Please help me with my college list! Thanks!

College Search & Selection
1

Hey guys I am hoping that you guys would help me with assessing how effective this list is thanks.

I would apply early to all of these schools:

Safety: Providence College, University of Vermont

Probably: Northeastern University, Boston College, Villanova, University of California Santa Barbara,University of California San Diego, University of California Davis.

Reach: University of Virginia, Harvard University, Georgetown University, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles

Then depending on where I get admitted apply to several of the following, obviously not all of them:

BU, Pepperdine, American U, Bucknell
Brown, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Stanford, Tufts, UPenn, Duke

I have a 4.43 GPA with 5 AP classes as of the end of this year, planning to take 5 more next year. 2070 SAT m800 wr700 cr570, I will be taking the test again in order to hopefully, fingers crossed, improve my reading score as I am already scoring higher on practice tests. I will being applying for biochemistry/chemistry. My EC’s are fairly decent, officer of one club, president of another, and a member of one more, three sport varsity athlete in swimming, water polo, and sailing. Service wise, I have done a fair amount of community service with my church youth group, two week long mission trips, and supporting my community in that group. I have also done a lot of independent service, but no need to get into that. I worked at Dunkin Donuts for 9 months, and also was a sailing instructor for an entire summer my freshman year.

If you guys could let me know how I can improve or modify my list that would be great! Thanks.

2

That is a large amount of EA’s. Have you visited any of these schools? Which ones are top? What is your intended major? Do your parents have any opinions?

3

What’s your unweighted GPA?

4

Can you afford all the schools on your list (the UCs are very expensive for OOS students)? At the least your safeties should be affordable or else they are not truly safeties.

5

Unweighted I have a 4.0. I have financial means to support myself going to these schools. I have visited all of these schools and loved all of them with the exception of the UC schools which I will visit this summer (then decide if I want to apply to them). I am planning essentially to apply only to the schools I have listed for early action and if I get into BC or Villanova, I probably will not apply to anymore schools with the exception of maybe one o

6

Correction: I have visited those schools that I plan to apply early to.

7

You didn’t give any information about what you are looking for beyond your intended major. I’m having trouble finding a common theme in your current list. How did you come up with those? Do you want nice weather? What size school do you want. Urban, suburban or rural? Do you want to continue in any of the sports that you play? there are very few people with water polo experience. Maybe you could search for schools with intercollegiate teams and speak to coaches. I’m sorry to say that the 570 is going to hurt your chances at a lot of those schools.

I recommend visiting schools and paying attention to what you like and don’t like.

8

UC doesn’t have early action. Deadline is end of November but you won’t hear back from them until March sometime.

9

Also, Harvard is SCEA I think, meaning if you apply early there, you aren’t supposed to apply early anywhere else.

10

I have looked at all of these schools already and have interest in them. I know that about the UC schools, that why I said them as an exception. I am from the Northeast and would like to either stay here or go outwest. And I was unaware of Harvard’s policy and thus I will move that to the next list, thank you. Water polo is irrelevant to me at a collegiate level. I strictly want to know if I am qualified for those schools or if I am around the caliber of student that they would admit

11

Like I have already said I visited all of these schools on the early list, sat in on classes, talked to professors and loved all of them that is why they made the list. I simply am asking for a chance me I guess.

12

Bump

13

Coming from someone from CA, I say you have a great chance at the UCs except maybe Davis, which is being super picky lately (but then again you’re OOS, which helps in CA). Kind of UCLA and especially Berkely are reaches, but not out of the question. Good luck!

14

That’s a lot of schools. You are going to need a lot of time/energy come fall. My advise would be to narrow down what you really want in a college and whittle the list down. Your CR score is low for many of the colleges you are hoping to get into. We can’t really give you feedback until you take it again and see what you get. Take the time to really dig deep and research the schools and things should become clearer.

15

Harvard has SCEA, which means you could ONLY apply to
University of Vermont
University of Virginia

The UCs don’t have EA but you’d be allowed to apply while waiting for the decisions above.
University of California Santa Barbara
University of California San Diego
University of California Davis
Note that these two will have a cap on OOS students starting next year:
University of California Berkeley
University of California Los Angeles

Your profile doesn’t read “Harvard” though - 3 varsity sports is good, but they’d expect a State-level title, for instance. They really take the best students in the world. You can apply as a reach of course, but you need to look for better safeties (UVermont’s Honors Program isn’t very vigorous).
Look at fit, too. I’m skeptical someone might “fit in” at Brown/AU AND at Pepperdine.

16

Thanks guys, crossing my fingers for the SAT on Saturday, I wittled down the list a little bit to predominantly those first schools listed above.

17

And as for Harvard I would not apply early there.

18

So I looked through my list and did some searching and visiting and reworked my list to about 19 schools, if anyone could recommend better New England schools for safeties as I know that was a prior criticism. I am struggling thoroughly with coming up with new safety schools. Anyways thanks guys I really appreciate all the advice I have already gotten!!

Here is the real list for early action schools:

Providence, UVM,
BC, Villanova
Georgetown, UVA,

Phase two has the California schools:

UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara
UC Berkeley

Phase three:

U Rochester, American University, Bucknell, CWM, Tufts,
Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, Stanford,

19

Bump

20

Now you need one or two more schools that are real safeties both in financial and academic terms (look at the acceptance percentiles and send proofs of interest to all your matches and safeties.) You should include at least one flagship’s honors college. UMD or Pitt or Schreyer or Commonwealth Honors …