RIsing Senior who needs help choosing a list of colleges! D:

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm not sure which colleges I should be applying to. I have a list of colleges that I would plan on applying to, but I would like to narrow it down and have a few safeties. </p>

<p>Here is my list thus far:
Georgetown, UPenn, Northwestern, Yale, Harvard, UCLA, UCSD, BU, UChicago ,Dartmouth, Duke, John Hopkins, NYU, Princeton, Stanford</p>

<p>Basic Info:
-Asian Male
-California
-Fairly competitive high school</p>

<p>Areas I'm interested in
-Poly-Sci
-Econ
-Engineering
-Computers</p>

<p>GPA: 3.9 (UW) 4.9(W)
SAT: 2140 ( 660 CR, 790 Math, 690 Writing, 10 on essay) Superscore: 2160
PSAT: 207
ACT: 33 (Took a practice one, plan on taking the September ACT)</p>

<p>SAT IIs
Taking the June:
-US History
-Physics
-Math II</p>

<p>APs
AP Euro (4)
APUSH, AP Physics B, AP Spanish Lang (This year, no scores)
AP Comp Sci, AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Microecon (Next year's schedule)</p>

<p>Extra Circulars:
-Active member of the schools debate team, VP of the team, and top 80 in the nation.
-Swim (2 years) wasn't the best
-President of a school club
-Internship at local law office
Member of:
-NHS (also treasurer)
-CSF (California Scholarship Federation)
-NHHS (History)
-NSHS (Science)
-Mu Alpha Theta (Math)
Volunteer
-Taught english at a bi-lingual school in rural China
-Commissioner for local AYSO League (volunteer)
-Over 800 hours (from freshman to now)
-Work with Native American families to rebuild homes and repairs</p>

2

<p>You need to give us more of an idea of what you are looking for in a school. Some questions off the top of my head:</p>

<p>What size school are you looking for?
What kind of environment (urban, rural etc.) would you prefer?
Are you interested in an LAC (Liberal Arts College)?
How much can your parents pay? - This one is probably most important</p>

3

<p>Sorry! Here is the additional info: </p>

<p>Size: Small-Medium college
Environment: Small town/urban
LAC: I wouldn’t mind
Price: I have another brother currently in college, so I assume we’ll get some financial aid. But I think most colleges are in my families price range. </p>

4

<p>In lieu of answers to those questions and based solely on your stats and ECs, I think your reaches/matches/safeties might include the following schools (and schools of similar stature):</p>

<p>Universities:
Reaches – Ivies, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, U Chicago, Washington U, Northwestern, Duke
Low reaches – Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Emory, Georgetown
Matches (high and low matches…) – USC, UVA, UNC, U Mich, Brandeis, Tufts, Cal-Berkeley, UCLA, Wake Forest, UW, U-Dub, Boston College, Tulane
Safeties – Most other state schools (many of them very good), Syracuse, Marquette</p>

<p>Lib Arts schools:
Reaches – Williams, Amherst, Swat, Pomona
Low reaches – Bowdoin, Haverford, Wesleyan, Carleton, Reed, Grinnell, Vassar, Middlebury, CMC
Matches (high and low…) – Macalester, Bates, Trinity, St. Olaf, Richmond
Safeties – Beloit, Lawrence, Gettysburg</p>

<p>Best of luck to you. You likely will have some top-notch options.</p>

5

<p>Based on your profile, I don’t see any closed doors. Your ECs are solid, btw; what ranking system are you “top 80” under, btw? And what type of debate do you do? Not that the second question matters, but someone who’s top 80 on the national circuit is probably different from someone who’s top 80 in a traditional circuit’s PF program.</p>

<p>From the perspective of an ECE major who’s looking at your list from a STEM-y bias:</p>

<p>Super-Reaches (HYPMS): You’re applying to 4/5 of these. I don’t know if Yale will be great if you have an interest in engineering/computers. Harvard is solid if you plan on going into research in any field; even in the fields they don’t stand out in (like ComSci, arguably and from my perspective) they come out near the top in research. Princeton is the grade-deflating/tough Ivy with a solid ComSci/engineering program affiliated with Turing himself. I’d definitely keep that on the list. Stanford, no question- stays on list. So it’s just Harvard and Yale that I’d be unsure about.</p>

