<p>Ok…taking out the “religious schools” (however, those are fine even for non-Catholics)…</p>
<p>Boston Univ
Tufts would almost be a safety for you.
Brandeis
Syracuse
URochester</p>
<p>Schools like MIT are highly selective and unpredictable no matter how good your stats, and you also don’t find out your actual financial aid package until April of the following year, so applying to top EA schools alone isn’t a safe option. A better way IMO would be to couple EA with rolling, or look into colleges that give out good merit aid.</p>
<p>What schools are on your list? That helps people figure out what kind of “thing” you’re looking for. Will you be applying EA/SCEA?</p>
<p>How strong is your wish to avoid schools that are religiously affiliated? Would, say, Georgetown be off the table? A school like Muhlenberg (strong pre-med program) is affiliated with the Lutheran movement, but is roughly 1/3 Jewish. </p>
<p>Are you interested in striking a deal with your parents about spending less on undergrad, and then having their help for med school? About 6 years ago, a poster’s daughter was admitted to Yale. This was before their generous aid policy kicked in, and the family was going to be on the hook for all or most of the COA. The daughter chose instead to take a full ride at Rhodes College, where she had a fabulous, intellectually challenging experience, snagging a Goldwater award along the way. Her parents are now paying her way through Yale Med school, where she’ll finish with zero debt.</p>
<p>If you are open to women’s schools, places like Bryn Mawr, Smith and Scripps might be safety-ish. </p>
<p>Tufts might be a match, but it’s no safety.</p>
<p>My current list is Middlebury, Harvard, Princeton, Amherst, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Brown, and GWU. Clearly I’m desperately in need of safeties… haha. And I feel pretty strongly about the no religious affiliation thing - that was one of the major reasons I did not like Georgetown when I visited.</p>
<p>What about Tulane? I know you said you’d rather be in the Northeast, but you’d probably have an acceptance letter in your hand along with a $25k merit scholarship within a week or 2 of applying (even though they technically have EA, when I applied it seemed much more like rolling). Also, they’re a reasonable size with about 8,000 undergrads and 4,000 grads.</p>
<p>GWU is your safety already. check out Rochester, maybe the University of Richmond.</p>
<p>BTW, schools like georgetown and even more selective are a safety for a few people. To achieve this you have to have great stats and a parent who is a professor (and maybe an alum too) at the school in question. That unusual circumstance can turn even the most selective school into a safety. Unfortunately it probably won’t work for you.</p>
<p>I also suggest changing your email name for college applications. No one wants to accept a downer.</p>
<p>I agree that USC would be a likely safety for you AND will offer you merit $$. They also have a superb BS/MD program that guarantees your acceptance at USC medical school.[ that requires a separate application] The stickler is that you MUST submit your completed application no later than Dec 1. By doing so, you’ll be eligible for over 500 1/2 to full tuition 4 year scholarships offered each year, and you can still apply SCEA elsewhere as well .</p>
<p>“I also suggest changing your email name for college applications. No one wants to accept a downer.”</p>
<p>^I’m sorry, but could you please explain what you mean by that? That really confused me.</p>
<p>From wikipedia:</p>
<p>Alexithymia is considered to be a personality trait that places individuals at risk for other medical and psychiatric disorders while reducing the likelihood that these individuals will respond to conventional treatments for the other conditions… It is a dimensional personality trait that varies in severity from person to person. "</p>
<p>IMO pick a screen name thats more positive. Alexithymia also sounds like dysthymia which is a type of chronic low grade depression. Its fine for CC but don’t use it in your apps. ECs pick up on everything. You want all the vibes coming from you to them to be positive ones!</p>
<p>Oh haha. I just picked Alexithymia because it’s the name of a song I love by one of my favorite bands ( [Anberlin</a> - Alexithymia - YouTube](<a href=“Anberlin - Alexithymia - YouTube”>Anberlin - Alexithymia - YouTube) ), and I always thought the term captured how I feel about music, in the sense that music has the ability to portray emotion in a way that words sometimes can’t. It’s just something I use online, not in real life. Thanks for you concern though! : )</p>
<p>Sounds great, screen names are fun to play with!</p>
<p>Take a look at Dickinson in PA and the list of Colleges That Change Lives ([Colleges</a> That Change Lives | Changing Lives, One Student at a Time](<a href=“http://www.ctcl.org/]Colleges”>http://www.ctcl.org/)). I think you may find what you are looking for.</p>
<p>Seriously, apply to Tufts. I had a 4.0 and 2310 gpa with a bunch of extra-curriculars similar to yours, but I didn’t get in to Columbia, Yale, Brown, or Amherst. Tufts was my perfect match school, and there are plenty of people smarter than me who are going there. They also gave me perfect financial aid (full ride woot woot) so I couldn’t be happier. Your scores and gpa do not by any means guarantee you entrance into Tufts; they also heavily weight your personality. (just something to keep in mind, ********ting your app cause you think it’s a safety is going to have you crying “I WAS A VICTIM OF TUFTS SYNDROME” sooner than you’d like)</p>
<p>Good luck and HAVE MATCHES!!! Because it’s never fun to think “oh god I’m going to get rejected everywhere and I’ll have to go to (insert safety school that you hate) oh god life is over”</p>
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<p>Consider adding American, as it is similar to GW but less selective.</p>
<p>Tufts, while having a good pre-med program, is in no way a safety. Just like Georgetown isn’t a safety.</p>
<p>Realize that once you get to top schools, nothing is a safety. Schools like Tufts and U of Chicago want creative students as well (hence the quirky essays).</p>
<p>Besides, last year, Tufts accepted less kids than Upenn (Upenn had a lower acceptance rate than Tufts since obviously more kids applied).</p>
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<p>Well, if the OP cares to look at California, USC would definitely be a safety. So would the UCs, with the possible exception of Berkeley, which would still be at least a solid match.</p>
<p>Can a number of matches be a safety? How likely is it that one gets rejected one after another by match schools?</p>
<p>American
University of Maryland
U of Rochester
Colgate</p>
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<p>Depends on your definition of “match.” If you figure that you have a 50% chance of being rejected at each of five match schools, your chance of being rejected at all five would be .5 x .5 x .5 x .5 x .5 = 3.125%. The flaw in this mathematically valid result is that there’s no way to know what your chances really are at each of your match schools. If the actual rejection probability at each was 90%, your chance of being rejected at all would be .9^5=59.049%.</p>