Safety Schools

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm a Japanese student planning to study in the states.
The problem is, I have a whole bunch of reach and target schools, but I can't figure out what college/universities are my safety schools. So I figured, since most of you here knows A LOT about college/uni, you guys can help me.</p>

<p>I'm in the top percentile of my graduating class, and I take the International Baccalaureate program, getting mostly 6s and 7s (for people who don't know the IB system, that's like A and A+). My SAT scores aren't that great but I'm expecting to get 2000+ on the last SAT I took. For my SAT II I'm taking Chemistry and Japanese. I've done quite a lot of extracurricular activities. Just by looking at this general over view, can you guys tell me which schools are probably safe for me to consider it a "safety school"?</p>

2

<p>What will be your major?</p>

<p>Are you male or female?</p>

<p>Do you care about climate, school size, or campus activities?</p>

<p>Is money no object? Have your parents told you how much they can spend each year?</p>

3

<p>What are your match and reach schools?</p>

4

<p>mom2collegekids,</p>

<p>Major: something science related, probably along the lines of biochemistry, human biology, maybe psychology, pre-med…etc (I want to be a psychiatrist in the future)</p>

<p>Gender: Female</p>

<p>Climate: Don’t really mind. I’m used to the cold, and warm weathers are always nice too so yea :D</p>

<p>School Size: Don’t mind either. Although I would prefer to have a school with a nice teacher to student ratio, not like 100 students to 1 teacher type ratio, but I can deal with either.</p>

<p>Campus activities: Preferably campus that are active, have a lot of activities I can participate in…etc.</p>

<p>Money: My parents have not limited me in the money department. Obviously I probably won’t list a school that needs $50,000 per year, but but if its somewhere in between $30,000 and $40,000 per year my parents said they do not mind.</p>

5

<p>teenage_cliche,</p>

<p>For my reach I’ve listed the usual asian cliche: Stanford, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, UC Berkeley</p>

<p>For my match I have: U of Washington, Boston U, U of Michigan (Ann Arbor), U of Wisconsin Madison, maybe Boston College.</p>

6

<p>If your parents can comfortably pay 30-40k a year for college, you aren’t likely to get any need-based aid except maybe at HYPS (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford). So you should be prepared to pay 50k+ (full cost) at Brown, Columbia, and Berkeley (has merit aid, but almost never to OOS). I’m not sure if Boston College offers merit to internationals. In fact, I don’t really know how international merit aid works, so you ought to start another thread about that. You are in a good position of needing only about 10k in merit aid.</p>

7

<p>Let me rephrase what I said about the money…I read it over and it sounded bad.</p>

<p>It’s not that my parents are comfortable paying 30k to 40k. My father is a doctor, so he could, if needed, work extra hours and earn that 30k and 40k. My parents don’t want me to be disadvantage becuase of money issue. I also have a younger sister who is planning on attending a private school in Japan, so that also adds burden to my parents. </p>

<p>I will move the financial issue to another threat, but here, I was just curious to see what kind of school would admit me based on my academic achievements, not so much the money…etc. Just a simple list of university that I could consider it a safety school, becuase so far I have not been able to even have a list of safety school since I don’t know what I can consider a safety or not. </p>

<p>But Keilexandra, thank you for the financial information on the other schools. I’m going to look into it :D</p>

8

<p>You should look into Mount Holyoke. Small women’s college in Massachusetts that absolutely loves international students (something like 25% of the current freshman class is international).</p>

9

<p>You need to realize that all the good privates are costing $50k+ per year. So, if your parents would likely say “no” to that, then you need to know that now, so you’re not spinning your wheels…there isn’t time to waste.</p>

<p>Some of the publics are costing less for non-residents, but some, like UMich are costing as much as ivies.</p>

