Need College List Trimmed (Warning: Long Read)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I have been hacking away at my college list for a few months now and have come to a major block. I started with 50+ colleges that I would be happy going to and have cut it down to about 15 colleges. I need some sort of equilibrium point between having enough colleges to have a good chance of getting into one non-safety and having too many to make quality applications. I am also unsure of what schools are reach and what are match, as all of my match schools seem to be reach. This is not a chances request, I am just asking for help shortening my list. I will list my credentials at the bottom of this post. I already know all of the data for every college, such as size, rankings, and location, and I know what they entail. However, I humbly request some advice on these particular colleges in relation to myself from this forum. </p>

<p>Colleges I am considering, in my guess for order of reach:
1) CIT
2) MIT
3) Yale
4) Princeton
5) Stanford
6) Chicago
7) Brown
8) UC-Berkeley
9) Amherst
10) Swarthmore
11) Carnegie Mellon
12) UCLA
13) Reed
14+) UC System (Particularly UCSB, likely others)</p>

<p>I expect 1 to 4 are far reach, 5-11 are reach, 12 and 13 are the closest I have to match (partially safety), and the UC's are safeties (I am in the top 4% Eligibility in a Local; Contest program). </p>

<p>Personal Details
School: Southern California, Suburban, Mid-Upper Middle Class, Very Diverse
Self: Male, European+Asian, Native Speaker of English</p>

<p>I plan to major in Physics/Math, particularly theoretical and non-engineering aspects of the fields. I plan to minor in History. </p>

<p>GPA and Classes (End of Junior Year)
3.93 Unweighted
4.64 Weighted
4.54 School
Maximum UC GPA except for one B.
7 AP Courses
Planning to take 6 more AP's, is expecting at most one or two B's.</p>

<p>Class Rank: 10/620 (Top 2%)
(This year has a particularly high amount of overachievers; I would have been higher in previous years.)</p>

<p>SAT (3 Times) CR/Math/Writing(Essay)
Highest: 710/760/760(11) (2230)
650/670/650(8) (2120)
650/740/730(11) (1970)
710/760/760(11) (2230)
750 Physics
750 World History
760 Math II
760 US History
780 Chemistry</p>

<p>ACT (2 Times)
Composite: 33~33
English: 33~32
Mathematics: 35~36
Reading: 33~34
Science: 31~31
Writing: 9~8</p>

<p>I have opportunities to retake these in October and November. Which, if any, should I? Or it a waste of time? These tests are may main weak point besides extracurricular activities. </p>

<p>AP Tests
4 (1): European History
5 (6): English Language, Environmental Science, Calculus BC (AB Subscore=5), Physics B, US History, and Chemistry
I am planning to take: English Literature, Biology, Economics (not sure which ones yet) and Psychology
I might take (taking the class, maybe not the test): Statistics, Art History, and Japanese
Independent study: Physics C (Both Mech and E+M), World History, maybe Economics/Government, and Human Geography</p>

<p>EC
Other than being in marching band for 9th and 10th, I have very little credit from extracurriculars, primarily due to my family restraining me from doing them the whole way through. I have officer positions in many “useless clubs”, but I am in non-co/cive positions for Knowledge Bowl (team often wins or comes close in local) and Junior Statesmen of America (debate club). I will have been in CSF for 3 years and have all of the service hours for it (at least 10 per year). </p>

<p>My main standout strength is an extremely complicated game I designed in Middle School and have elaborated upon since. It is called the World Game (unrelated to the World Peace Game) and simulates the entirety of human history. It is also designed to continue into the future and involves many aspects of theoretical physics and other science fiction-related concepts. The game is designed in a RPG fashion and allows players to do anything they want. I have successfully maintained this game myself for 4 years so far and have moderated for 50 players at its peak. </p>

<p>My school has some strong teachers who have gotten many students into top colleges with their letters of recommendations. I am generally considered a strong writer, so I will likely be able to come up with sufficient essays, especially since I started making rough drafts over a month ago. I have not continued too far though, as I am unsure which schools I am applying to. </p>

<p>Remember, this is not a chance thread; I just need my list shorted. Thank you all in advance!</p>