<p>Also curious as to why you’re not applying to MIT. They’ve got solid programs in the humanities, too, especially on the entrepreneurial side of econ/business.</p>

<p>Reaches (Ivies+): Northwestern and UChicago are well-known in the debate community and have solid programs if you’re interested in that. UChicago and Georgetown don’t have undergrad engineering, btw, so I’d cut them off if your interest in engineering and computers is really solid. Johns Hopkins is really solid if you’re going for BME, but I don’t know if that’s your niche. Brown is arguably better at CS and engineering than Dartmouth, but I think Dartmouth might be a better school for debate (not entirely sure; I just know more about Dartmouth Debate Institute + know a few top debaters who’re going to Dartmouth and not any going to Brown). Duke is also solid at engineering, but the program isn’t that great at CSE. UPenn’s good at econ (obviously) and you might want to look into their M&T program (management and technology) if you’re interested in combining your interests in management and technology.</p>

<p>I’m curious as to why you don’t have Cornell on that list.</p>

<p>Matches: Okay, so I’m curious as to why you don’t have Berkeley on here. They’re incredibly solid at the fields youre interested in, and you won’t have a tough time getting into L&S- where you can explore all your interests and have access to some of the best programs in these fields. NYU and BU I’m not familiar with. UCLA is an obvious choice because it’s just good at engineering/CS/econ/polisci and is a good place to launch a career from.</p>

<p>Safeties: I’m betting you won’t come down to just UCSD, but it’s a good safety to have.</p>

<p>Schools I’d look into trimming: NYU, BU, Harvard, Yale, UChicago, Georgetown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth
Schools I’d consider adding: MIT, Cornell, Berkeley, Brown
Schools I’d definitely keep: Stanford, Princeton, UPenn, Northwestern, UCLA, UCSD</p>

6

<p>@prezbucky‌ Thanks for the advice! I’ll look into a couple of the schools you mentioned! </p>

<p>@dividerofzero‌ Not really sure how rankings work in debate, but I qualled to TOC which had 80 top participants on the circuit.</p>

<p>I wasn’t super sure about MIT because I hadn’t really looked over their programs or talked with any alums about their school. But I do know they are a great school! </p>

<p>I put Georgetown on the list because I visited over summer and I really loved the campus and the school, I know theres not undergrad engineering, but if I got in to Georgetown, I’d likely go more into the econ/business side. UChicago would probably be poli-sci.</p>

<p>I didn’t think of Cornell, I’ll add that thanks! I also forgot Berkley :&lt;/p>

<p>Thanks for the overall advice though! </p>

7

<p>Just FYI – if you did get into Chicago, their Econ department is top-notch too.</p>

8

<p>@APUSHmeoffacliff‌ Nice! I only got to debate on the national circuit during senior year and didn’t do quite so well (just broke at most of the tourneys; no bids since I sucked at theory).</p>

<p>No problem! I thought you wanted to combine the four fields but Georgetown, UChicago, and Northwestern make a ton of sense, then, especially since they’re so good at debate. Good luck narrowing this list down! (Or not, if you can take on the TOC you can probably take on college apps).</p>

9

<p>I think OP has too many schools where a 660 CR score falls below 25th percentile.</p>

<p>Penn, BU and NYU are right in busy parts of cities and are a far cry from LAC’s in small towns or universities in more residential urban areas.</p>

10

<p>My son is graduating from UChicago this weekend. He had a choice between UChicago, Northwestern, Georgetown, George Washington and U of I honors program. Like you, he also was successful on the debate team in high school and joined debate at UChicago. If you are still deciding, below is a post he put up a couple of days ago recapping his thoughts on UofC. Its long but may give you some insight . </p>

<p>“Graduation didn’t really hit me until I started packing up my room today. Looking at things, remembering the context in which they were used, decided whether to keep them or not, etc- it all forces a sort of nostalgia that I have been avoiding with a high degree of success. </p>

