<p>My son wanted a city- and Evanston did not feel like a city. For example, Fordham is gated and traditional and you walk through the gates and you are in the heart of the bustling, diverse Bronx. </p>
<p>@daddio3, I meant I was suggesting Northeastern and so made the EAST caps to differentiate it from the U in Evanston.</p>
<p>Northeastern is very much in Boston itself but has a well-defined campus. </p>
<p>CHD2013, Ann Arbor is 45 miles from Detroit. In what world does a city have suburbs 45 miles away? LOL! Ann Arbor is not a suburb. Nobody who knows the area would consider Ann Arbor a suburb. It is a self-standing small/mid-sized city with a population of 120,000 and with a very distinct character and history. </p>
<p>That being said, Ann Arbor is not a major/large city like Philadelphia. It is a college town in every sense of the word. </p>
<p>@OHMomof2 that is good to know regarding NEU. I didn’t think the campus was very defined and it may be a good fit for my daughter in a couple of years. They need to at least go see it.</p>
<p>Equivalent Reaches: Columbia, Chicago (both are actually harder to get into than Penn Arts & Sciences…)</p>
<p>Slightly less of a reach: Georgetown, Northwestern, Vanderbilt (Vanderbilt is, IMO, the closest to Penn in campus feel, since Nashville’s Midtown has developed around Vandy/Belmont students and you’re not far away from Downtown).</p>
<p>Matches: USC, Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Safeties: Pitt, Case Western</p>
<p>I’m assuming you’re a competitive Penn applicant, so this is without knowing your stats.</p>
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<p>They’re minimally harder. The acceptance rate for Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences is generally about the same as its overall acceptance rate, i.e., 10% for the Class of 2018. And it’s generally understood that the average SATs, GPAs, etc. for all three of these schools are quite comparable. Bottom line: at this level of selectivity, they’re all a crapshoot.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input! I am visiting Northeastern later this month.
I live right outside of Nashville, so Vanderbilt isn’t really what I’m looking for. Plus, the accessibility of the surrounding area is kind of complicated in my opinion.
Anyway, I am interested in Case Western but on the edge about applying but I suppose I might as well.</p>
<p>Fair point, I didn’t really want to stay in Nashville either.</p>
<p>And I only meant that Columbia and Chicago are marginally harder to get into than Penn (much like HYPS is marginally harder to get into than CC or Penn is marginally harder than Cornell).</p>
<p>I believe the Case app is free and they have no essay, but they like to wait-list high-stat kids to protect yield unless those students turn around and show they really want to attend.</p>
<p>@Daddio3 thanks for the information. Since the app is free and requires no supplementary writing, I think I will apply. Does anyone know anything about merit/leadership scholarships there? I don’t think I could get FA.</p>
<p>Their merit can be quite good for strong students. A friend of my song got wait-listed with a 2300+ SAT, but was later taken off the waitlist and offered pretty good merit money ($20k perhaps).</p>
<p>Yes, Case has great merit. Like a lot of similar schools, Case has a dozen or so full tuition scholarships each year but then they have lots of money for smaller awards upto about 22K, according to my notes from last year. Do we have your stats, OP? Case is a very good STEM school and it’s in a nice area of Cleveland–altho Cleveland has its problems. It’s not an ivy, but it bears academic and setting similarities to Pitt, Tulane, UMD-CP, and other urban East Coast schools. I like all five, and have spent a lot of time at Penn and UMD.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether Rochester came up, but they have good merit and it is a great school. I am not sure they have great access to the city even though it is close at hand …</p>
<p>My understanding is that Rochester’s access to much of the city is a bridge across a highway or river. My D and wife were impressed by URochester and the campus. I have however read some less complimentary things on CC about the students, police, admin, etc., but not such as that I tried to dissuade D from visiting. It gets its share of snow, and was snowing when D visited, but this year was an exception for at least half the winter.</p>
<p>Rochester does have easy access to the city, but it has a distinctly different feel than UPenn. jkeil911 the students , police, admin are all fine a Rochester. My D went to Rochester and My S is at Penn. They do have different feels. Penn is definiely an urban campus in a large urban environment. It does have a campus feel but you still know you are in the city. Similarities would be schools in NY (Columbia, Fordam) DC (Georgetown, GW) Chicago (Depaul, UC) or other schools is larger urban environments. Rochester feels more like a suburban campus. It is in a city but right on the city border. It feels more like a Northwesten (i.e in a suburb next to Chicago), Nevertheless like Northwestern, Rochester has good academics and easy access to the city. </p>
<p>I don’t think Northwestern is similar but Northeaster is very similar. </p>
<p>Thank you all for the help! As far as stats, in short, I have a 33 ACT and 3.98 GPA taking the most rigorous classes out of anyone in my graduating class. My ECs are pretty solid too. However, I go to a tiny private school so though I am taking every AP offered, that only adds up to 4 APs.
I am visiting Northeastern and Rochester both in two weeks. Your input has been very helpful.</p>