need help narrowing down the list

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Okay, so I need a lot of help narrowing down my college list. I have 14 colleges, and my counselor wants me to apply to 10 (3 in each category, and 1 additional)</p>

<p>My "likelies" (what my school calls "safeties"):
-Rutgers (I live in NJ, so I'm in-state, but only applying because my parents are making me)- APPLIED
-Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology- APPLIED
-Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute- Almost done with the application (just need to do one short-answer)
-George Washington University- not sure about this one, it seemed like I should have liked it- it had the major I want, and it seemed like it had cool activities, but when I visited, there was just something about the place I didn't really like
-Lehigh University- I really liked it, but haven't applied yet</p>

<p>My "matches":
-Carnegie-Mellon University- Will send in ED2 application very soon (it's one of my top 3 choices; my counselor says that, applying ED2, I have a pretty good chance of getting it)- loved it when I saw the off-campus info session, loved it when I visited it, interviewed
-Case Western Reserve University- APPLIED
-Johns Hopkins University- I haven't visited yet, but from what I've read, I keep going back and forth on "this place sounds awesome" and "this place sounds blech"
-University of Southern California- it has all the majors I'm interested in, it has tons of extracurriculars (anything you want to do, basically, you can), I loved the campus, the students all seem to love it, BUT it's huge (~16,000 student- much bigger than my other schools)
-Tufts University- loved it EXCEPT engineering seemed pretty separate from the rest of the school, but definitely applying anyway</p>

<p>My "reaches":
-Caltech (one of my other top 3)- APPLIED
-MIT (the 3rd top 3)- APPLIED
-WUSTL- APPLIED
-Pomona- haven't applied yet, but visited twice, interviewed on my second visit</p>

<p>So I'm kind of stuck on GW, Johns Hopkins, and USC. Other than that, I have 11 schools (though really 10 of my choosing- remember Rutgers is involuntary). Originally, I was worried about the cost of applications and sending scores (worried that they wouldn't want to pay, not that they wouldn't be able to pay), but my parents said they're willing to pay for these schools. Should I apply to GW, Johns Hopkins, and USC? How do I narrow my list down a little bit? Thanks for any help!</p>

2

<p>do you want to do engineering?</p>

3

<p>You're clearly committed to Engineering or something related. How'd Pomona sneak in there? GW is a niche kind of school for a certain kind of individual. As you found out, it doesn't really have a campus, other than he Mount Vernon facility several miles from Foggy Bottom. As with NYU, most applicants are there more for the city than the university, which eats into traditional college life. I wouldn't do either GW or NYU, but that's because I'm all about a campus life and culture. My extended family is in the Washington area and my kids all wanted to head north, so I tried and I tried to like JHU. The competitive culture and sketchy locale always undid my efforts.</p>

4

<p>umm Pomona?</p>

<p>Yes to Johns Hopkins and USC definately
No to GWU</p>

<p>Tufts should be off your list too</p>

5

<p>case western ewww....</p>

<p>obviously our tastes differ, but REALLY look around...</p>

6

<p>The ones you should still apply to are USC, Lehigh, and Tufts</p>

7

<p>Is money a consideration, most of these schools do not guarantee to meet need and some have better merit aid than others. Is Rutgers your only financial safety? That would be a huge problem if you really don't want to go there. These are hard times for most.</p>

8

<p>gadad- I know Pomona isn't an engineering school, BUT I'm also interested in physics and Pomona is good for Physics. However, GW- Yea, I did get that feeling that GW doesn't really have traditional "campus life". I'm not sure I want that. For JHU- I've heard both sides about how competitive the students are (people that aren't students there seem to say it's competitive, but the students themselves don't seem to think so...). By "sketchy locale", do you mean it's in a bad neighborhood? </p>

<p>Bananasandwich15- Why "ew"? I've never been to visit Case Western... is the campus really bad or something? :/</p>

<p>hmom5- unfortunately my family qualifies for no need. I know I'll be faced with some loans when I graduate. I don't know if I qualify for merit aid at a lot of schools; my ACT/SAT2 scores are very high (34, and 2 750s and a 770), but my GPA (~3.62) and class rank (don't know- but at least top half, maybe top 25%?- neither of them are actually published by my school, they're just for internal purposes) aren't as high (my grades aren't low, of course,they're just not as high as my test scores). I know I won't be getting any merit scholarships from any of my reaches, but my parents (and I suppose I, too) think it's possible that I could get a merit scholarship to one of my safeties. We've discussed this possibility; if this happens and I don't choose the school with the scholarship, what would probably happen is that I'd end up paying for the difference between wherever I go (let's say CMU, which is ~$50k/yr, including room and board) and wherever I am offered a scholarship (say, Rose-Hulman, which is normally ~$45k/yr, including room and board, but what if I'm offered a merit scholarship for ~$10k/yr, making it ~$35k/yr- so the difference between the two would be about $15k/yr).</p>

<p>Another question- how many safeties do I really need?</p>

9

<p>it should be 3 safeties, 3 matches and 2 reaches</p>

10

<p>for a typical student</p>

11

<p>Pierre0913- yea, I was definitely thinking it was about 3, but I wasn't quite sure (some people say "you only really need 1 safety!" but I'm not so sure...).</p>

12

<p>Okay, so I've taken GW off of my list. My counselor wants me to apply to USC and Lehigh, because he says I probably have a pretty good shot at both of those schools (plus, for USC, if you have your app in by 12/1- which I will- you're automatically considered for merit scholarships! yay!).</p>

<p>I'm still on the fence about Johns Hopkins and Tufts. My counselor says either take one or both off of the list.</p>

13

<p>take Tufts off the list, Johns Hopkins is the better choice</p>

14

<p>How is it "better"?</p>

15

<p>Johns Hopkins is not better, it is a pressure cooker.</p>

16

<p>better for sciences and engineering. Tufts does have a great science program but not a good engineering program so if you are not sure what you want to major in, Johns Hopkins is the way to go.</p>