<p>I want to find a private school with a decent size and student populace, and of course good academics. A school with hopefully strong athletics programs (I cant live without football, basketball) and one that gives a relatively high amount of merit-based scholarships. Basically, a school that is quite comparable to USC. Well, why don't you just apply to USC you may ask? I might, but something greatly deters me. Let's just say I've been a fan since the age of 6 of a college across town, and I kind of, Um, hate USC and puke at the thought of going there.</p>
<p>I was thinking a school like the University of Miami (FL) , but my parents have been skeptical about that school. Let's just ignore region/geography for now.</p>
<p>Miami is good school (I got a lot of money from there), I think Syracuse is good (don't really know), Boston University(didn't apply but could've gotten money), USC (same as BU, but didn't apply, also barring what you said), Rensslear Polytechnic is good. There's many others I can't think of how many offers I got when I was applying, but those a few. Pitt is a good public school. Depends also what you're major is. Rice doesn't give much scholarships unless you're at the very top, but it is undoubtably a good school. There's many out there, just check your mail and look at the viewbooks schools give you. I'm sure you can ask your counselor, mine was very helpful. Notre Dame is school that fits a lot of criteria tha you have, though I'm not sure about scholarships. You could maybe try Duke, Wake, or BC, I'm not sure about scholarships there. There's a lot out there. Just do your research, and for sports, watch the television.</p>
<p>Duke, Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Colgate. Duke is a great school with top athletics while a school like Holy Cross is solid in academics and decent Div. 1 basketball and 1AA FOOTBALL. Wake is good but BC is over-rated in academics and has weak grad placement.</p>