<p>JHS – thanks, it was great advice. </p>
<p>He plans to apply to UM in early September. </p>
<p>you are correct about Columbia – and in the buddhist world, Robert Thurman is very well known. The focus of the program in Columbia seems more along the lines of his thinking than the one in Chicago, but you never really know until you are there. Either would be great.</p>
<p>The idea of rethinking schools after the ED/EA/UM notifications is a great one – hadn’t thought of that. My guess is that if he doesn’t do well with those three schools, Harvard isn’t going to give him an acceptance. He might do well to shift Harvard to the list of schools to apply to after his gap year – and add another school to his initial list. Also – if he gets into Columbia ED, he obviously won’t be applying to Harvard at all. Maybe he needs to just take Harvard off the list and substitute another school.</p>
<p>UVa – believe it or not – is one of the premier universities in the US on Tibetan Buddhism. Jeffrey Hopkins teaches there (one of the west’s most imminent Tibetan Buddhist scholars) – and is one of the premier schools for Tibetan Buddhism. It is probably second only to Columbia and/or Chicago in this regard. I wouldn’t have thought it either – but it is. He is willing to forego the urban location for a top-notch program like UVa.</p>
<p>I just ask him about the 5 school limit and Canadian Universities – the limit is 5 schools in North America and 5 UK European schools. I do think that Toronto and McGill are schools that my son was interested in – but I was under the impression that FA and merit aid was virtually non-existant for US citizens.</p>