I was planning to apply to 21 colleges (20 is max for common app and Penn State uses their own application) however I realized that this is complete overkill. Below is my list so far. Ideally, I’d love to narrow down the middle category to 4 or 5. For the reach schools I’m planning to focus on the ones with higher admit rates and a couple ivy’s and have a total of about 8. Is 2-5-8 a good number? I’m looking to major in computer science and would like to be in a liberal arts type of curriculum (not a LAC per se). Asterisk means definitely staying on list.
Reach
Stanford
Princeton
Columbia
Brown
Cornell
Duke
Northwestern
Wash-U
U-Chicago (early action, pretty much first choice besides ivy’s and Stanford)
Vanderbilt
University of Michigan (I believe about 25% acceptance out of state, applying early action)
Middle
Northeastern (co-op program)
Boston University
University of Rochester
Case Western (no application fee waiver)
Lehigh
Lafayette (token LAC)
Delaware
Pittsburgh (very good for CS, don’t like how everyone from my schools goes there though)
You can narrow the list drastically by thinking things through a bit more. Do you want to be in the heart of a big city, at a large university in a college town known for school spirit and football, or at a smaller college in a little town in the middle of nowhere? There’s a huge difference between Columbia, Penn State and Duke, e.g. You also don’t need a “token LAC” if that isn’t really your thing. What’s the point?
There should be some consistency in your list. For example, if you decide you really do want to be in a city – and I highly recommend that since you are accustomed to a city living in or visiting Philadelphia (I assume, since your dad works at Temple) – then you should just go ahead and scratch all the choices off the list that are not in big cities. If the list seems small to you at that point, then you can replace some of those options with more choices in big cities.
I recommend maxing out at 12 universities. Ideally, make sure some options will be as affordable as Temple for you (through scholarships you know you qualify for, e.g.), so you will have some real choices in case finances become a deciding factor for your parents once your acceptances roll in.
It’s unusual to see Brown and Vanderbilt on the same list. Or U Chicago and Vanderbilt. People who like one are usually not a fit for the other. I’d ditch Vanderbilt unless there is some compelling reason why it’s on your list, assuming the others are a ‘fit’ culturally.
The thing about Vanderbilt is I get tons and tons of mail from them so maybe they want people from Pennsylvania. I don’t know. I certainly don’t think I would dislike the culture there but it would take some getting used to. That’s part of the adventure.
Do you really want to go to princeton columbia stanford brown and duke? Or are they just on your list for prestige? Do you want to stay on east coast or go to west coast? All ivy league schools are completely different and you may not like some. What are your stats like? Do you have a realistic chance to go to schools like this to the point where you would put 7 on your list?
Just took a look at stats so scratch the last part but still, you can cut that in half. There’s no need to send an application to a school you wouldn’t go to.
I like all the schools, but obviously the main reason is prestige. Admittedly, I have not yet visited Columbia and do not plan to visit Stanford. East coast or west coast are fine but I’m focusing on east coast.
I’d recommend a 2 - 5(or 7) - 3 mix. Why have 8 reaches? If you like the 3 asterisk ones, then leave it there. If you look at the results threads, you’ll see well qualified applicants with a lot of rejections. Why put yourself through that?
“The thing about Vanderbilt is I get tons and tons of mail from them so maybe they want people from Pennsylvania.”
The reason you get tons and tons of mail is that Vandy has discovered that if they make students feel wanted by sending them lots of junk mail, the school will get applications from some of them and their selectivity ranking goes up. And an application fee that covers the cost of the mailings. It has nothing to do with you personally, I’m afraid. Or PA - which is a fine place to live but no one in Vandy admissions woke up one day and said, 'Hey, how come we don’t have more kids from PA? We like PA. Let’s recruit heytherecolleges. He/She would really add geographic diversity/that special PA feeling to this place."
Any college you end up at is going to be an adventure. If that’s your only reason for keeping Vandy on the list, then I’d still recommend dropping it.
That is a lot of money towards application fees…