Safeties, matches, :)

College Search & Selection
1

Hi, I’m a rising high school sophomore at a (somewhat underachieving) large public high school in Illinois. I just want to know what would be some good schools for me to think about, I’m a bit of an obsessive planner (lol.) My dream schools are either Brown or University of Chicago, and I’m planning on being a Political Science major. I just have no idea where are places I would a have an actually decent chance of getting into.

I have a 4.0 uw gpa, 5.5 w, and I’m going try to keep that up. I’m a top violinist in my school, district and area, and a member of a top youth symphony. This year, I realized that I don’t want to be a pro musician anymore, so I need to step up my game in terms of Ecs and courseload, which this year were super music heavy and pretty unbalanced. I fence outside of school if that helps. I took Algebra 2 trig H, Bio H, English 1 H, and Spanish 3 H, in addition to choir and orchestra, which ate up almost all my time. I’m volunteering this summer, adding a sport (badminton), model un, and am going to quit choir so I can actually take history like a normal person. I plan on taking 13 AP classes in the next 3 years, and doing tons of stuff in the community, like being the teen volunteer coordinator at my local historical society (if they would ever reply to my “so, when can I start?” email, haha.)

I like the idea of smallish schools, like 2000-6000 ish. I would like to be in/near a major urban area, or at least be accessible to one. I like diverse places, with interesting people. The idea of going to an almost entirely white, very upper class school does not appeal to me all. Any place with strong traditions and school pride sounds great to me. I also am pretty artsy and liberal. Any recommendations of schools that I would have a good chance of getting in, or just places you think I would like would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!

2

Out of curiosity what is the methodology your school uses to weight GPA’s? I ask because at most schools a 5.5 would be technically impossible since even if every class including gym, band, etc. were weighted, straight A’s would yield a 5.0. At my son’s school the highest someone can achieve with perfect grades is about a 4.5 since there are so many classes that are required but not weighted (only AP’s and a handful of special “accelerated” ones are). This is why it’s impossible to compare weighted GPA’s school-to-school. Your 4.0UW is awesome, BTW, so my question is just curiosity since I’ve never heard of a 5.5 before.

3

First, all you need for top schools is 6-8ap’s . 13 would likely be considered overkill. Choose them well, so that they present a coherent profile.
Second, look at Maczlester, Vassar, and Amherst. mount Holyoke and Agnes Scott I’d you’re a girl. They’re among the most diverse college’s in the US (socio economicallt speaking as well as ethnically /culturally).

4

Normally I would not ask, but are you Asian? Your profile will look like a LOT of other students applying to Ivies and top research universities if you are (heavy with music, sport like badminton). In any case, you may want to read, “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport, it has some great thoughts on ECs and how to make yourself stand out as an applicant.

Without test scores and knowledge of your financial situation, it is hard to pin down matches & safeties for you. Have you looked at a Fiske Guide to Colleges? That would be a really good starting point if you haven’t. It is good that you see the value in looking for safeties and matches – assuming you have strong grades and test scores, you might look at Tufts, Dickinson, Wellesley (if you are female), George Washington, American.

5

Oh boy, you need a book to get you started. And I mean a book to tell you a bunch of stuff you don’t yet know about getting into college. But first, buy or borrow a copy of Fiske or Princeton Review college guidebooks, and start there. IMO, it is MUCH too early to compile a list. You are going to grow and change a lot. Dream school today may be off the list in three years. What you think you want now might be totally different from what you want later. Your test scores are too far in the future to even suggest a school. Your grades may tank, you might move, etc… No one here can say what school you have a decent chance of getting into in three years. Very roughly, from your description, sure, Brown and U Chicago sound great. Get a copy of the books I suggested and they will list similar schools when you look up those schools.

Now: You do not need thirteen APs to get into any school. There is no AP competition. 6-8 is regarded as a good number, and beyond that you run the risk of being seen as an academic drone. You are clearly a strong student, stay on that path and take a normal amount of APs. Keep up your grades, get great scores on the SAT or ACT, and carry on with your ECs. Don’t start dropping stuff you love doing in order to take another AP. The good thing is you have plenty of time to plan your schedule for the next few years. If you love choir, orchestra, whatever, keep doing it. There is no prize for being Most Well Rounded, or having Most ECs. The rule of thumb is that having a few activites you are really interested in and involved with is better than trying to have a laundry list of many activities.