2

<p>I think your list from 6 down is very achievable. The ivies are a battle for everyone. Your test scores are not the best for your top six, but you never know. Those schools reject people with perfect scores. I think you’re definitely in at all the UCs. Definitely.</p>

3

<p>So would you recommend cutting mostly ones lower because they are more likely, or cutting the higher ones because they are unlikely?</p>

4

<p>The UCs use one application, so Berkeley and UCLA should be included with the other UCs. </p>

<p>I would apply to no more than 10. My recommended breakdown:

[ul][<em>]The UCs
[</em>]Amherst, Reed, Swat
[<em>]Chicago, CMU, and another match</em>
[li]3 of Brown/Caltech/MIT/Princeton/Stanford/Yale[/ul][/li]*Suggestions are NYU, Rochester, Brandeis, USC. More selective options are Cornell, Hopkins, Rice, Northwestern. Alternately, another LAC with strong math like Carleton, a Claremont college, Williams, St. Olaf, Wesleyan, Grinnell, etc. </p>

<p>Consider using early admissions to minimize your number of applications. </p>

<p>If Princeton, Stanford, or Yale is your top choice
Apply SCEA to that university.

[ul][<em>]If admitted –> Hurray! You are either done or only have to submit a couple of other applications.
[</em>]If deferred or rejected –> Apply to the other schools on your list.[/ul]</p>

<p>If none of Princeton, Stanford, or Yale is your top choice
Apply EA to Caltech, Chicago, and/or MIT.

[ul][<em>]If admitted –> Hurray! You are either done or only have to submit a couple of other applications.
[</em>]If deferred or rejected –> Apply to the other schools on your list.[/ul]</p>

5

<p>Figure out which schools are your safeties. This means that you are sure to be admitted, and you are sure that you can afford.</p>

<p>Keep the top two or three safeties in terms of your preferences as to which you would want to attend. Delete all other schools (whether safety, match, or reach) that you would not choose over your top two or three safeties.</p>

<p>Delete all schools which you are unlikely to be able to afford, based on financial aid reputation if you would not be able to afford to pay full price.</p>

<p>If you have completed Calculus BC as a high school junior or earlier (perhaps to take university sophomore level math as a high school senior), then you may want to drop any undergraduate-only schools. The math superstars who take university junior level courses as university freshmen often want to take graduate level math courses as undergraduates; such students would likely not be satisfied by the math offerings at an undergraduate-only school.</p>

<p>[University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) can give you an idea of where you stand with the UCs.</p>

6

<p>@warblersrule86
Does this mean that the UCs only count as one application total? If so, that shortens my list to 12ish.
Between Reed and Swarthmore, which is better fitting to my criteria?
I already cut most of those colleges while shortening my list, but thank you anyway. I was considering adding the Claremont Colleges back on but they do not seem to be particularly remarkable in any way. Really, Chicago is a match? This is an ego-boost.
I will probably not use early decision, but I might use early action. Only problem is being able to do yet another SAT/ACT.
CIT is by far my top choice and I am extremely iffy between Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. They all have their ups and downs and no one seems to win out.
I am leaning towards tech universities for my major, but I also need to consider my minor, however less important it is. </p>

<p>@ucbalumnus
I am unsure which ones my safeties are exactly, but I have a pretty good general set of assumptions by scores and admissions. UC’s and Reed are particularly lower than the rest. However, none of my other colleges are less attractive then the safety ones, so I can not cut them just yet.
I will likely be able to afford any of them as I am at least middle-class, but I will probably attend the one with best financial aide after I apply.
My school offers no classes above BC (in fact, I had to do independent study to avoid taking AB only) but I am trying to at least do independent study for the Physics C tests.
You have a good point in this aspect, I would be much obliged to take graduate courses early. I can not cut the Liberal Arts ones yet, but thank you for giving me something to take into consideration.
Very much thank you for this extremely comprehensive link! I shall see what use I can put it to. Any particular aspect of it you notably recommend I focus on?</p>

<p>In regards to my major, I am much farther ahead (both academically and self-studied) in History than I am in Math/Physics, but I am planning to major in the one that I can actually have a chance of making money from. Is this a good idea? If not, what could History be used for realistically?</p>

