@Zion101, you have great achievements! Really. But the college application process is kind of brutal. My daughter ended up having many fine schools to choose from (um, er, she applied to 18, I think, way too many!) but the rejections and waiting lists definitely were hard to receive. Each one dinged her ego; if she had applied to fewer of those reaches-for-everybody schools, she would have felt at least a little better during senior year of high school.
She had a great experience at Carleton. One of her majors was math, and she had friends who majored in computer science and physics. They all have jobs or in graduate school. (She graduated a few years ago.)
I would also give serious consideration to McGill in Montreal. Fantastic city, covers international for you (and has study abroad), strong departments across many majors and culture that supports individualism. Like European schools it is much more stat based than US schools. Seems like your scores would make you a likely admit. Have you considered UK? Good threads on here about that.
It is also a good idea to apply out of your region. Emory and Vandy have been mentioned. Georgia Tech is tougher to get into out of state but in a great city (work-life balance might be a problem). For music, Lawrence in Appleton WI might be worth considering.
Swarthmore isn’t really a safety IMHO with a 10% admit rate.
Ok, I’m going to take a guess and say you were rejected from Stanford. You have very high stats, that are perfectly in line for that school, yet you got rejected, not deferred. That should tell you, that schools with super low admit rates (Cornell included), are simply not bankable. That’s not to say you won’t get into any of the Ivies on your list, but they are all reaches. You don’t want heavy Greek life or rural, so take Dartmouth off your list. Wash U could be a good match. They love high stats and it checks a lot of your boxes.
Sorry to hear you did not get accepted into your first choice. Have you run any searches on Cappex, Big Future or College Express to help you narrow down your list? The Fiske Guide to Colleges offers good summaries of a wide range of schools. Since your parents have the money, have you considered going to a private college counseling service?
The schools you noted are very competitive, and they are all over the place in terms of size and type. I also kind of get the feeling you are being driven more by prestige than fit. Even though your stats appear excellent, your guidance counselor seems to be giving you an unrealistic sense of your chances. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, you definitely have a chance at any of them! Don’t lose the positivity, and understand it’s just a numbers game. IMO you need more match schools and a better sense of what you are looking for. In your case a match school is less about stats (because yours are so good) and more about acceptance rates. In general, schools with acceptance rates of 25% to 35% would be targets for you, but keep in mind they might be lower for CS programs .
Adding McGill to the list (or substituting it for one of your reaches) is a great idea. It fits what you say you want, admissions is much more predictable, the app is fairly simple, and it’s still a prestigious school.
I think that you really wouldn’t be happy at your safety school. You’ve said you don’t want a rural college ‘like the area you’ve been living in.’ Since you said your father teaches at your safety, I assume it is rural and you don’t like the area. Is it really a school you’d be happy attending?
Other than not remote and not heavily greek, do you care about size? Location (N/S/E/W?) Look for schools with a 30+ % admit rate where your stats are top 10-20% as matches.
Do you actually like this school, and would you be happy to go there in the likely event that your otherwise-all-reach list produces all rejections other than this school?
You do need a true safety – a school where you are certain to be accepted, that you can afford, and that you would be fine attending there, even if it’s not a top choice.
Emory and Brandeis would be good matches. possibly safeties.
Rice is a great school, but certainly not a safety.
Wow. This: your list is all about you, what you want, your reactions. Have you explored why these colleges would pick you? That is, how you match what they want? After all, it’s their decision. And it’s far beyond stats.
If this “me” approach comes through in your app, you can have a reaction from adcoms that stats can’t overcome.
It’s not about being overqualified but not understanding what match means.
“Is it necessary for me to be looking for even more schools if I already have schools that I would be happy at?” It is necessary for you find schools based on more than just what satisfies you, what rings your chimes, where an admit would please you.
Agree that @lookingforward hit the nail on the head - schools pick you, you don’t pick them. The top-20 universities and the top-20 LAC’s deny tons of students that have perfect stats, but can’t show the ad com why they would be a meaningful contributor to their school - its not what you take from the school, its what you give that matters.
To that end, academic fit is only one component; the other big component is being able to show that through your EC’s you have embraced a life that exhibits a mission driven / purposeful message that makes you a compelling candidate to further the school’s greater goals.
AND there are more of those than they can take. So it’s not just “can’t show the ad com” but “may well have shown the ad com etc. etc. but there were five others showing the same thing and they could only take two and it was not your day.”
Agree with @porcupine98 as that just gets you to the “yes” stack - then they have to reduce the stack down to the number they can accept, and with yields going way up at the tippy top schools the “yes” stacks / acceptance rates will continue to go down.
Agree with @jym626 that Matches will be schools where the acceptance rates are in the 25-30% AND your stats are in the top-25%.
Doesn’t mean that you won’t get accepted to one of more in the 15-25% acceptance range as that is realistic as well, but far too may students today are applying to only reach schools, throwing in a safety school, getting denied and waitlisted at all their reaches, and ending up at their safety which they never thought would happen…
So, make sure you apply to schools in the 20-30% acceptance range that you would truly happy at - they are all highly selective, great schools!
Usually the “go to” safety/match is the state flagship honors program for someone with your stat’s. Since cost is not an issue, you certainly can also consider OOS honors programs at great state flagships, e.g UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of M where full pay OOS students may actually have an admissions advantage.
^ I might have missed it elsewhere, but I did not see large institution as an exclusion in OP’s original post on this thread. Even there, some honors programs are pretty self-contained.