<p>Hey I am new to the forums and I would gladly appreciate help in narrowing down my college list. I have read through all of the college's Marine Bio (what I want to major of course) programs thoroughly and think I could be happy at any of the colleges. I have not visited any of the colleges yet, so I have only pictures from the websites of what the colleges look like.</p>
<p>I have a 3.76 GPA with a lot of AP classes. I have gotten 4's on Physics B, World, Human Geo, and U.S. History. I am currently taking AP Bio, AP Chem, Anatomy, AP Calc BC, AP Lang, and Political Systems. My SAT scores are as follows: Crit Reading: 680 Math: 800 and Writing: 740. My main and only volunteer work comes from the YMCA which I am very actively involved with. I am a member of SNHS and NHS.</p>
<p>My schools are as follows:</p>
<p>UGA
University of Miami
Barry College
California State University: Long Beach
University of California: Santa Barbara
University of California: San Diego
Cornell University
University of Souther California
Florida Institute of Technology
Eckerd University
University of Hawai'i at Hilo
University of Hawai'i at Manoa</p>
<p>I would like to narrow down the list to 8 colleges but just can't seem to decide among these. I looked through about 150 college marine biology programs and liked these the best, so no I simply did not choose colleges close to the beach and had a marine biology program. Thought I might go ahead and clarify that before I ask because I have already had to defend myself to a lot of people.</p>
<p>FSU should probably on there as well, Hawaii would be great. You can look into the work down at Woods Hole, MA as well. I think it is mostly MIT though.</p>
<p>Did you look at Bowdoin? Frankly, I’ve never heard of Barry college. I guess you must be very dedicated to the marine biology notion because it seems like you aren’t considering schools (other than Cornell) that a person with a 1480 would normally consider. Will a graduate degree be necessary for what you want to do anyway? If so, maybe just getting the best science education you can get (Hopkins, for example) and then following up with graduate work might be worth considering.</p>
<p>My bad Barry University. Anyway yeah initially my goal was to do Neurobiology which I find fascinating but after spending an ungodly amount of hours inside the past two weeks and hating every second of it I decided that I just could not do it so I went with my second choice - Marine Biology. No graduate degree will be necessary although I might pursue one, but another reason why the Ivy leagues are not on there for a basic Science education is that I would not want my parents to pay a lot of money for an Undergrad degree and I would much rather go to an Ivy League for Graduate studies as I think that would be the best. I looked at FSU and yes it does have a good Marine Bio program I was trying to Narrow the list down. As of right now Miami is my first choice because according to their website it offers everything I could possibly want. Their Marine Bio program involves Biomedical and to an extent Neurobiological studies, and the study abroad program offered looks incredible.</p>
<p>Are you out of state for UCSB, USSD and Long Beach? If so, you might as well be applying to expensive private schools. The California schools aren’t going to be giving money to out of staters, and the total cost will be close to $50K per year.</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with that your list does not really fit your profile. You seem extremely overqualified for some of the programs. I think you may be missing some other top programs that you could get into.</p>
<p>If marine biology was your second choice until 2 weeks ago, I wonder if you are so sure about it that your college choice should be dictated by it. And some of the California schools could be tough for someone out of state. Not that you shouldn’t try. I’m not saying to pay for Ivy for a great science education (although Cornell is Ivy) but the University of Michigan, for example or University of Minnesota for a less expensive really good public university. Also I would consider McGill for science and a lower cost with your stats.</p>
<p>If Miami’s your first choice, you should do EA there. It has strong programs in other areas (esp sciences) in addition to marine biology if you change your mind and you’ll probably get some scholarship money from them. You should really visit some of those schools, though.</p>