything else (size, campus, location, etc), esp easy research availability and a “culture” where most undergrads do research.</p>