7

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</p>

<p>Can you take more advanced courses at a local community college? Note that “physics for scientists and engineers” courses at community colleges may be better accepted for placement at UCs than AP Physics C. If you are near a California community college, see [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) to check which courses at the community college are equivalent to math major and physics major courses at various UCs.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, full price can be $50,000 per year or more, so if you cannot afford that, you need to check very carefully the schools’ financial aid policies. UCs cost less if you are in-state, but the continual defunding of UC (in favor of K-12, health/welfare, prisons, and tax cuts) means that in-state tuition will likely keep going up.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>A history degree is non-specific with respect to most jobs (other than a few, like teaching history, working in a museum, etc.) and may help you get jobs that want a non-specific bachelor’s degree. Some apply to law school, though any major (including math and physics) is fine for this purpose. A math or physics degree may help you get jobs that require a strong math background, such as quantitative finance, actuarial, or computer software jobs (though supplementing with a few “applied” courses like statistics, economics, finance, and computer science would help in this respect).</p>

<p>For job and career prospects, consider the following:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>

If by at least middle-class you mean your family is >$100K then you need to realize your FA will probably consist of loans. But having the UCs on your list makes that workable since you have lower cost options.</p>

9

<p>I am lucky to have a community college nearby, but I was unable to take any of these classes this Summer as my AP scores had not yet arrived to make it official. Would you recommend taking it during the school year? Also, I am considering retaking Physics B with a focus on C, as a lot of the material we covered in the class was only in C.</p>

<p>Are any of the colleges massively more expensive than the rest? As in enough more so for me to eliminate them.</p>

<p>I have been considering Law, so that is an option. I am planning to take plenty of “applied” math, at least with my AP’s. I think that I will decide as I go along, I just recently determined my majors. While I expect that the Tech Universities will have sufficient History, I am unsure that the Liberal Arts have sufficient Math/Science. Is this something to worry about?</p>

<p>Also, just in case someone could answer: Should I retake any of the standardized tests in October/November?</p>

10

<p>@Erin’s Dad</p>

<p>I am actually unaware of my family’s income, so they will not tell me. They seem very confident that financial problems will work out with me getting scholarships and such and they are usually competent with money, but I can never be too sure. They are likely anticipating student loans.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>However, college financing and financial aid is not always intuitive or transparent. You and they may want to look around at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/) as well as the financial aid pages of various universities you are considering. You do not want to be surprised next April by getting accepted at a bunch of schools which all require unreasonable amounts of student loans (significantly greater than the government subsidized loan limit) to attend.</p>

<p>By full list price, the private schools will generally be more expensive than in-state UCs, though you can only expect UC in-state costs to keep rising as UC is defunded by the state. But full list price masks differences in financial aid policy. For example, Stanford is extremely generous with need-based financial aid for those who are admitted, such that a large percentage of students who are admitted to Stanford will find it less expensive than UCs are (after non-loan financial aid is counted).</p>

<p>I would recommend taking community college physics for scientists and engineers courses over AP Physics B or C, at least if UC schools are a strong possibility, since the AP physics syllabi are incomplete relative to UC physics courses for physics majors. Also, take sophomore level math there if you want.</p>

<p>Law school can be done from any major. Math and physics majors actually have the highest average LSAT scores.</p>

<p>As far as history offerings at tech-oriented universities, some schools like MIT have enough history to major in history, but others may have only enough to satisfy students taking history for breadth. You may want to look at on-line course catalogs for each school to see if they have enough in each subject (math, physics, history) to satisfy your academic interests.</p>

12

<p>You are a decent candidate with a great list. </p>

<p>Here’s my algorithm: </p>

<p>1) Determine your most likely order of preference. This should be done with careful investigation and thought. It should not be done with rankings or acceptance rates. You’re beyond that. If you’re not sure then guess. You might find that you prefer some schools that are easier to get into than others. That’s natural. </p>

<p>2) Use your school’s Naviance, or if unavailable, some other method, to come up with an estimate of YOUR probability of getting accepted. I would round this to 1 significant digit. In other words your chances are either (0%, 10%, 20%, …, 90%, 100%). It’s really hard to estimate it any better than that. </p>

