<p>I have a 4.0 GPA, 2050 SAT, 31 ACT. I am the captain of the wrestling team and a 2 (hopefully 3) time letter winner. I will be traveling to Paraguay for 6 weeks this summer to live in a rural community and volunteer. I am the president of Spanish Honors Society, and hopefully will be the president of NHS. I am looking into applying at Colorado College, Middlebury, CMC, Pomona, and Carleton and my safety is my in-state school, UW-Madison. I want some safety schools, but I can't seem to find any that fit me. I am looking into studying economics and would prefer a LAC, but a small-sized university would be fine. I would prefer a school farther away from the midwest, and with pretty strong financial aid.</p>
<p>U Minnesota Morris, perhaps? You might also look at Bemidji State.</p>
<p>University of Rochester sounds like a good fit. It’s a small-ish school away from the midwest that is very generous with merit aid. Their economics program is actually quite strong despite the fact that the school doesn’t receive all that much recognition (their grad program is usually ranked in the top-25, if that’s important to you).</p>
<p>Not exactly safeties but a little easier to get into than Middlebury and Carlton----Colby, Bates, Hamilton, Trinity. Economics should be strong at all LACs although you could look at those threads if you want to try to assess the relative strength of that major at those places.</p>
<p>Rochester is NOT a safety.</p>
<p>Actually I would disagree I would say the OP has a pretty safe chance at Rochester, what about Fordham?</p>
<p>A “pretty safe chance” is not the same thing as a safety. A safety is somewhere where the OP is either guaranteed admission or is so likely to be admitted that it can practically be viewed as guaranteed. I don’t think that’s the case at Rochester, which actually has pretty high numbers.</p>
<p>Actually my dad works at Rochester, and his wife (my step-mom) is pretty high-up in the economics department there, I believe she is the next in-line to be the current editor of a large economics journal, and the current editor is at Rochester. I visited the school, albeit in the summer, and I just didn’t like the feel of it. Next time I visit my dad I think i will take another look to see what it is like when there are students</p>
<p>How about University of Redlands in Southern California.</p>
<p>WiscoKid interested in Economics? Sounds like me. I applied to HYPS + Columbia out of Northern Wisconsin with an interest in business. My only safety wasn’t UW, but actually the Carlson School of Business at UMinn-Twin Cities.</p>
<p>We get reciprocity at Minnesota public schools (we pay Wisconsin rates for Minnesota schools) so its a really nice deal. You’d have a great shot at the honors program with your stats, and while UW is probably a better school in general than UM, the Carlson School of Business is better than Wisconsin’s business program–especially if you’re interested in entrepreneurial business. In addition, you apply straight to Carlson, so there’s no chance of going to Minnesota and not getting into Carlson.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in business, I’d tell you’re really lucky to have reciprocity in Minnesota and have Carlson available. I know it doesn’t fit your want for a smaller school outside the Midwest, but you should definitely visit and talk to the people there. For what its worth, a kid from my school who has almost identical stats and EC’s to yours (NHS Prez, Soccer instead of Wrestling, Exchange program in Latin America) got into Carleton.</p>
<p>But if you’re looking for a backup school coming of Wisconsin, I can’t recommend Carlson at UM any more highly. I (and some of my good friends) felt like UW had a sort of unpleasant atmosphere about it, which is why I chose UM as my safety. Two of my good friends actually turned down UW, one for UW-LaCrosse (not admitted to Minnesota) and the other for Minnesota because they just liked the city atmosphere a lot better.</p>
<p>Plus, of course, Minnesota’s got the better Wrestling team. Feel free to PM me if you want, I just finished the College applications process and its cool to see a fellow Wisconsinite/Wrestler on here.</p>
<p>What schools did you get into? I’m worried that my standardized tests and small amount of ECs might bring me down, but as I’m sure you’re well aware of, wrestling takes up a LOT of time. I am also more interested in getting a PhD in economics, but I never know where I’ll be in five years</p>
<p>Consider Canada? Mount Allison. Would be both financial and acceptance safety. Tuition is $13,000 a year for American students. </p>
<p>Gets extremely high student satisfaction ratings (has had the highest ratings for over ten years). Strong academically (boasts a very high number of Rhodes Scholars). From what I know of it, quirky, warm culture. Lots of research opps for econ students. </p>
<p>[Mount</a> Allison University ::Economics](<a href=“http://www.mta.ca/faculty/socsci/economic/careers.html]Mount”>http://www.mta.ca/faculty/socsci/economic/careers.html)</p>
<p>You might want to look at LACs a bit farther down the US News ratings. Some suggestions that haven’t been mentioned:</p>
