To the OP-- showing interest means: Click on the “Request Info” link on the Adnissions site so you start getting g mailings and emails. when you get emails from the school, open them and, if there are links in them about departments, programs wtc you find interesting, click on the links. If there are college fairs in your town or a school where the colleges are attending, go to the booth, sign in, chat with the college rep there. If you do apply, abs cannot travel to campus to visit because of distance-expense, find bout through Admussions if they do alumni interviews in your area, and go ahead and interview. Email the admissions rep for your geographic region (that is usually listed under the reps name on the Admissions rep list), and introduce yourself, with some basic background info about your stats, academic and EC interests, and explain you are not able to travel to campus to visit. You might – and this takes delicate touch and good judgment-- email a professor working in an area of interest, such as international human rights. All of those steps show a small school that an applicant is really interested. Good luck!
How do you define “close to a big city”? Williams and Grinnell are both pretty off the beaten track … ~an hour each from Albany and Des Moines, respectively.
You need a safety and you loved Philly so consider temple if they’re going to offer the automatic full tuition scholarships next year which is a question.
Tulane is not a safety unless you get in early action with financial aid at which point it becomes safety.
One of your reach schools is your first choice. I suspect that you will apply early to at least one of them. If your first choice does not restrict you from applying Early Action to Tulane then you might have a safety before final applications are due for RD and could relax knowing that you will get in somewhere. I don’t believe that Tulane requires an additional essay, so it’s just a matter of filling out a trivial application.
If however, the reach school you apply early to, such as Harvard, does single-choice, early action, then you would not be allowed to exercise this option.
I also think Lawrence is an excellent option, and it’s very likely to admit you. I don’t think they even filled up this year and were on the list of colleges seeking applications in May. They also offer early action if you can do it.
Tufts (meets full need) and Brandeis (some merit) are two schools with strong philosophy programs that don’t appear in the traditional rankings because they do not grant Phd degrees (only Masters degrees). They also seem to fit your profile better than some of the programs you have listed.
bump