<p>3) Assuming that everything is independent at this point, calculate your chances of ATTENDING each school. For the one with the highest preference, it’s the admit rate. For your second choice, it’s the probability of getting rejected by your first choice times the probability of getting into your second choice, etc. This will allow you to estimate the probability of attending each school, and will give you some indication of what’s worth the effort. </p>

<p>4) If you do this, and you didn’t choose based on rankings, or degree of difficulty in getting in, then the probability of attending some schools will likely fall below some threshold, say 5%. If you eliminate those schools and recalculate, you should end up with a list of between 5 and 10 schools, including a safety, which would round up to 100% of getting in. Obviously if your overall chances of getting in round to 0%, you should only apply if it’s your top choice. </p>

<p>If your not sure of your top choice, don’t eliminate a schools that could be your top choice since this is just a rough guide of where to invest your time. But clearly, if it turns out that the probability of attending your 4th choice is 2%, it’s probably not worth spending a lot of time on the application.</p>

13

<p>My son had similar stats and interests to yours, and applied for many schools early action. He had extremely good luck with the early action admissions, and was able to cut the rest of his list drastically in December. His “total” list was probably about 12 - 13 schools, but he cut out all but about two for RD and ended up applying to only 8 overall. I recommend using this strategy, among the others presented above.</p>

<p>Also, I would really push your parents for financial information. You won’t get merit scholarships at most of the top schools (they don’t do them for anyone), and you don’t want to take out $100 K in loans.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

14

<p>@ucbalumnus
Thank you for all of these helpful links, I will look into the financial aide one after I respond to the other posts. Need-based>need-blind?
How do I take classes during the school year without limiting my normal schooling?
I will probably stay with Math/Physics, though this is reassuring.</p>

<p>@ClassicRockerDad

  1. My order of preference is about the same as order of selectivity, but most of the colleges from 2 to 10ish are about the same. I have run out of things to consider and vising all of them is not an option. </p>

<p>2) My Naviance has very little data, so it is not very helpful. Of what it does have, the average scores of people from my school are much higher than the norm. For example, the average SAT scores to UCLA and Berkley are around 2200 and 2300. Otherwise, here are my guesses:
CIT: <20%
MIT, Yale, Princeton: 10-30%
Stanford: 15-40%
Chicago, Brown: 15-45%
UC-Berkeley: 25-50%
Amherst: 20-50%
Swarthmore: 20-50%
Carnegie Mellon: 25-60%
UCLA: 40-80%
Reed: 40-70%
UC System: >50%</p>

<p>3) I will attempt these calculations after I finish this post and see how well they work out.</p>

<p>4) This sounds good, but I am pretty unsure about my chances for each, percentage-wise, so I will try to research some statistics. </p>

<p>@GeekMom63
I do not want to do any early decision, but I think early action could work out well. You seem to condone at least 8 schools, so that is good. I will probably wind up with about 10 total.
So far my parents have not been looking into financial aide at all, so I will attempt to convince them to help me.
Thank you!</p>

15

<p>Update on the algorithm:Even with the lowest estimates for being accepted to each college, none ever went below 5, mostly due to the issue with my order of choice being almost the same as order of challenge to get in.</p>

16

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</p>

<p>Need-based refers to financial aid given on the basis of (the school’s definition) of need (however, the aid may be of varying levels of generosity, and the composition of grants, loans, and work varies). This is in contrast to merit based scholarships, which are used by less prestigious schools to attract good students (e.g. University of Alabama’s Presidential Scholarships with free out of state tuition).</p>

<p>Need-blind refers to admissions decisions made without regard to financial need, but does not necessarily mean that the school will give a financial aid package acceptable to you. (A trivial example of a need-blind school is an open admission community college – it is need-blind and everything-else-blind in terms of admissions, since it admits everyone who applies.)</p>

<p>In terms of taking courses at a community college while in high school, it depends on finding the desired community college courses at times which do not conflict with your high school course times. Remember that if you take math and physics at community college, you should be able to not take a math and science course at high school, possibly freeing time during the day to take the community college courses.</p>