<p>UChicago is, without doubt, a place of intense masochism. Everything is difficult, everything is problematized, nothing is as easy as it seems. We, as students, bask in this- there is honor in academic suffering, nobility in protest, and humor in self-deprecation. I think, though, that it is easy to lose sight of the holistic picture- to become so wrapped up in masochism that the experience isn’t clear. I’ve certainly done this more than once. </p>

<p>Do I take issue with the University of Chicago? With the American college-system in general? Certainly, on multiple levels. But I also credit this place, this space, this academic community, with being instrumental in the formation and curation of my core interests, values, and passions. I have been changed significantly, in an absolutely positive way, by the University of Chicago. </p>

<p>A lot of credit goes to the institution itself. There’s a certain dynamism to the experience created here, allowing students to weave in and out of different organizations and academic pursuits seamlessly. In four years, I have been able to (I’m going to risk being self-indulgent for a second. I’m more trying to use myself as an example, but I’m entitled to self-indulgence right now anyways because I’m graduating college so lay off):
-Double major in two areas of study with no academic overlap
-Be an active, position holding member of a social fraternity
-Make (or attempt to make) music with dozens of talented musicians
-Travel to Europe and Africa
-Compete with our debate team across the country

  • Hold multiple internships
  • Work directly with community organizations making a substantive difference in the South Side of Chciago
  • Write a BA thesis that contributes substantively to the field of study about which it’s written
  • Write a BA about something important to me
  • Do community service work
  • Act in multiple plays
  • Act in a sitcom
  • Model
  • Direct a play of my own devising</p>

<p>My point here is far from “look at all the ■■■■ I’ve done”. On the contrary, I think that my experience here is typical. I can’t think of a graduating senior I know who hasn’t also had the opportunity to create, explore, and learn in the sprawling, multi-faceted way that I have. </p>

<p>This leads me to the second accreditation. The UChicago institution is important in facilitating these experiences, but I think that the UChicago community magnifies, intensifies, and raises the stakes of all that’s done here. We are spoiled by each other, honestly; most of us will never again dwell in an intentional community so full of driven, devoted, and curious people. ‘Curiosity’ is perhaps the best virtue demonstrated by this campus- I strongly desire to hold onto the curiosity exhibited by my peers at this school. I disagree with almost everyone on this campus at least sometimes, but I respect you all almost all of the time for the passion and reason behind your beliefs and actions. </p>

<p>So thank you, everyone. Thank you for pushing me, competing with me, questioning me, and challenging me. Thanks Marshall Smith for living with me for 4 years and not cutting my head off. Thanks Andy Moore for teaching me more than I ever wanted to know about numbers and being a fiercely loyal friend. Thank you Ewa James Ewa, Grigoriy Moskalenko, Peter Wilk and Bradford Rogers for going through the most fun we never want to have again, together. Thanks to everyone else in Phi delt for trusting me, defending me, and tolerating my antics/improv art exhibits. Thanks Anna Meredith for casting me in my first play and thanks Scarlett Kim for teaching me about art. Thank you, Colin Griffin, for going along with almost every terrible plan that I have. Thanks Ryan Haggart for constantly checking my ego. Thanks Patrick Dexter for making time abroad more worth it. Thank you Nick Shatan and for putting my face in front of a camera and also for all the weird drinks you make. Thanks to everyone on the debate team who wasn’t pissed when I quit the second time and never came back. Thanks to all the theater folk who have inspired me, worked with me, or watched something I created (thanks to James Fleming for future endeavors untold). Thanks Joy Mao and Marika Brownlee for being great coworkers. Thanks Morgan Johnson, for enabling me and enlivening me, for better or for worse. (It won’t let me tag anymore but ) Thanks mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, for giving me the tools to succeed, before, now, and forever. Thanks to the many, many people I couldn’t tag here, people from public policy, people from first year, people who I always stop to talk to, people I knew for an hour, people I’ve known for four years. </p>

<p>I’m sorry if I was ever rude to you at a party (unless you deserved it), I’m sorry if I bailed on plans with you or didn’t text you enough (I’m really bad at those things), I’m sorry if I ever made you feel uncomfortable (unless it was in the name of art), and I’m sorry if we didn’t get to know each other well enough (I probably would have liked to). </p>

<p>Congratulations, class of 2014.”</p>