<p>Hi, I'm a junior, etc. So I have to apply for colleges next year. Yeah. Could you suggest a few possible safeties for me?</p>
<p>My current list of schools: Yale, Brown, Chicago, Macalester, Reed, CU-Boulder. Yale and Brown are toootal reaches, but, anyway, I've got quite good academics (4.0 which will soon be lowered, top 1%) and test scores (2260 / 34 and retaking SAT because my counsellor is lame) but mediocre extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>CU-Boulder is my safety, obviously. Except I'm only applying because it's in-state, and I don't really want to attend, and I have no other safety ideas.</p>
<p>Help? My only solid criterion is that the school have at least a linguistics minor, but I'd also prefer somewhere near/in a city & not somewhere ridiculously warm and sunny all the time. (If you need more info, just ask, but perhaps you can sort of figure me out based on my list of schools.)</p>
<p>you really ought to step back and figure out what you want in college. You've got a school with NO core (Brown) and one that emphasizes it (Chicago). Midwest, east coast, oregon. In cities, in semi-rural areas. A student that loves chicago is unlikely to be equally enthralled by reed, nor someone for either of those would see brown as a good pick. In short, no rhyme or reason that jumps out why you think each of these is a fit for you.</p>
<p>Here's my advice. Don't expect other people to find a safety for you. Asking for advice on schools you're considering, sure. But do your work for you? Well, you'll get what you pay for :) The second, hopefully more helpful part of the advice is to step back and figure out what YOU want in the college experience. Which, based on the schools you've listed, is hard to see. Do you want a small school or large? What part of the country? What type of students should it attract? An emphasis on students, or a research U? I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Until you know what you want, you might as well spread a college guide out and throw darts at it.</p>
<p>Re: mikemac: Yeah, erm. People have told me that before. </p>
<p>Only I still like all of the schools I have listed. The two things you've mentioned (location & core) in your first paragraph are not very important to me, really. I want access to a big city, and I want to be somewhere that gets cold, but I enjoy both rural (as long as I'm not estranged from the world) and urban areas. (Also, I won't have the chance to visit Reed, Macalester, or Chicago before applying, so who knows? I may hate the location.) As for the core, I can see both the good and bad: it's true that I might not enjoy it, but I can see its usefulness in a liberal arts education and I won't let it persuade or deter me. I don't see it getting in the way of anything.</p>
<p>I don't understand, really, what's so odd about my choice in schools. Something that I think ties them all together is that 'different', engaged, nerdy vibe, as it were (except maybe Yale... but I'm applying there for fun really). All of them have small undergrad populations. And I don't see the big deal with location. They're all up North, where it gets cold. Ha. (But, really, I don't see the huge differences.) I see your points, particularly with the interest in the student, or LAC v. uni... but in that case the only one that sticks out really is Chicago, and I like Chicago. So. </p>
<p>Sorry if this has come off a bit short; it's just very frustrating. I'm not completely in the dark here; I feel I've spent a long time researching colleges, and to be told that all my potential schools are completely different is off-putting (even if it's true!). Thanks for your advice, though. I'm definitely open to more. Sorry again.</p>
<p>Signing up for 4 years at a college you haven't visited at least once is a recipe for disaster. Some of these colleges have wonderful public relations firms working overtime to make them seem better than they really are (if you don't believe me, check out the "amateur" photos of Boston University at collegecircles.com--their creative photos make that urban hellhole look like springtime at Princeton).</p>
<p>Picking a college is not unlike choosing a spouse, and I don't have to tell you how dangerous the mail-order-bride thing can be.</p>
<p>If you want a quirky place w/ access to a bit city, Holy Cross (unquirky) and Middlebury (rural) would be out. But Tufts would seem to be a nice choice (near Boston, and at least somewhat NF (nerd-friendly)). Not sure if they have linguistics, though.</p>
<p>Given your unusual criteria, I think your list of schools makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>Re: TourGuide446: But one can always visit colleges after acceptance, right? It's just that I don't think that my parents have the time nor the money to travel to three separate locations to look at only a few colleges at a time. I did a Northeast trip, though. (Oh, and I checked: Tufts doesn't have linguistics, but thanks.)</p>
<p>ihateCA: Eh, well, the SAT is from my sophomore year, and my GC feels that it'd be odd to send in two-year-old standardized test scores. I agree with her on that, but I don't want to waste the money to probably get a lower score on a test that I already did decently on. Sigh. I suppose it wouldn't hurt, though.</p>
<p>I think most medium- and large-sized colleges would offer at least some linguistics courses--maybe they don't have their own department, but they would offer them in an English, communications, or foreign language department. Also, a lot of colleges have cross-registration agreements with nearby colleges. So if you see a college you really like, I'm guessing you could usually cobble together a linguistics minor without too much trouble. That US News link above indicates Tufts has some sort of linguistics or linguistics-related program (though not necessarily a linguistics department). I have no connection to Tufts, but it seems like an interesting place that is carving out it's own distinct image on that very-fast Boston-area track. </p>
<p>Also, I slammed Boston U in a previous post. That was a bit catty of me. I'm very familiar with B.U., and think it would be highly accepting of a quirky person like yourself. It's just that it has about zero typical college-campus ambiance. If you like urban hustle-bustle, it would be hard to beat. If you want to stroll across the campus green on a spring day and take a breath of fresh air, it's the last place on earth for you (except NYU).</p>
<p>I have a cousin who went to a community college near San Francisco. He went on to get a B.A. and Ph.D. in math from Berkeley. He always says he was surprised how much the community college did to ease his transition from high school to college. He's now a full prof at Utah. I went to a 2-year college to get my grades up. After one year, I transferred to Boston College and graduated with honors. If you know you're going to transfer, it might be better to go to a 2-year college, because then nobody asks why you transferred. If you go to a decent 4-year college and transfer, I'm sure it raises eyebrows about your adaptability. It's not a bad choice if you can take the social disgrace for 1 or 2 years.</p>
<p>with your grades, do not go to community college, no matter what these idiots tell you. </p>
<p>if you need any idea of safeties, take what your looking for in terms of area, etc. and basically apply it to any midrange colleges. Many colleges with SAT ranges like v500-600 m500-600 offer a great education, will be great safeties, and will probably offer you a ton of money to go there if thats what your looking for.</p>