17

<p>Ah, financial stuffs make more sense now, thanks.</p>

<p>I am taking 6-7 classes, as I need 5-6 AP’s to be a valedictorian (however useless it is) and a third year of language (we did not have enough people last year for a class). I doubt that I will be able to get the timing right, and I can probably do with independent study for Physics C. As for Mathematics, what is the next step from Calculus BC? Multivariable Calculus?</p>

18

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</p>

<p>You undoubtely attend a pretty top-notch SoCal public hs, public because of 620 students in your class…probably API Rank of 10. </p>

<p>This is why the medians/means SATs from your hs to UCLA and Cal are so high because of the ‘to much is given, much is required’ tiered admission policy of the two UCs wrt high schools. </p>

<p>You’re a shoe-in to be admitted to one of the UCs, certainly, and your being admitted to one of UCLA and Cal could be pretty certain also. But I’d be cautious of the “I’m in” thinking because UCLA rejected 36 students from one SoCal HS with 2100 SATs or >, of which 12 had 2200 or >, with a mean uw gpa of 3.7 … the same for Cal. Because of this, be sure to throw in a couple of the other UCs as absolute safties, in which case you’d hear pretty early on which non-UCLA/Cal UC’s have taken you because of your ELC status.</p>

<p>Because of the above, I’d be cautious of how to read Statfinder as linked by UCBAlumnus:</p>

<p>1) Wide array of SAT distributions for each Cal and UCLA based on economic background – someone from an underfunded hs could be accepted with a 3.7/3.9/1600 and someone from a hs like yours, rejected with a 3.85/4.60/2200 combined in effect -> a fairly pedestrian mean/median score as attributed to each u, seen at this website.</p>

<p>2) This site reports “capped weighted gpa,” not the fully ascended weighted gpas of 4.6 and >.</p>

<p>3) Statfinder hasn’t been updated for awhile.</p>

<p>It looks like your ACT’s probably supercede your already high SAT scores, so one has to like the score component of your stats. Maybe not because the conversion probably translates the writing component to a lower score because students haven’t caught on to it yet.</p>

<p>Your grades are probably similar at best to teh other 1000’s who apply to the top elites that are your top choices.</p>

<p>Wrt percentage range of acceptances, who knows wrt elite private schools, but if you cast a wide enough net, someone will take you. </p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

19

<p>@drax12
Spot on good sir, (about my high school) though this tiered admission is a bit unfortunate.
UCSB is my main safety, is it a particularly safe bet? Or does ELC cover this? Also, my class rank should go up quite a bit as most of my peers are taking less AP classes Senior year (I am well acquainted to or friends with all above me). </p>

<p>This “cancels out” the whole financial aide thing in some ways, so it levels the field a bit. Of course, I still need to cut colleges. </p>

<p>I always though that my scores were my low part… People in my school generally do better than me on the SAT/ACT (2300+ and 35 are the common scores of these people) but I beat them in AP’s and other more academic things. I am not sure what is with my essays. My SAT essays are 8/11/11 and ACT only 9/8. How is the ACT better? The 36 in math? Because I though that a 33 correlated to a 2180ish and (at least from what I have heard and experienced) the SAT is considered much harder. Again with the question of if I should retake them, but you at least seem to insinuate that my scores are good enough.</p>

<p>What is wrt? With? Yes, this is my plan, I am going for many of the tope ones. However, I still have too many colleges overall. What should I cut?</p>

<p>Thank you, you too! In whatever you may benefit from luck in.</p>

20

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</p>

<p>The typical university sophomore math courses are multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations. At different schools, the order in which you take them varies, but if you take all of them, you will have them all covered and not have to worry about having partial credit for some course.</p>

<p>Other courses that are sometimes taken after freshman calculus or AP Calculus BC include calculus-based statistics and discrete math (which is usually taken by those who have an interest in computer science or math topics like cryptography).</p>

<p>Of course, calculus-based physics can be taken, and the second semester with electricity and magnetism makes a lot more sense if you have multivariable calculus previously or at least concurrently.</p>