<p>Well, we spent several hours last night re-evaluating schools (including the ones he originally selected and those recommended).</p>
<p>We took a look at courses offered (level and quantity), quality of faculty, number of departments offering courses related to Tibet/Buddhism/etc, whether a specific program is offered, the daily culture of the community, reputation (in the Tibetan academic community), recommendations by Tibetan academics, etc. The very first thing we did, though, was eliminate schools on his list that would include loans in his FA package and were not Davis Scholarship Schools – he does not want to have to borrow to attend school, if at all possible, since he plans more schooling after the undergrad.</p>
<p>There were quite a few excellent schools that were eliminated because of the FA: University of Wisconsin (one of the top schools for Tibetan Studies), University of Michigan (another well-known Tibetan Studies program), University of Indiana, Emory, UCB, UCSB, Toronto, McGill. Some schools just didn’t stack up as far as their offerings or what was available in the local community: Amerst, Macalester, Williams. </p>
<p>He came up with six schools that offered his what he was looking for and had to eliminate one – he decided to eliminate the University of Chicago from his list because it has the weakest department offerings in Tibetan culture/religion/language. While a great school – the others on his list fit him better.</p>
<p>So now his list is even more selective – and I was hoping to make it more balanced. I guess he will just do his very best on these applications and if he is not accepted into any of the schools, he will reapply during his gap year (at which time he will need to decide if he wants to continue to require a school where he will graduate debt-free OR a school that offers resources to study Tibet, he can’t have both except for the 5 schools he selected)</p>
<p>His school list is now:</p>
<p>Columbia (ED)
Harvard
UVA
Cornell
Stanford</p>
<p>He has already started contacting professors from various departments to get information and express interest (in fact, he actually got responses back already and made recommendations on his list of 5 schools)</p>
<p>Now he gets to start working on application essays! He took the ACT again yesterday and felt that he did well and he will take a practice SAT and see how well he does on that (he really doesn’t want to take another standardized test, but he will if it will help him get into one of these schools).</p>
<p>Since he has an excellent safety with guaranteed admission, plus time to apply a second round during his gap year, I think it is ok to have such a top-heavy list. He knows that he could end up without a single admission letter in April and he is ok with that.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who had suggestions – he looked into every one (and some of those suggestions will come into play if he has to apply again during his gap year).</p>