<p>Hi, I am currently a junior in high school and my guidance counselor advised that I begin taking a more active approach to searching for colleges. I'm a pretty good student. I am one of those people who will not stop until I find the perfect school, and so I plan on visiting a lot. I hope to study biology (or possibly another science?) in college. Luckily I live in an area filled with good schools, and so visits will be easy. I live 20 minutes from Providence and 40 from Boston. Some of the schools I will probably visit over the course of the next year are (in no particular order, and I'm absolutely not saying I will apply to all of these)-
Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, Boston College, BU, Holy Cross, Tufts, Brown, Providence College, UMass Amherst.</p>
<p>My dad wants to take me on a trip to visit other colleges over school vacation (this spring). Obviously, I would be able to make most of these "local" visits on weekends, so my question is, where should I start looking as far as colleges around the country are concerned???? I'm just looking for some basic schools (similar to those listed above) that I can further research and decide if they're worth visiting.
I'd really appreciate any help!</p>
<p>That’s a pretty vague question, “basic schools” mean different things to everyone! What are your stats? If you’re planning to take trips, it’d definitely make sense to pick colleges that have other colleges in the area. Around NYC, for example, you could see NYU, Columbia, and maybe Fordham or another school in the area. Pennsylvania has a lot of schools that are relatively near each other- Lafayette, Lehigh, Bucknell, Dickinson, etc. </p>
<p>Thanks for your replies! I’m a junior, so I won’t take the SATs until the spring. My PSAT score from last year was a 210 and I felt much more satisfied with the test this year. Also, in my SAT prep class my scores usually range from 2100-2350. I go a pretty competitive Catholic high school in Massachusetts. At the end of last year my GPA was a 108 (weighted). We don’t measure GPA on a 4.0 scale. I am definitely top 3 out of my class of 270. And my extracurriculars are pretty strong (class president, eagle scout, lots of volunteer work… just to name some)</p>
<p>As far as school size, I think by the time high school ends, I will be ready to go to a big school… so probably big or medium-sized.
And yes, I would like to explore options across the country… I have family scattered in many major cities (especially on the east and west coast).</p>
<p>I would just be careful about trying to visit too many colleges in one day or one trip. If you overdo it, it can be stressful racing from place to place, and the colleges may all start to run together in your mind.</p>
<p>Use the web as much as possible to narrow down your choices so you don’t waste your time on visits. In addition to this site, there are several sites with tons of reviews by students of each college.</p>
<p>If you can refine your thinking about the size of the college, what you might want to study and whether you want to live in a large city or not, that will help narrow your choices very quickly.</p>
<p>I agree there are many great colleges in eastern PA that are one or two hours apart from each other.</p>
<p>If your scores are potentially that high you should definitely look at Amherst when you see U. Mass. Maybe the first thing is to look at a nearby big school (BU?) and a small school to get a sense of how you feel about size. If you find that small interests you, check out Trinity which should be pretty close. Also Middlebury and Williams.</p>