I honestly have no idea where to start. Mostly because I’m not even sure what I want out of a college. I just finished my junior year and I feel like time’s running out for me. For some background info, I’m Asian, and my parents of course want me to go to Harvard or Stanford or MIT and become a doctor, etc. You know how it is. I just want some tips on how to select a college that will fit me. I’m not too sure what I want to do in the future, but I think I’d want to do physics.
Man, it seems like everyone else has a clear idea what they want to do in the future while I’m still indecisive. I generally did well at everything I set my mind to, but I never developed a huge passion for any specific thing except maybe playing tennis.
Here are my stats so far (I won’t bother you with all the details):
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
SAT: 2400
SAT II: Math 2 - 800, Chemistry - 780, Physics - 780
ACT: 34
PSAT: 1510
8 AP tests. 5s on the two I took last year. and for the six I took this year I’m guessing I got mostly 5s and a couple 4s.
Various academic distinctions and awards
Extracurriculars:
Varsity tennis, placed at state in doubles
200+ hours volunteering at a hospital, a little bit of tutoring kids
Captain of academic team
Piano awards. Biggest one was when I won a state contest and placed second out of four states.
Orchestra
Some minor clubs
I know I’m pretty strong academically, but I’m no super genius. Could you guys suggest some colleges I might want to check out? Thanks a lot!
Home state? How much can your parents afford?
Apply to a few of the schools your parents want and then add a few of your own. You have excellent stats and much will depend upon if you are in need of financial and/or merit aid.
I would sit down and have a conversation with your parents about exactly how much they can pay. You don’t want to find out in April that you can’t afford any of the school’s you got into.
Check out the SuperMatch tool, you can input things that are important to you (location, demographics, etc) and it will match you with different colleges that could be a good fit!
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve used the College Board college search thing before and it left me with 50+ options to choose from. With the SuperMatch tool, it still just spits out a whole slew of mostly top 30 universities. How do I develop a liking for a school? I feel almost indifferent to all the names of colleges I see. I feel like I’ll adapt to wherever I’ll go and be satisfied with it.
Have you visited any colleges? Sometimes that can help get you excited or at least give you a better feel for what you want.
What do you want in a college? Size? Location? LAC or research university? Conservative or liberal? Coed or same sex? Religious affiliation? Anything you absolutely don’t want? Anything you have to have?
Do you want to play tennis in college? It sounds like you could be an asset to certain schools. Coming from Oklahoma gives you an edge with east coast and west coast schools, perfect gpa and sat? You should aim high, but first see if the net price calcuators at certain schools (like Harvard) show what is reasonable for your parents to afford. The big thing is deciding to focus on schools that give merit or schools that will meet full need if you are financially in need. Once you know the financial stuff you can probably get good suggestions from CC. Also think about whether you want to be in a city or not or if you want a big school or small
Get a “Fiske guide to colleges”. There are hundreds in it. Each has a few pages of it’s “feel”/vibe, campus, etc.
Sounds like you don’t know what to study yet. So focus on narrowing down a region (east/west coast, Midwest, north/south, etc.). Then size of school. Huge, medium, small, tiny.
Should the school be in a small town, a city? What do you prefer? Do you know where you’d like to live when you get out of college?
Greek/not Greek? Big into music? Theater? Computer programming, etc? All of these things will help narrow it down. Once you are narrow enough, you can use the Fiske guide to see what fits your criteria. From there, look at the NPCs to see if they are affordable.
See if you can visit a variety of nearby schools. OU, for a typical large state university. Rice (Houston) and WashU (St. Louis) are elite small research universities within a day’s drive. Hendrix is a well-regarded LAC in Conway, Arkansas. Or, if you’re visiting Rice, check out Trinity in San Antonio for an LAC. This should help narrow your focus, and you can proceed from there.
Don’t worry too much that everyone else seems to know exactly what they want to do with their lives. Many of them will change their major, at least once. And that’s okay. You don’t have to know yet.
Some LACs, e.g., two or three from the NESCACs or Claremonts, or perhaps Swarthmore, would be worth a look. (From this group, HMC, Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, Hamilton, Wesleyan and Middlebury have produced Apker Award recipients, for undergraduate research in physics.) Whether or not these colleges appeal to you, you would be unlikely to feel indifferently toward them.
You can save money by buying a Feske guide that is a year or two old. You have to look up the current stats and finances even with the newest addition.
A few visits is by far to narrow a list. You’ll start to see the differences in schools much better than paper. But, on paper, look at how curriculums are structured. Brown is open curriculum. No interest so I can’t tell you much more. Columbia has a core curriculum that all students take. Princeton is a distribution system that is much more flexible. Some schools allow you changes majors easily and take classes from all colleges. Others are near impossible to change majors and require a declaration upon application (although this is true for most engineering programs.)
I would look at schools that offer great advising and resources to find a major and a profession. Privates will likely be better at this so you need to run Net Price Calculators.
Yes, the Fiske guide does not have to be new. Just be sure you look up the current information on test score ranges, when apps are due, etc. – that part can get out of date. But the descriptions are good for quite a while. Your library or guidance counselor may have a copy, too.
With your GPA and test scores, as well as a couple of standout things in your EC’s, you’ve got a decent shot to get into any school in the country (note: “decent shot” by no means means “sure thing”).
Do you know how financial aid at colleges works? I suggest you learn a bit about need-based aid and merit-based aid, and schools that meet need. Net price calculators (NPCs) are also important – schools are required to have them, you enter some data, and they give you an estimate of how much aid you’ll get.
The top schools generally give only need-based aid and meet full need. You can use their NPCs (generally found on their websites) to determine whether they’ll be affordable. You’ll probably want to apply to a number of these schools. Most of them will be reaches, some of them will be matches.
Then there are schools that give merit-based aid. These schools are generally not as good/selective as the ones that only give need-based aid. This aid is typically up to about half the total cost of the schools – you’ll have to determine whether that allows them to be affordable. Most of these schools will probably be matches.
And there are also schools that have merit-based full-rides (or close to it) to offer. These schools are generally another step down, although some schools in the previous categories have full-rides. These schools might be safeties for you in terms of admission, but these scholarships can be very competitive.
That’s a brief summary of some different categories/levels of schools. I think what you need to do next is learn more about financial aid at colleges and determine more what you and your family can afford. In addition, you need to provide some information/preferences/constraints about schools that people here can use to recommend some. Some of the previous replies ask some good questions/give some good guidelines on what you can think about to determine this information.
The question about whether you want to continue to play tennis in college is a good one. You indicate that that’s significant to you and you’ve reached a certain level of accomplishment. I’m guessing though not at the Div. 1 level, otherwise you likely would have mentioned that. But there might very well be possibilities at Div. 3 schools. (They don’t give athletic scholarships, but that can help your admission chances.) There are many very good Div. 3 schools, generally LACs, that this might be a factor at.
I’ll definitely start looking at the different types of financial aid. Regarding tennis, I don’t play competitively anymore. Just for fun with some friends usually. I want to say that if I practiced some more, I could probably play at a D3 or even D2 school. Nonetheless, I don’t think I want to play competitively in college.
I’ll also see if I can get ahold of a Fiske guide to get more familiar with different colleges. Thanks again.
What do I like to study? Hm…I’d say physics is probably what interests me the most. In my free time, I’d be perfectly content browsing the internet, reading a book, or playing tennis.
