@GnocchiB Thank you! And I am male.
Out of your list your only reasonable matches are BU, BC and maybe NYU. As was already mentioned your demographic is among the most difficult to overcome, and you will be competing against many US based Asian students with near perfect scores and much more impressive list of ECs. Without a car it will be very difficult to see most of the schools you are targeting. Your best option is to fly into DC, visit the schools there, then take the Amtrak up to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and then end in Boston. You should definitely see a number of safety schools as well which as a presumably full-pay student you could have a small advantage.
@OnTheBubble Like I said I don’t know. And I might not know when I actually apply. But I probably won’t study math and science.
I’ll give some East Coast options where a 2200 SAT Asian international won’t find too many hurdles and where your chance of acceptance is good to very high. Lehigh University, Bucknell, George Washington, Holy Cross, Lafayette College, Villanova, Dickinson, Connecticut College, Union College, Skidmore College and Gettysburg, which is a very high quality safety for you but not in general.
You can add reaches as you like.
This Newsweek (online) article discusses colleges in suburban locations, a good portion of which are on the east coast: “The 25 Most Desirable Suburban Schools.”
These are safeties/low matches:
-Clark University
-Fordham University
-Loyola University Maryland
-Muhlenberg College
-Providence College
-University of Maryland - College Park
-Villanova University
These are reaches:
-Barnard College
-Swarthmore College
-Tufts University
-Wellesley College
@newjerseygirl98 OP is male, so Barnard and Wellesley won’t do him much good.
Urban:
NYU, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Brown - NONE of these are “high matches.” They are high reaches for everybody.
BU and BC - match
PA: UPenn (urban), Swarthmore (suburban), Haverford (suburban). Reaches, high reach for UPenn.
MD: Johns Hopkins, Georgetown(Washington DC) - both urban, both low reaches
Rural/suburban/small city:
It would be hard to visit all of these and they might not be what you’re looking for.
Cornell - somewhat isolated, small city - lower reach
Dartmouth - rural, has a party school reputation, lower reach
Colgate & Hamilton - towns in rural areas - match/low reach
Vassar - located in a small, not very pleasant city, but with direct train service to NYC (about 2 hours) - match
Amherst - 2 hour drive or but ride from Boston - high reach
Wesleyan - in a small city, probably not “urban” in the way you want - reach
Princeton - small, upscale, quiet town. Train access to Manhattan (1.5-2 hours) or Philly (maybe a little less time?) high reach
Personally, I think that visiting a bunch of schools to which you probably won’t apply and that are reaches for everybody doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I would focus on a handful of cities where public transport is easier and there is a greater density of colleges. Boston, Philadelphia and NYC would seem to make the most sense. Maybe DC?
Boston: I’d look at Harvard (it’s Harvard, why not?) BC, BU, and maybe Northeastern. Three possible matches and 1 reach
NY: NYU and Columbia. 1 high reach, one low reach
Philadelphia: two low reaches, one high reach. You might throw Temple and/or Drexel into the mix which are more safety/match than your other choices.
If you want to try DC: George Washington and American are options that are less competitive than Georgetown.
Okay, here goes:
If you fly in to NYC, you can hit one match (NYU) and one fairly atypical Ivy (Columbia) in one day. From there, you can proceed via Amtrak and hit Yale and Wesleyan on Day 2. You’ll wind up spending some money on taxis to ferry you from the train stations to the actual colleges, but, that’s no big deal. (in fact, a cab all the way from New Haven to Wesleyan would probably only cost you about $40.) I’d take it easy after Wesleyan and spend the night. On Day 3 you can catch another Amtrak from nearby Meriden CT ($25 cab ride from campus) to Hartford and fit in another match/safety (Trinity) and perhaps even fit in a trip to Amherst. On Day 4 you are ready for Boston. (One Hint: it might be worth it staying an extra day in Amherst to visit UMass - another match/safety.) That’s between 5 and 8 colleges in four days (depending how many you hit while in Boston) all by public transportation, although as someone else mentioned, doing more than one college a day might be pushing it, especially when trying to make train connections. Hope this helps.
Are Hamilton and Colgate comparably rural? (#27) Hamilton runs a shuttle hourly to a nearby suburban area that includes an indoor mall and a movie complex.
To further complicate, not all colleges hold info session every day. We couldn’t do NYU and Columbia in the same trip. We had a tight schedule and NYU only had two sessions per week in late winter. Summer may have more tours.
Can’t speak for Hamilton, but Colgate is extremely rural. Probably the most isolated highly ranked college I can think of off the top of my head. Williams is extremely rural too.
Also, I think NYU is a match for you, not a reach.
Don’t overlook Brandeis and Tufts.
Yes they are - the closest sign of civilization to Hamilton is Colgate and vice versa - and both are in small towns
Oh I did not overlook them. I’m not really interested in them because they are strong in science I think. And I’m not interested in those majors.
Do u guys think I should visit Brandeis and Tufts? Are they stronger in math and science?
For Brandeis, in my older Fiske Guide, four of the eight “strongest programs” (psychology, English, history, Judaic Studies) are either humanities or social sciences. Tufts appears to be strong in international relations.
OP, visit the matches or safeties that track interest (go to collegedata.com and look up eacg one) and make sure they know you are there. The Ivys don’t care if you visit… So visit 1 to see, but I can tell you, you will probably love them. And you probably won’t get in. Do you want your parents seeing all these schools you likely won’t get in? Please, go read the results threads, BU, etc… they rejected high stats kids that dont show interest by visiting. Kids that thought they were safeties. Rejected.
Then make sure to read the Ivy results threads this year to bring you to reality.
“the closest sign of civilization to Hamilton is Colgate and vice versa” (#33)
This is simply inaccurate.
Hamilton is eight miles from a city of 62 thousand people and six miles from an 80-store mall. The school overlooks the Mohawk Valley, which has been a transportation corridor since at least the time of the Erie Canal. Colgate’s beautiful Chenango Valley is, in both a topographical and historical sense, nearly in a different region. Both colleges are associated with charming villages.
How does visiting match or safety schools kinda increase the chance of getting in? Cuz when I schedule my visit I basically just fill out a simple form online and go visit. After the tour nobody even knows my name or I have been there. Are u guys saying that the system automatically put us in record?