<p>Here are the prices to attend privates and publics as a non-resident</p>

<p>Private National Universities Cost of Attendance per year
$16,120 LDS, BYU
$20,410 Non-LDS, BYU
$43,288, Rice
$47,934, Yeshiva
$49,968, Caltech
$50,100, Syracuse
$50,806, SMU
$50,620, Princeton
$55,312, U Miami
$50,436, Case Western
$55,160, Fordham
$50,550, Yale
$52,000, Harvard
$44,278, Worcester
$52,000, MIT
$48,750, Pepperdine
$52,623, Stanford
$52,394, Cornell
$52,132, Emory
$53,000, Boston University
$53,608, Northwestern
$51,300, Notre Dame
$55,368, Vanderbilt
$52,082, Wake Forest
$51,050, Lehigh
$52,973, Dartmouth
$51,140, U Rochester
$52,162, Brandeis
$53,793, NYU
$52,030, Brown
$55,866 Wash U
$53,095, U Penn
$53,390, Duke
$53,618, USC
$54,300, Boston College
$53,390, Johns Hopkins
$54,160, Rensselaer
$55,330, Georgetown
$54,047, U Chicago
$53,660, Carnegie Mellon
$55,125, George Washington
$53,200, Tufts
$52,996, Tulane
$53,644, Columbia</p>

<p>COA per year for OOS students , State University
$25,787, U MINNESOTA
$31,872, VIRGINIA TECH
$34,812, U IOWA
$35,029, U WISCONSIN
$36,210, OHIO STATE
$35,311, U N CAROLINA
$40,086, U GEORGIA
$36,977, RUTGERS
$34,696, TEXAS A&M
$34,922, U DELAWARE
$36,094, U FLORIDA
$32,752, U PITTSBURGH
$37,416, U MARYLAND
$36,985, U WASHINGTON
$37,548, CLEMSON
$36,848, PURDUE
$39,146, U CONNECTICUT
$38,120, GEORGIA TECH
$40,130, U ILLINOIS
$39,510, PENN STATE
$37,644, INDIANA U
$38,566, MICHIGAN ST
$48,041, UC IRVINE
$49,193, UCLA
$50,306, UC BERKELEY
$38,974, WILLIAM & MARY
$43,742, U TEXAS
$49,926, UC S BARBARA
$46,699, UC SAN DIEGO
$48,049, UC DAVIS
$39,483, UC S CRUZ
$42,570, U VIRGINIA
$47,188, U MICHIGAN</p>

10

<p>mom2collegekids,</p>

<p>This is the cost of tuition + board…etc or just the tuition?</p>

11

<p>^^^</p>

<p>The above is what is called Cost of Attendence…these costs typically include tuition, room, board, books, etc. Some majors and/or courses will have additional costs. FYI…typically, Room and Board costs a fews thousand more than it does at publics…just a rule of thumb. Private schools room and board can be as high as $15k per year in some areas of the country. Yikes!</p>

<p>So, as you can see, few have a cost of only $30-40k. Plus, these schools are experiencing substantial increases each year in all areas. Therefore, a school with a COA of 45k this year, will likely have a COA of $48k when you are a freshmen, $51k when you’re a sophomore, etc. You, of course, will have international travel on top of all your costs.</p>

<p>For financial safeties, I suggest you look at some of the lower priced state schools (lower priced for non-residents)…for instance…UMinnesota, Auburn, UABirmingham, & UAlabama. I know that all 3 Alabama schools have very good pre-med programs and have strong med-school admit records. All 4 of these schools will cost a non-resident about $31k per year or less. UAlabama’s price includes the cost of honors housing which are private bedrooms in 4 bedroom “super suites.”</p>

12

<p>Holy Cross-good school near Boston. Holy Cross is similar to Boston College.</p>

13

<p>Take a look at all of the women’s colleges. For a full list, visit [The</a> Women’s College Coalition](<a href=“http://www.womenscolleges.org/]The”>http://www.womenscolleges.org/)</p>

<p>Your IB record probably puts you in the running for Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley, and Smith, which means that the next tier (Sweet Briar, Hollins, Agnes Scott, etc.) would be academic match/safety territory, and the tier below that would be clear academic safeties. You could also consider starting out at Cottey (a 2 year school) [Cottey</a> College](<a href=“http://www.cottey.edu/home/home/index.html]Cottey”>http://www.cottey.edu/home/home/index.html) which has an excellent record for transfer placement for its graduates. Tuition, meals, housing and student fees at Cottey will be only $21,100 for 2010-2011. Few public universities are that cheap for in-state students!</p>

14

<p>If you are an international student then the only safeties you can have are in your home country.</p>

15

<p>Tulane gives good 20k-25k scholarships to a ton of accepted students with your stats, maybe you should check it out?</p>