Looking for match/low-reach schools?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi, I’m looking for some good schools that I may actually have a shot of getting into.

SAT I: 1420, 690 math and 730 reading
GPA: 3.96 UW, 4.76 W
Race: white, female
Intended major: linguistics, international studies, or neuroscience
APs: Human Geography, World History, U.S. History, Lang, Chem, Stats, Gov, Calc AB, Micro and Macro Economics, Lit, Environmental Science… I’ve gotten 4s and 3s from Human Geography through Chem

ECs:
-Key Club distinguished club member, around 50 hours per year from Key Club
-Historian then president of French Honor Society
-Hospital volunteer over 200 hours since sophomore year
-Study french, chinese, spanish and korean on my own about 20 hrs per week
-Finance intern at an art museum
-Spanish and french club since freshman year (I’ve taken both Spanish and French in school)
-Swim team 2 years, 2 varsity letters
-Tax site volunteer, completed taxes for free for my community
-Gave english tutoring to native spanish speakers last year, 20 hours

Awards:
-National Honor Society
-French Honor Society
-National Academy of Finance
-Finalist in art competition (not sure if this matters)

My essay was about my motivation for learning spanish, and now chinese… it was a spanish woman who couldn’t speak english at a hospital I volunteered at, so I talked about learning spanish to talk to her.

My recs are from two teachers I’ve known for 4 years, so they should be good.

I know college applications are due soon but I’m still looking for some more schools.

2

Putting your list of schools together is such a highly personal project. Location? Big Division I school? Small LAC? Private or public? City or small college town? There’s resources available online where you can plug in your stats, states, etc. and it spits out a list of colleges you can further research. http://colleges.startclass.com could be a good place to start.

3

Fordham University sent me a waived application fee in the mail… Not my fit in several ways, but they are very strong in your major interests, and I’m sure you would get in with those stats!

4

Your state flagship.

5

Emory University has a good linguistics program. I’d say it’s a reach during regular decision, but if you apply there EDII, you have a solid shot (the Oxford campus is a little easier to get into; this might be more useful to you since your SAT isn’t great).

Besides that, Northeastern, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, Rice?

6

Dickinson looks like a match. They care about interest, so if you apply out some time into perusing their website for a solid “Why Dickinson” essay.

7

Dickinson appears to have dropped their linguistics minor though.

8

If you don’t care about cost, location, size, or atmosphere, and only want to identify the most selective schools where you’d have a realistic shot at admissions, and that cover your possible majors, then:
(a) focus on national research universities, not LACs (since the latter are unlikely to have very rich offerings across all 3 of your possible majors);
(b) focus on universities outside the USNWR top ~20 (which tend to be high reaches for your stats)

Possibilities:
UCLA
Michigan - AA
UVa
William & Mary
Ohio State

These 5 have IR programs that Foreign Policy magazine ranks in the top 25 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Ivory_Tower). They also have undergraduate programs in linguistics.
They are not out-of-reach for your stats.

Georgetown is another possibility, but if I’m not mistaken you’d have to commit up front to either Georgetown College (for linguistics) or the SFS (for IR). The latter might be a high reach. Cornell or JHU might be realistic reaches (but not low reaches). Many other state universities (such as Colorado-Boulder) might be good choices.

9

Gotta disagree, most highly selective LAC’s have robust offerings for majors in linguistics, international studies, or neuroscience. As an example, the top feeder schools for both medical school and law school are split equally between top universities and top LAC’s.

Think it’s important to understand what type of learning environment OP is seeking, as well as size, setting, etc.

10

Macalester seems like it would be a great low reach option.

11

I agree with @WilliamNYC, there are so many schools that would be a match with your stats that it is difficult to know where to start without more information regarding your preferences. You are at the level of many very strong students who are not quite strong enough to have a strong shot at Ivy Leagues without a “hook”, and have a chance but are not safe at a range of top 50 schools.

The first schools that come to mind to me are your state flagship, or McGill. These would be more predictable than many other top schools. If you are in California, then replace “state flagship” with “in-state public schools #3 through about #6 or #7”.

12

Well, let’s just take linguistics. Many LACs (e.g. Bates, Dickinson, Kenyon, Whitman) don’t offer linguistics majors. Some selective LACs do, but how many cover all the core subfields (phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics; historical linguistics, computational linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics) as well as instruction in more than a few high-density languages? Swarthmore does seem to cover the subfields pretty well; it also offers instruction in a few relatively less-commonly-taught languages (Swahili, Hebrew, Navajo structure). However, Swat would not be a match or low reach for the OP. How many other LACs have linguistics programs as comprehensive as Swarthmore’s? Pomona or Carleton, maybe, but those aren’t match/low-reach schools either. Macalester might work. Others?

As for LACs being well represented among top feeder schools for med/law school, I don’t disagree, but I think that’s a separate consideration. I’m not disparaging LACs for general academic quality. Not at all.

13

I wouldn’t disagree with much in reply #11. However, linguistics courses at liberal arts colleges are often folded into anthropology departments, and may indeed offer breadth of instruction across phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics and language acquisition. The advisability, then, of a liberal arts college approach may depend on the inclination of the OP towards specialization on the undergraduate level. Since she has expressed additional interests in international studies and neuroscience, the availability of an array of relatively generalized linguistics courses may be sufficient for her goals, while, importantly, allowing her greater freedom in college selection.

14

Correction: I wouldn’t disagree with much in reply #10!

15

@tk21769, yes, you referenced several LAC’s that have strong lingusitics programs, and agree that universities would be stronger solely for that focus. But if one is interested in exploring all three majors, one would be hard pressed to find the flexibility afforded at a LAC.