I have given you enough to think about right now. Maybe some others will chime in with college suggestions. Good
luck as you start this long and complicated journey. :slight_smile:

6

@MYOS1634 I don’t agree you can advise on the number of AP’s needed for top schools without knowing more about the individual school’s profile. At my S’s school for example, AP courses are the primary contributor to students weighted GPA’s and are usually in lieu of any equivalent “honors” course for most subjects. If you didn’t take AP’s for basically all your academic subjects Junior and Senior year, you would not be taking the most “academically rigorous” schedule available to you (a phrase heard often at the info sessions) and you would not have a competitive GPA with your peers applying to those same competitive schools. Most students are first-and-foremost competing against their own school’s current and recent peers for those positions. My son had 13 AP’s (from 11 classes) and was below average for his peers for the top schools since he only took the typical minimum track of AP’s and didn’t do one for foreign language, or a second science or social science in any given year (because he had band and drama electives all four years and didn’t have room on his schedule). It’s not uncommon for kids on the competitive academic tract at his school to have 15+ AP’s (the school offers about 30, but you couldn’t take that many because they restrict how many you can take freshman or sophomore year – junior and senior year are AP-crazy). He wasn’t seeking out as many AP’s as possible, he was simply enrolling in the academic-track at his school which was all AP’s. The GC and college counselor made it pretty clear at his school that not taking the AP track in more than one academic subject would be a disadvantage. As it was, the counselors letter had to explain why he wasn’t on the foreign language track that reached AP. Oh, and as not to confuse classes with tests, his school requires students to sign something that promises to take the test if they take the class and the school administers the tests during class time. So there’s no taking the classes to be in the academic track but selectively picking which tests to take.

Again, that’s just one school. It varies dramatically from location to location. My point is only that there is no fixed answer that applies universally. School-specific information is critical to any assessment.

7

However, top schools are very clear they want o move away from that craziness and will NOT reward "excess " AP 's. Even from competitive schools, or especially from competitive schools. Stanford put it well when saying "it’s not a game of who has the most AP 's, wins. " Some AP 's or aice /ib/de classes but not 11, or 13. Your son may have felt like he had to take those, but he really didn’t have to. He probably pointlessly sacrificed sleep as did his classmates, when a more balanced schedule would have been as effective. However this is hard to hear, like all pointless sacrifices, it becomes necessary to believe in the sacrifice’s usefulness in order to withstand it.
Now, if the only choice is AP or a barely college preparatory class, then by all means take the AP class, but that’s more frequent in a lower performing school, not a high performing school. It also happens in schools that suffered budget cuts and stopped offering some classes. Another issue isn’t weighted GPA - top colleges use unweighted - but class rank. However, as long as a student is in the top 10% of a competitive school, s/he has no worries. Many high schools, including the most prestigious, do not rank, and a general indication of excellence is fine (for adcoms, no difference between student number 4 and student 17 and student 26, all can so the work). Again, this is different for a low performing school , where a clear indication of excellence means top 1,2 or 3 at the school and often in many years.

8

So apparently you know better what my S needed to take at his school than his counselor or the school’s college counselor. And apparently it’s just a coincidence that with the exception of a few recruited athletes all of the students who got into the most competitive schools took all those AP’s and no one who took a lesser load (who wasn’t a recruited athlete) did. I’m all for what you suggest schools say, but it’s just not supported by the facts at his school. His school has 2-3 levels of courses after Sophomore year – AP or general (and in certain cases remedial). If you are not in AP English Lit and Comp you are in the same English case with the lowest achieving students (who then also take a second remedial aid class if they need it). Etc. Math is more complicated since people could be in different levels of math unrelated to their academic year, but the same concept applies – AP or general. It just doesn’t happen there, short of single subject exceptions if someone has particular difficulty in a subject, that academic tract students take the general-level courses and not AP. There are only a handful of accelerated courses designed for pre-AP track subjects (pre-calc-level math and pre-AP foreign language), no honors, no IB, no G&T, etc. They aren’t chasing AP’s just to have a high number of them or get scores (he took 6 tests this year after already knowing none of them would be useful for credit at the school he was already accepted to). It’s just what the academic track is. The school doesn’t rank the class and is a high performing school listed on numerous national rankings (very high for non-magnet public schools).