<p>College of Wooster (Wooster, OH). Small LAC with lots of merit given out to students with stats similar to yours. Merit is not guaranteed, but they are pretty generous. All but the top award (College Scholar Award) is based on your application; the College Scholar Award requires an additional essay. My son applied this year and was given a $19,500 Deans Award; his SATs were 2080 total (690CR, 760M, 630W), ACT 31 composite, GPA not a 4.0 (unweighted), but pretty close. He also received a really nice FA package that met his full need with the only loans being the standard Staffords. S chose St. Olaf over Wooster primarily because of the quality of the music program at St. Olaf.</p>
<p>College of the South [aka Sewanee] Sewanee, TN. Small LAC in southeastern TN with very good reputation for both academics and merit/FA. </p>
<p>SUNY-Geneseo (Geneseo, NY). Small-Medium sized state LAC-like college in the SUNY system. Don’t think you’d get much need-based aid there except for Stafford loans. But OOS tuition&fees in the SUNY system is relatively speaking pretty cheap at about $14,000/year. [Total COA for an OOS student is about $24,000/year.] Don’t know much about whether they’ve got merit at Geneseo, but other SUNY schools do.</p>
<p>starbright–Mount Allison seems really interesting. Is it highly regarded among the top graduate schools in the US? If so, it seems like an amazing school</p>
<p>Do you know if your family will qualify for financial aid? Most safety schools are not good with financial aid. </p>
<p>Instead, you might need to consider choosing some schools that would give you big merit for your stats to be your financial safety schools.</p>
<p>Are you planning on testing again? IF you get an ACT 32 (or SAT equivalent), you could get more money from some schools. Take the SAT, you may do better on that. But also take the ACT again.</p>
<p>Msauce-The UW business school is ranked higher than Carlson in entrepreneurship by both the Financial Times abd Entrepreneur magazines. I have no idea what you are talking about with the UW B school vibe or whatever. I know the Dean and he’s a very personable and friendly person. Everyone loves the new buildings and the vibe is very positive with the new money coming in and the major hirings including a top Penn prof. And they now admit select freshmen.</p>
<p>The problem with private LACs in the US is that many have “holistic” admissions. Some occasionally will reject well qualified applicants that they don’t expect to attend if admitted. That makes them hard to use as safeties. In that sense, Mt. Allison in Canada might be a good safety since Canadian schools appear to be numbers based. You won’t likely get good financial aid there though, but it’s probably around 25K-30K vs 55K for a US private. </p>
<p>If you want to add safeties in addition to Madison, consider applying to a bunch of Early Action schools like Tulane, Boston College, Kalamazoo and Lawrence. Once you are admitted to a school in December it effectively becomes a safety. </p>
<p>Otherwise, try a public liberal arts college like New College Florida, Truman State in Missouri, University of North Carolina Asheville, St Marys College of Maryland or Minnesota-Morris. Public schools tend to be more numbers based. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think that you will get into some of the LACs that you mentioned, especially Colorado College.</p>
<p>*Do you know if your family will qualify for financial aid? Most safety schools are not good with financial aid.</p>
<p>Instead, you might need to consider choosing some schools that would give you big merit for your stats to be your financial safety schools.</p>
<p>Are you planning on testing again? IF you get an ACT 32 (or SAT equivalent), you could get more money from some schools. Take the SAT, you may do better on that. But also take the ACT again. *</p>
<p>I wanted to add to my above post…</p>
<p>You need to find out your financial situation. How much will your parents pay each year? </p>
<p>If your parents won’t/can’t pay much, then you need to carefully pick out financial safeties. Even a Canadian school won’t work if your parents won’t pay much. You’d still be expected to pay well over $20k per year once you add in room, board, books, transportation.</p>
<p>Well many schools in the mid-west could be a safety for you, I was going to first suggest University of Iowa ( besides academics known to have the best wrestling program/ team… which I’m sure you already know) though the school is located in the mid-west and seems to be larger than what you prefer.
Although these schools may be large as well I would look further into University of Arizona and University of Oregon.</p>
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<p>Colorado College has a non-binding Early Action option. So if the news is good in December or January, that becomes your safety (if, and only if, you can afford to attend with any aid they’ve offered you at that point.) If the news is not so good, you’d still have time to apply to good schools such as the College of Wooster or Earlham, where RD apps are not due until February 15 (but double-check on that). If you follow this strategy, the 6 schools you listed in the original post should be about enough for Fall applications. If you’re not completely confident about Colorado, add one or two more “match” schools (such as Bates, Whitman, St. Olaf or Macalester).</p>
<p>In other words, I think Wisconsin should be the only safety you really need in the Fall. The area to strengthen in my opinion is your match/likely schools. If you can’t find any you prefer to Wisconsin, just stick with the good list you already have but be sure to apply EA to CC.</p>