<p>I'm going into 12th grade and am a NYS resident. And if it makes a difference, I'm also Asian. I haven't visited a lot of colleges yet (my dad thinks I should apply first, then visit when I get in, then decide where I want to go). Also, I plan to major in engineering (maybe mechanical or aerospace), but I want a school that's good in other areas too in case I decide I want to do something else. </p>
<p>I'm not sure which colleges on my list are reach/match/safety, but I think they're mostly either reaches or safeties. (If you think any are matches, can you let me know?) I also think I might be applying to too many? I don't want to apply to too few and only get into my safeties, though. Anyway, here's what I'm considering:</p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
Caltech (top three choices as of now)
Princeton
Carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins
Cornell
UMich
UC Berkeley
Yale
UPenn
Purdue
Binghamton (safety my dad suggested, since it's in-state)</p>
<p>My stats:
SAT: Reading 720, Math 800, Writing 760 (total 2280)
SAT II: Math II 800, Physics 790, Chem 790
ACT: will take in the fall
GPA: my school uses a weird gpa system, so I won't go into it, but basically, I get As/A+s, and a couple A-s
rigor: I've taken 7 AP classes so far, and will take 3 more next year. Next year I also plan to self-study Physics C. I've taken all honors classes, except not english in 9th grade. </p>
<p>So yeah, if anyone can help me with my concerns above and maybe recommend some good match schools for me, that would be great! Thanks</p>
<p>I did the same thing. Applied to schools, after getting admitted, visited the ones that I was interested in or haven’t been to. Your strategy is fine since you have a true safety. You have a good range of school and should have no issue if you don’t need financial aid or can pay the EFC from FAFSA comfortably.</p>
<p>I would just note that if you apply to UMichigan early you should hear back from them by the end of December which is a plus. You might want to consider GA Tech and/or Villanova or URochester but your list is basically fine.</p>
<p>Thanks for the fast advice everyone!
As for early action, I’m deciding between Stanford (restrictive early action) and MIT, umich, and purdue (all non-restrictive early action). not sure if restrictive early action gives you an advantage? and if I apply for merit-based scholarships at purdue, I have to apply early action. so I’m not really sure what to do.
The thing about the visiting strategy that makes me nervous is what if I don’t like any schools I get into? But I guess that’s being paranoid.</p>
<p>Nice list. Nice stats. Avoid SCEA from Stanford, it’s a fools game and it doesn’t help. </p>
<p>Do EA wherever you can (MIT, CalTech, MICH). Basically, you are more likely to be able to eliminate applications if you do EA at MIT, CalTech and Mich then if you do SCEA, because you are most likely not to get in at Stanford, and between MIT, CalTech and Michigan, you will definitely eliminate some applications by getting in EA. </p>
<p>I’d skip Berkeley given how much you pay and how broke California is. </p>
<p>My read:
MIT 40%
Stanford 20%
Caltech (top three choices as of now) 50% - (they care a lot about stats and you got the goods)
Princeton 20%
Carnegie Mellon 60%
Johns Hopkins 70%
Cornell 60%
UMich 90%
UC Berkeley 90%
Yale 20%
UPenn 30%
Purdue 100%
Binghamton (safety my dad suggested, since it’s in-state (100%)</p>
<p>I’d skip Binghampton. Stony Brook and Buffalo are the real SUNY engineering schools.</p>
<p>Money is not a main issue in selecting colleges for me. Merit money would be nice, but I don’t think I qualify for FA.</p>
<p>edit: I think I feel a little better about my list actually, thanks for the help everyone but I think I’ll be keeping this list with just a few changes.</p>
<p>Stanford’s REA means that you agree not to apply to other private schools EA, and agree not to apply anywhere ED. So applying to Stanford REA and Purdue and Michigan EA is ok from Stanford’s point of view. Stanford’s REA also does not exclude early deadline for scholarship applications.</p>
<p>Have your parents explicitly said that they will pay the full list price (or enough that you can cover the rest with no more than Stafford loans and a small amount of work earnings) of any of the schools?</p>
<p>If not, then you may want to consider less expensive options, particularly for safeties:</p>
<p>Stony Brook
Minnesota
Virginia Tech
North Carolina State
Iowa State
Cal Poly SLO</p>
<p>Caltech is very limited in humanities and social studies majors (just English, history, and history and philosophy of science); Yale is limited in other kinds of engineering (just chemical and electrical as well as mechanical).</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus:
Wow, thanks for letting me know about Stanford, I hadn’t seen that page and assumed it was totally restrictive. </p>
<p>Yes, they have. Thanks for the links though, they’re really helpful. Looks like out of my list, I could possibly get full ride scholarships for umich and suny.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus + anonemuss
Thanks for the majors info!</p>
<p>I only joined CC yesterday, and I’m really surprised at how helpful you people are, lol.</p>
<p>You could possibly get a full ride at UMich but the competition for those is extremely high. You would certainly be in the running but no slam dunk.</p>
<p>Except that it’s much tougher to predict admissions to Stanford than to MIT and CalTech. Our school has had years where zero people got in despite regularly sending students to Harvard, Yale and MIT. Then when students do get in, they are not necessarily in the upper right of the Naviance scatter plot (high SAT, high grades). </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting not to apply to Stanford. I’m just suggesting that doing so REA will neither increase the probability of attendance nor is it likely to reduce the expected number of applications that you have to write and pay for.</p>