<p>Sooooo
It's time to start applying to colleges. Below is a list of colleges that are on my radar. I need to obviously shorten this list and finally decide where I am going to actually apply. I'm hoping to get 3rd party opinions on which of these colleges should not even be on this list or some other colleges that I may have overlooked. All opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated :)</p>
<p>SAT score: 2140 one sitting, 2160 super score
ACT: taking it this Sept.
GPA: 3.2 ish unweighted idk weighted but I've taken 3 Ap's so far and taking 3 more senior year and everything else has been honors except Math junior and senior year which is accelerated
EC's: Pretty decent (continuous volunteering and 2 leadership positions in school)
Also freshman and jv soccer for 2 years
P.s I'm an Indian girl from a highly competitive high school. Planning to go to med school (haha yes I know). Possible majors include neuro-something bio-something or business</p>
<p>Rutgers
Penn State
Usc
Ucla
Ucberkely
Gw
Vandy
Villanova
Northeastern
Njit
Uchicago
Umich
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
Emory
Oxford college at emory
Duke
Georgetown
Nyu
Uc sandeigo
Boston university
Boston college
Stevens
Universit of Illionis Urbana Champaign
Suny
Princeton
Cornell</p>
<p>California Mom here. I would take USC, UC Berkely, UCLA and UCSD off your list. Your GPA was too low to have any chance at an acceptance. Looking over your list, you pretty much have all reaches and only Suny would be a Match. You need to do more research.</p>
<p>Check the common data set for each school and see if they have any enrolled students with your GPA. If you find that 0 percent of their enrolled students have below 3.25 in high school, you may want to take the school off your list.</p>
<p>Take off Princeton, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Vanderbilt and Chicago for starters. You might even have a hard time with the next rung of competitive schools.</p>
<p>Remember that for med school your GPA and MCAT scores are the most important thing. Go to the place where you can a) afford it and b) do well.</p>
<p>a few questions: in which state do you have residency? do you have any reason to believe the AOs will recognize your high school as among the toughest in the country? are you full-pay? if not, how much aid will your family need (because ability to pay for attendance matters more than ability to get in)?</p>
<p>one statement: it’s about what you do rather than what you’ve done or where you go. what you did in high school will have no direct bearing on whether you get into medical school unless you attend a college where you’re so far over your head that you cannot earn the 3.5+ the med schools are looking for. another argument for a list full of realism instead of a list that you and your parents wish were reasonable.</p>
<p>“For the heck of it schools” are not bad in and of themselves, but if they are taking time away from your applications to schools you have a realistic chance at, they become harmful. For this reason, I would pick your two favorites, apply and forget about it. If you have extra time (and willpower) after the rest of your apps, you could apply to a few more. </p>
<p>@woofxox: I missed Rutgers on your list, but I agree that I need to do more research on schools outside California. Those were the only schools I meant to comment on. If you do not like the "negative’ feedback, then don’t post on a chance thread… its pretty much a waste of time since I believe most OP’s will apply to whatever schools they want regardless of the opinions posted. I just happen to have some time to waste…</p>
<p>@Gumbymom not to mention njit and penn state. Like I said I am open to all opinions and feedback but what I do not like is aggressiveness and pretentiousness. Politeness is always greatly appreciated. No need to attack—so to speak— one’s list. :)</p>
<p>Gumbymom isn’t being aggressive. She is telling you the reality. With a 3.2, I can’t see you getting into many of these schools except for SUNYs, NJIT, Penn State, and Rutgers.</p>
<p>Many of the schools you are applying to will be a waste of your effort…</p>
<p>woofxox, maybe your family has unlimited funds for you to throw $60-$75 away on each of your “for the heck of it” schools, and maybe you have time to apply to them (remember, almost all of them have supplementary essays or other extra requirements beyond the basic Common App). But you came here asking for advice. That doesn’t give you the right to insult posters who are telling you what you don’t want to hear.</p>
<p>Check Naviance at your school to compare yourself to other applicants that have applied to these schools before you. Applying to 10+ schools is incredibly time consuming and you should not underestimate the time it will take to write a quality essay. I am telling you this because I went through the same thing.</p>
<p>On your list I recommend taking off Princeton, CMU, UCB, UCSD, USC, UChicago, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Duke, Emory, and Cornell. Many of those will be highly competitive and have many individual essays that may be overwhelming. You may also want to reconsider schools like BU, NYU, and GW because it is expensive living in those areas, and FA may not be the best if that’s what you are looking for, and you may not be able to attend even if you are admitted. Same comment goes to OOS schools, which will likely not offer you alot of aid.</p>
<p>I recommend you reevaluate your list and definitely come up with a more balanced one. Right now, it is extremely reach heavy and it doesn’t sound like you have done a huge amount of research on each school. Talk to your guidance counselor if possible. If going to med school, you should choose an affordable choice and one you are confident in your ability to do well in. You are able to go to a quality med school from a wide majority of schools in the U.S., but if planning to go on an become a doctor and such, it is best to look at your instate options such as rutgers as you will need additional schooling, and if your parents spend a large amount on your undergrad years, they may not be able to support you when attending medical school, which is many more years of tuition.</p>
<p>Here are a few things to consider with your list.
As @sally305 said (in a polite way, but maybe I am unable to sense aggression), each application will cost you $60 at least. With ~25 schools on your list, that’s $1,500 at the absolute least. It’ll be much more than that considering you have to send official test reports to all those schools too (which costs like $15 each). You’re going to drop $2,250+ on applications alone.
Most of those colleges have 2-3 supplemental essays, and for those that don’t have extra essays, there is another school that has 4 or 5 to make up for it. That’s about 50 essays. With the deadline for most of those schools being January 1, that gives you less than 3 days to complete each essay, and I know no high school student has that kind of time.
Your list right now is all over the place. Big colleges, small colleges. Religious schools, public schools. East coast, west coast. Try to narrow it down by determining which of the two you’d prefer (for example, maybe you like small colleges better than big colleges).
In my opinion, you need to cut a good 15 schools off that list, at least. I wouldn’t apply to anymore than 10 schools. Like another poster said, keep one or two of your “why not” schools, but after that, cut the rest and move on.</p>
<p>@noel597 @Sally305 Damn you guys come off so strong lol.</p>
<p>@shawnspencer @430ktk Thank you guy soooo much for providing relevant and actually helpful responses. Will def keep this all in mind. As in my original post, I obviously am planning to cut schools off this list. These are just schools that I have though about and researched (some more than others). I prefer big colleges but Oxford College at Emory is appealing to me for some reason :)</p>