I already applied to several schools through early action. They range from state schools, regionals, and high high high reaches.
The current list of schools for regular admissions is as follow. *means that I’ll definitely apply. They are all basically reaches because I’ve applied to enough safeties through early action.
All Ivies except Dartmouth and Harvard (Dartmouth because it’s not my type, and Harvard because I know I can’t get in.) (and Cornell is a *must)
UC Berkely and UCLA (I’m concerned about tuition. I’m OOS. Could somebody share their experiences with financial aid at UC schools? How much were you able to get?)
*NYU
Swarthmore
Tufts
JHU
Georgetown
WashU
CMU
Stanford
Northwestern
I know this is too many. What I heard is that applying to too many schools could cause stress and bad essays. Assuming that I will be able to finish all the essays and make sure they are good, how realistic is the list?
I will apply to finance/econ/applied math majors. So yes, if the school has a business school, I am going to directly apply to that (Cornell and NYU, for example).
Also assume that my GPA and SAT scores are in good range for these schools. I can’t really judge my ECs.
Thanks for everyone’s help and time! Especially for those who also applied for similar majors–what schools did you eventually choose to apply to?
I’m curious as to your logic, if you can’t get in (or think you can’t get in) into H, why doesn’t that extend to Yale, Princeton and Stanford–which are just as, or even more competitive? As to the UCs, in most instances, there is a very very limited aid for OOS, so the basic assumption is to expect no aid. That said, UCLA does have alumni scholarships, that I think go up to 25k.
Beyond that, it will be very hard to predict without your exact grades/scores/ and area/state, part of the country. I will say, it is a very ambitious list, even for the most qualified applicant. By way of background, I have Ds at Yale and UCLA, and another that graduated from CAL.
I know they’re all super competitive, but the thing is that in our school history, no one I think has gotten into Harvard through RD. There are several people who got in through REA, but just not RD.
Is it feasible to apply for outside scholarships and cover all the tuition with that for UCs?
Live in a wealthy Northeastern state and go to a very wealthy high school. Perfect GPA and near 2300 SAT that I’m retaking soon.
But, just as a reference, my Ds strategy to narrow down applications, were as follows: 3-4 reach, 3-4 match, and 2-3 safety schools. Personally, I think applying to too many schools affects the individual applications. Thus, what are your primary criteria points, past going to a really good school?
Yes, merit-based. We need a lot of aid. My parents’ income is very low and the maximum amount they can provide is probably 10000 a year. Besides, I wouldn’t want my parents to pay for my tuition at all.
And I don’t want to have 10 years of debt trailing behind me either. So I’m really looking for either 1) 100% need-met schools, or 2) outside scholarships to cover tuitions. I don’t mind the essays and extra applications. How available are these scholarships and is it easy to get them? If it’s almost impossible to cover even ~80% of tuition with just scholarships, then I guess I’m not going to apply to UC schools.
So other than how affordable the schools are, I’m just looking for
-the strength of their econ/finance/applied math programs
Maybe I’m too naive, but I don’t really care about other things like how the food is or what the demographic is or where it is located. I know I should care about them but as of now I don’t think these will be my deciding factors.
I mean, theoretically there’s no reason you CAN’T apply to all of them. The reason it’s ill-advised (in addition to the cost) is because most, if not all, of them have extensive supplements. Your time will be spread thin, and you’ll have to be extremely careful to not sound generic.
If you want to cut down, I would start with reevaluating the Ivies. Saying you’re applying to six of them makes it sound as though the prestige is the only thing on your mind. Which, again, if you have the money and time to apply to them, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you’re indicating that you want to narrow your list. So I would ask, would you really be as happy with Brown’s open curriculum as you would be with Columbia’s core?
I tried to cut down the list but then added all the schools back… And started repeating this over and over again. I know this is too many schools but I also fear what kind of opportunities I might lose if I don’t apply to all of these wonderful schools I’ve been dreaming about since I was little. I don’t want to look back years later and wonder what might happen if I applied to THAT school. Yikes I really need to put some effort and work on this list.
Just as a bit of a guideline from the FA side, at the top Ivy schools and Stanford, if your family income, say was about at 100k, your our family out of pocket, on tuition, R/B, etc…it would be less than 5K. At under 80k, it would be nothing.
If you would like to consider your schools in terms of faculty scholarship within their economics departments, these analyses can be helpful: “US Economics Departments”; “Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges” (from IDEAS, available online).