9

^That’s one of the cases I was mentioning: if the alternative is AP or barely college preparatory, then choose AP. Of course.
I assume you mean AP Calc AB or BC, which may not exist at all outside of these two classes?
Well, your evidence contradicts mine if only kids with 10+ AP’s got into top colleges from this top high school. It’s possible you don’t know all the students. It’s also possible your high school is off the charts and so the basic rule colleges are now trying to enforce doesn’t apply.

10

Gently, guys! The key point for the OP is that chasing APs just to have them is neither necessary nor helpful in applications :slight_smile:

OP, I’d also re-iterate that you shouldn’t drop things that are important to you just to do things to impress a college: if it’s the right place for you, you won’t need to. Two of the best college admissions essays out there were written by the MIT admissions team ([here[/url] and [url=<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways]here[/url])-”>Applying Sideways | MIT Admissions]here](There Is No Formula | MIT Admissions))- and they are true for all the competitive colleges.

And finally, go re-read @Lindagaf post #4: she is dead right about not getting too fixed on one plan at this stage. If you aren’t growing and changing a lot over the next 2.5 years, something is very wrong! It’s an extreme example, but collegekid1 ‘college-shopped’ like a fiend for all of secondary school. By spring of grade 11 she had a carefully honed list, and had visited, stayed the night and sat in on classes at her ED choice. In October she applied to 7 colleges- not one of which was on her list from that spring. Her new ED choice she had never even considered until July, when she met randomly met a professor from that college at a family wedding (she is now about to graduate from that college). By the time she met that professor she knew enough about herself and what she was looking for that she was able to recognize why it was a good option for her. So, keeping looking, thinking, trying on different possibilities of subjects and colleges for size- just stay flexible.

11

They publish where everyone goes in the school paper but our S seemed to know even sooner (they all share it on Facebook, etc. – this generation doesn’t know the meaning of the word privacy). The counselor is pretty transparent, without mentioning specific names, as well… Yes, most of the academic kids do either AP Calc AB Junior year and BC senior year, or some do BC Junior year (skipping AB) and then take multi-variable calc at the nearby major university senior year. A few are a year behind in math and do pre-calc junior year and Calc AB (or BC) senior year. They also offer AP Statistics.

12

Totally agreed on not abandoning your passions.

13

A few comments…

  1. There is nothing at all bad about having a few passions and following them as ECs. There is no need to be well rounded. And fencing outside of school certainly counts as an EC. Please don’t start adding things that you think will look good for college – do things you love and your commitment and passion will shine through.

  2. Before you start looking at specific colleges you need to talk to your parents and get a handle on any geographic, financial, or other constraints they may have.

  3. It helps to have standardized test results before you start to pick out particular colleges. Study and do your best on these exams.

  4. Try using the supermatch function to the left (under find a college). Also agree that getting some good college guide books and reading them will help.

  5. Agree that the number of APs you take depends on the school. If you can manage it you want your guidance counsleor to be able to check off that you took the most rigorous schedule available at the school. This is something you can discuss with the GC when you plan future schedules.

  6. Please don’t overload yourself with classes and ECs to the point where you have no time to relax a bit with friends and family. That is a set-up for a miserable/unhappy HS experience.

  7. Next year try to visit some colleges. Be sure what you think you want is actually what you do want.

  8. Be sure to come up with a list of reach, match, and safety schools that are affordable and you would be happy to attend. (Keep in mind that schools like Brown and UChicago are considered reaches for anyone as they are so competitive that they cannot accept all qualified candidates.)

14

@collegemom3717 YOU are so right!!! My kid got accepted to 8 colleges. The college my D will be attending is the one that frankly had the least thought put into it, the least research, and the least excitement about. Yes, it did appeal for many different reasons. But D was initially far more interested in several of the others, including one she got accepted to from the waitlist. In fact, I am not even sure she would have applied to this college had it not been free, and required no supplemental essay. Several colleges she put on the list had totally fallen out of favor come application time.

So what changed? Well, in retrospect, she was actually so fixated on a couple of other colleges that she never gave the chosen college due diligence. If she had been more open to her possibilities instead of focussed on the favorites, she would have had a much more excited reaction on notification day and her choice would have been easier. I also think she matured and realized that she wanted to hang out with the kind of people at the college she chose.

At this point in the game, it’s great to familiarize yourself with the many great colleges out there, and that is all I think you should be doing at the moment. I would not recommend visiting any until after you have finished sophomore year at the very earliest. Colleges that were interesting in the spring were disregarded in the Fall of senior year. Visiting too early will possibly be a big waste of time. The other thing it isn’t too early to do is sit down with your parents and talk finances. No point researching colleges that will never be financially feasible.

