Please Help Me Choose Where to Apply to! I Will Love You Forever! :D

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Okay, so I want to finalize my college list pretty soon here, and I'm looking to see what you think of my list of colleges.</p>

<p>What's important to me:
- Full of bright students
- Great campus & staff
- Affordable (I must have fin-aid!!)
- In a decent sized city (100k+)
- Decent weather
- Other obvious factors that I'm not going to bother to list</p>

<p>A few quick stats to put me into perspective:
GPA: 3.93 (Valedictorian)
ACT: 34 (retaking, maybe higher :P)</p>

<hr>

<p>Brief reason why I want to apply in parenthesis.</p>

<p>For Sure Applying to:
Stanford University <a href="great%20financial%20aid">Applying EA</a>
Georgetown University (DC is super-cool)
University of Iowa (Safety + decent college anyway)</p>

<p>Probably Applying to:
Harvard University (for giggles-probably won't apply if I'm rejected at Stanford)
Washington University in St. Louis (Driving distance from home, going to an AdCom's presentation thing soon too)
University of Pennsylvania (sounds like a fun, urban school, plus I want to apply to one ivy aside from Harvard)</p>

<p>Possibly Applying to:
Duke University (I've heard good things from someone who went there)
University of Chicago (Driving distance from home)
Vanderbilt University (Not sure...)
George Washington University (DC is super-cool, and I might not get into GT)</p>

<hr>

<p>Don't tell me I need more safeties/matches. If I don't get into a reach school, I will just go to U of Iowa. I will probably apply to around seven schools, but none of these are set in stone aside from University of Iowa, Stanford, and Georgetown. Are there any of schools that you all think I should apply to? or is my list fairly sufficient? or are there any that I should remove?</p>

<p>Also, should I look into LACs? What's the difference between LACs and Unis? (other than no grad school :P )</p>

<p>Thanks, any info/advice is helpful!! :)</p>

2

<p>your criteriaaren’t very limiting. Aside from city size, and maybe weather, almost all top schools meet your criteria.</p>

<p>What size of school do you want? What do you want to study?</p>

3

<p>In my mind, the most important factor for you to choose a college is what you want to study. You should have some idea of what you want to go for, even if you aren’t sure of a specific major. Also, don’t worry about whether or not your school has grad studies, you can apply again anywhere for grad school after you finish your 4 year degree.</p>

4

<p>This man like Penn, Stanford, Duke, and Vanderbilt. People should see a trend. I’ll suggest Northwestern.</p>

5

<p>Rice? You seem to have the stats.</p>

6

<p>Penn is awesome. I loved my time there, and it served me very well. You should definitely apply.</p>

<p>I would also suggest Northwestern (similar to Penn–if slightly less awesome ;)), Brown (which while not as similar to Penn, nevertheless meets your listed ideals), and Emory in Atlanta</p>

<p>Since when is Stanford considered to be “in a decent-sized city?” :P</p>