Please. I need help.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>So I am now utterly lost in this college debacle. I have compiled a list of some twenty to thirty places I am interested but I see no way to narrow it down. They all have their pros and their cons, and obviously I can't visit all or even most of them to get a sense of the "feel." How do you all do it? How do I take this list, and find out the information about the places that will help me, and keep track of it somehow? I often feel like there is both too much and not enough information out there -- and I have no way to winnow out the good from the bad. </p>

<p>Please, please, help!</p>

2

<p>Have you decided about large university vs. LAC? urban camopus vs. non- urban? Do you have geographical preferences? Will you need financial aid? And what about your grades and test scores? Are some places going to be way out of reach for you?--Answering these questions will narrow it down. Then think about likely majors and browse the course offerings --can you see yourself enjoying the range of courses offered? First attempt--narrow 30 to 15 or 20 down to 10. Then make sure there are at least 3 "safe" choices there that you like and one or two places that seem really attractive but maybe a reach for you --leave out the impossible dream places if you're not way up there in your stats. Then list your stats, interests and preferences and post a list of 10 schools here. CC will help you.</p>

3

<p>Maybe making a spread sheet would help. List all the things you want in a school across the top, then the school names down the side.</p>

4

<p>Check to see if your colleges have Livejournal communities or Facebook groups. Check ratemyprofessors.com or campusdirt.com </p>

<p>You can also order DVDs of campus tours from collegiatechoice.com (these are bare bones videos of the actual campus tour - not slick merchandising).</p>

<p>See if the campus newspaper is online and read it.</p>

5

<p>Why don't you tell us a little about yourself (whether or not you think you need need based financial aid or merit money, your stats if you want, your geographic preference, your potential major, what size school you might be interested in, that sort of stuff)? Then tell us your list.</p>

<p>Also, if you want to make your life easier, go to the online US News College site and pay the $15 to subscribe. You can look up your schools and see a ton of good information about them. In the over all scheme of things, $15 is cheap.</p>

6

<p>thanks for the advice. here's a little on me:</p>

<p>I will definitely need some financial aid -- the schools that claim to meet 100% of need really appeal here -- and would probably at least be in the running for for merit $ (see test scores, grades, and I'm a NMSF). </p>

<p>GPA 4.0 UW
ACT 35, SAT 2370
5's on English Language, US Govt, Calc AB AP's</p>

<p>interests include politics and political science stuff, possibly pre-law, but also science and especially chemistry and biology. </p>

<p>Geographic preference -- looking more at the midwest and northeast. A more rural feel would be good, but I'm OK with suburban. </p>

<p>Size -- nothing smaller than 1200 or 1300, nothing larger than maybe 10000 but ideally 1500-5000 range, probably. </p>

<p>List (in rough order, not exclusive):
swarthmore
u of chicago
williams
carleton
bates
kenyon
mit
dartmouth
yale
harvard
bowdoin
colby
macalester
reed
wash u st louis
haverford
amherst
vassar
middlebury
colgate
georgetown</p>

7

<p>First, find non-biased information about all of your schools online (PrincetonReview and Collegeboard's websites tend to be good) for basic information: size, location, popular majors, etc. Write this down for all schools, and chances are, a couple of them will already seem like odd ones out.
Then visit the websites of the remaining schools and note anything worth mentioning. For example, from just what you said, Dartmouth seems like it would suit you very well, but its academic calendar, the D-Plan, is unique. That could be good or bad. Other schools have differences when it comes to academics, student body, party scene, etc. Try to get their differences.
Then, get information from students. Go onto the specific forums on this website for the schools, use Facebook and/or LiveJournal, etc. Try to see if the people there seem like the type you would like to spend 4 years with. Talk to current and prospective students about why that school is appealing to them.
If you can, visit at least some of the schools and make those visits based at least partially on diversity. After grouping them in various ways, try to visit at least one of each size, one that suburban and one that's rural, one in various geographic locations, etc.</p>

<p>Specific things: A few of the schools you mentioned, Reed, Swarthmore, and UChicago in particular, have reputations for better or for worse of being "intense". You won't find the laid-back atmosphere of, say, Colgate, which has the reputataion of being more preppy and casual, at Swarthmore.</p>

<p>Hope I helped, and best of luck :]</p>

8

<p>After you use everyone else's advice to narrow things down, try to visit as many as you can, which should be relatively easy considering many of your schools are on the eastern corridor. Many people say college visits can really make or break your decision to go there.</p>

9

<p>Hmmm. Maybe if you group them by university vs. liberal arts college and then try to get some reach, match, safeties in each group. (Why is MIT on there? LOL) Once you have smaller groups it might be easier to start having a feel for them. Have you visited any of them? I've only been to a couple of them, and I'm really only familiar with Kenyon. Sorry to not be more help.</p>