P.S. Fencing is a great EC! ECs are not just school related. Volunteering, work, regular care of younger siblings, maintaining a blog, butterfly collecting, etc…are all ECs.

15

I was like you in that I dove into the college search process during my freshman year. It sounds crazy, and my list changed DRASTICALLY, but I can’t say I regret it. I went from wanting to attend a small college in the middle-of-nowhere, PA, to applying to 6 colleges in Manhattan. However, by my senior year, I knew exactly what I wanted in a college, while many of my peers still didn’t know where to start.

My sophomore year dream school got bumped off my list but eventually found its way back on (simply because they had a free application and I’d already sent them my ACT scores), and ended up being the school I enrolled in. So, you never know. Had I not looked at colleges my sophomore year, I probably wouldn’t have found the school, as I wanted to be a music therapist my sophomore year, and this school has one of the only programs in the country. By junior year I decided I wanted to study psychology instead, a much more common major, and probably would have ended up somewhere else. So to go against everyone else’s arguments (or at least, what I think are their arguments, from the little I’ve felt like reading lol), I don’t think it’s a bad idea to start searching.

I made my first visit second semester of my sophomore year. That was when I learned that I couldn’t stand to be on an isolated campus and longed for a city area where I could walk just five minutes off campus to find something to do or somewhere new to eat. Before you make any sort of list, I would visit a few colleges nearby - big and small, urban and rural and in between - just to get a sense of what feels best. Then go from there. Big Future and Cappex are both good tools to start exploring.

I do agree that 13 AP’s is too many. You won’t have time to either a) participate in EC’s, or b) take care of yourself. I know, it can be tempting to aim high, but recognize that you want to have time to enjoy high school too. Focus on AP’s that you’re passionate about and that relate to your major.

As previously mentioned, it’s hard to gage colleges with only one year of school work and no test scores. So don’t get too attached anywhere yet. Also consider how far you’re willing to go - if you (or your parents) would prefer to stay close to home, or if you’d like to go far.

PM me if you have more questions - I’d love to help! I looked into primarily urban colleges and a decent amount that were the size that you’re looking for so I’d love to offer advice. :slight_smile:

16

The key to your admission will be what you’d outside of class and whether you made an impact (non competitive) or were 'the best’at it (competitive). It’s good to have one of each, sort of like primary/secondary, or major/minor (both strong, but one local and the other national, for instance.) so, you’ll need plenty of time after school to devote to these pursuits. They don’t have to be with the school and they don’t have to be sports at all. Just do what you enjoy, don’t follow a model, follow yourself, test stuff out, see what you enjoy and are good at, and THEN spend time on it.
Being involved in your community is seen favorably.

Only volunteering abroad (in exotic developing countries) is seen unfavorably - volunteer at home first.

17

FWIW, last fall both Columbia and Stevens Institute of Technology were actively recruiting fencing. Are you really good competitively, or rec level?

18

First, read some of the literature that others have mentioned.

Then, start reading about individual schools. Your tastes may change over time, but try to think of schools in terms of social vibe, academics, cultural opportunities, environment (city vs. rural, weather, etc.). And when you visit them, pay attention to your gut. These are all “fit” variables. Schools that are the best fit for you should move to the top of your list.

Of those schools you like the most and with which you feel the highest degree of fit, run the NPC calculator to find out how much you would be expected to pay to attend them. If you could not afford to go to a particular school, remove it from your list. You should work with your parents on this part of the process.

Depending on your goals, you may want to apply to a few reach schools, a few match schools, and at least one or two safety schools. And if you have done your homework ahead of time, you’ll be certain to be accepted only to schools you like and which you can afford, which is a good outcome: you won’t be stuck at a school you don’t like and/or can’t easily afford to attend.

But through all of this, remember to be a teen – work hard, sure, but also have some fun.

Regarding UChicago and Brown, the two are very different:

  • UChicago is known for its core and a highly rigorous curriculum. It is generally known for having a very intellectual vibe.
  • Brown, by comparison, is apparently quite laid back. It offers an open curriculum: there may be some minor requirements, but by and large you design your own curriculum.

In addition to the differences in academic and sociocultural vibe at UChicago and Brown, there is also the difference in location – city vs. city – to consider.