<p>Have your parents filled out the financial aid calculator so that you might have a better feel for how badly you need merit aid?</p>

10

<p>With your stats, and if you write great essays, you will receive acceptance letters to many of those colleges. So I suggest that you apply EA to those you would REALLY like to go to first, and have your other applications all ready to go out if you don't receive any fat envelopes before Xmas. I wouldn't recommend applying ED anywhere, because of your need to compare financial aid packages in April.</p>

11

<p>I broke your list into three groups. First the groupings, then the explanations:</p>

<p>1) Swarthmore, Chicago, Carleton, Reed, Vassar</p>

<p>2) Bates, MIT, Bowdoin, Macalester, Haverford</p>

<p>3) Williams, Kenyon, Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Colby, Wash U, Amherst, Middlebury, Colgate, Georgetown</p>

<p>Group 1 is a group of schools that have very strong schoolwide personalities. These schools are love-or-hate for students visitors, and they are all different from each other in approach and personality. Research each of these schools very, very, very carefully. There's a lot to love and a lot not to like.</p>

<p>Group 3 is a group of schools that tend to attract straightforward students. They are all great schools, but they are relatively indistinguishable from each other. I imagine you could do quite a bit of slicing on schools that are similar to each other (Colby v. Kenyon v. Colgate v. Middlebury v. Amherst v. Williams, choose two or three, Georgetown v. Wash U, choose one, Dartmouth v. Yale v. Harvard choose one-- if I were you, I'd go for Dartmouth).</p>

<p>Group 2 is sort of the midway point between Groups 1 and 3. I think of these schools as appealing to straightforward students, but still having a definite personality to them. These schools sound like they'll be good fits for you. I particularly like Bates-- I think it's relaxed, intellectual, and innovative.</p>

12

<p>How about I complicate it even more for you?</p>

<p>Your academic record is very good. If you can put together a picture of yourself that emphasizes leadership and community involvement (school or larger community) you may well be a candidate for a large merit scholarship, which could obviate the need for a great financial aid package. Some of the schools on your list would be good candidates for merit packages, some not. There are other top-20 (so called) universities that meet your size requirements (and offer a variety of merit scholarships) that are not on the current list. When you get outside of the top group, there are many merit opportunities.</p>

13

<p>Unalove, I understand your effort to organize colleges into a few unified groups for the sake of simplifying choice, but I fear you’ve inadvertently oversimplified. I doubt you really believe that all “Group 3” schools, including personalities as divergent as Kenyon, Yale, and Dartmouth, are “relatively indistinguishable from one another.” ?????</p>

<p>Lowfatsourcreme, If you’re seriously inclined to schools that are ideally rural, possibly suburban, are you sure about including on your list those that are deeply urban - Chicago and Yale in particular - but also Georgetown, Harvard, and MIT? If you’re inclined to larger LACs and small-midsized universities, are you sure about including smaller-sized Haverford, Reed, and Swarthmore? You have great stats and will be a strong candidate at every college in the country. Your academic interests are not niche-limiting (I think I just made up that term). If you have real financial need, all of the schools you’re considering will come through to some degree and most will probably come through strongly. Running down your list and taking into consideration your preferences, it would seem that the strongest academic contenders would be:</p>

<p>Williams
Carleton
Dartmouth
Bowdoin
WashU
Amherst
Vassar
Middlebury</p>

<p>I hate to suggest you expand this already long list and I’m sure you’ve considered the “obvious” Princeton, but I’ll throw this out into the open anyway. If you’re worried financial aid will be inadequate and are looking for schools that offer scholarships to entice academic talent, I’d also suggest considering Grinnell and Oberlin. </p>

<p>Finally, if you really are unsure about the small and urban, and haven’t yet done so, pick one of each and go take a look to be sure about how you feel. You’d be surprised how often illusory pre-conceptions are left in the dust by an up-close and real visit.</p>

14

<p>Ah yes, UChicago in the sleepy rural hamlet of Chicago</p>

15

<p>wbwa-- I understand completely that the Group 3 schools are different from each other, and that my groupings are somewhat oversimplified/problematic. I guess I was trying to group the schools from the perspective of somebody who would have Swat or Chicago, two "weirdo" schools, at the very top of the list. I guess I'm also considering things from my own point of view when I was applying to colleges-- the group 3 schools were too "traditional" for me.</p>

16

<p>Thanks everyone, so much!</p>

<p>Re: rural, it's definitely not a deal-breaker at all. I was really drawn to the atmospheres of Chicago and MIT which is why they're on there, and I visited CHicago and didn't mind too much. Same with size, which is why Swat is on there. The thing I think is most important to me is that type of intellectually curious atmosphere, and in some cases, it can trump my other factors.</p>