Should I apply to Northwestern? It would be my 18th school!

Parent Cafe
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<p>These is my information. I'm scared that I won't get into the match/reach colleges I really want to go to, especially after a football player from my school with low stats just got a likely letter to Brown. So just stressed out.</p>

<p>Anyways, should I apply to Northwestern as well? Will that help with geographic diversity and give me another great school that I could get admitted to? My SAT Math and SAT II scores are jeopardizing my chances for many of these colleges. </p>

<p>Applying to:
Harvard (SCEA), Yale, Columbia (CAS), UPenn (Wharton), Cornell, MIT
Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, NYU (Stern), Barnard, Tufts (CAS)
Northeastern, Drexel (Admitted), SUNY Stony Brook</p>

<p>Female, Northeast, Asian</p>

<p>GPA: 4.26/4.50, UW, "A" average on schools GPA system
SAT: 2290 (800 CR, 790 W, 700 M)
SAT II: Biology M 740, Chemistry 740, Math II 740
<not retaking="" any="" tests=""></not></p>

<p>Relevant English and History classes:
AP European History, IB History HL, IB English HL
Orchestra</p>

<p>Relevant Science and Math classes:
IB Physics SL, IB Biology SL, IB Math SL, AP Calculus AB, Science Research</p>

<p>Toughest curriculum at my school, except not full IB because of scheduling problems.</p>

<p>ECs:
Research: 3 years original research, in competitions for 2nd time this year, won 2 awards last year (regional), first student from school to compete this much</p>

<p>-Lit Mag (9-12): Editor-in-Chief 10-12, helped find new adviser and keep after budget cuts
-Newspaper (9 - 12): Writer 9-12, Editor 10-12, Layout Editor 12, actively involved
-"Disease" Foundation (10-12): personal connection, only teen in all-adult group, helped plan main events, involved in outreach program, raised money
-Nursing home (9-10): 60 hours
-Model United Nations (9-12): committee awards, committe chair in school conference
-Poems published in local newspaper (2009, 2010)
-Peer Mentor Club (9, 11): Tutoring 8th grade students in Science, Tutoring 10th grade student in Biology and Geometry
-Music: Violin (High School Orchestra; State Music Award), Piano
-Private Swim Team (7 – 10): Captain's award
-Math Olympiads (6 - 12): Currently in Top 5 students competing in school</p>

<p>Letters of Rec: My guidance counselor said they were "excellent", 1) from school science research adviser and 2) adviser for lit mag + newspaper/11th grade teacher
Essays: Pretty good, original. Former admissions officer friend read my common app essay and really liked it.</p>

<p>Thanks! Sorry its so long! Also, I am not applying for financial aid.</p>

2

<p>Presumably you would go to any of the college you applied and you already have one admittance and you are likely to have a couple more…why would you add another college now? All the colleges you picked are on the east coast…why would you suddenly start secondly guessing yourself and want to add one in the Midwest? I think you are having a normal reaction during the “waiting season.” Take a deep breath and try to enjoy your senior year.</p>

3

<p>Sure Go for it. It is a wonderful place. If you get in, it will be a wonderful option to consider. Best of luck!</p>

4

<p>Enough is enough. You’ve applied to a lot of schools and already have an admit. Sounds like you posted out of jitters or to get reassurance about your chances.</p>

5

<p>You should be fine either way, but if you are really that worried, so long as those writing your recs are on board, it can’t hurt.</p>

<p>Not really sure why you listed that you were Asian. I’m pretty sure this post was enough to give that away. No one is is this ridiculous.</p>

6

<p>I count 14 schools on your already-applying list, not 17. Either way, it’s already a lot of schools. At a certain point, adding more starts diluting the quality of your applications. Put the effort into writing the best essays and supplements you can. If nothing else, those out-of-the-box Tufts supplements can always use some TLC. :)</p>

7

<p>Did you apply anywhere ED or SCEA? Even though you have grerat stats, not sure which college is your favorite. Are you simply basing your choice on which ranks the highest? Have you pondered why you’d like to go to NU, other than the fact that it’s highly ranked? I mean, why did you choose NU over many others? For instance, why not Wellsley? or Brown? or WashU? or …?</p>

<p>Having asked all that, I should tell you that 1) eighteen applications are a LOT and 2) The NU application, probably like many other applications, expect your NU-specific essay to show you much you want to go to that school. How well do you know the school? Have you visited? Interviewed? Do you know what’s important at NU (i.e. are you a good fit)? That’s the all-important essay and if it does a good job showing what’s special about NU and why you fit into that student body, then go for it.</p>

8

<p>You look strong to me, but what do I know? I just feel really bad for you feeling this stressed. Your post reminds me of exactly so much that is fundamentally wrong with the currently college application system. On so many levels.</p>

9

<p>No. 10 characters.</p>

10

<p>Oops, not 17 already. Add Bucknell and Georgetown to the list. I had Boston College, but decided I liked Drexel better (better engineering programs, co-ops) and took it off the list. </p>

<p>Most of my college choices are based on some combination of City+good engineering+good business. I don’t really like Brown’s completely open curriculum, and after visiting, I think I would die at Wellesley (the all-girls one, right?). I did apply to Harvard SCEA.</p>

<p>I’m just unsure of my college choices because I have good grades and good extracurriculars but not-so-great SAT scores, so I’m not a definite anyway. Of the schools I’m applying to, my favorites are the: Ivies, MIT, CMU, NYU, and Johns Hopkins. Basically, if I get into 2 or 3 of those, I will be happy. I just want to have good choices.</p>

<p>I’m concerned that I will be like every Female-Asian-New York-Science applicant who is applying to the same list out of 20 or 30 of the “usual suspects”, except with bad test scores and no hook/athletics. </p>

<p>I was also thinking of adding on Cooper Union instead of Northwestern, but not too sure about that. </p>

<p>The two schools I haven’t visited are CMU and Northwestern, mainly because they’re to far away. Also, I didn’t get to visit Tufts. I went to the information sessions near my hometown for CMU and Tufts, and a lot of my dad’s colleagues go to CMU, so I actually go know a lot about it. </p>

<p>EDIT: I’m looking for merit aid, which I got from Drexel, and based on NMF, will probably get from Northeastern and maybe CMU. I don’t think it makes sense to pay $40,000+ a year to go to Boston College. I am trying to interview at as many places as I can.</p>

11

<p>Ahh, don’t focus on your “bad” SAT score of 2290. It’s still up there. Instead, focus on the colleges you really like and continue to do your best this year. If you get a WL letter instead of an acceptance, you could write about what else you’ve been doing this semester. But adding anpther college to that list? How exhausting. Stop stressing; you’ll go to college next year.</p>

12

<p>You should take a deep breath. You will have a bunch of good options when the dust clears, I’m pretty sure of that.</p>

<p>Notwithstanding your over-large number of applications, you don’t have so many in the Northwestern space., which is sort of your base level. (By which I mean, you could get in anywhere, but the Ivies are a lottery for a student like you. So are Northwestern, Hopkins, and Georgetown, but they are lotteries with meaningfully better odds.) I don’t see how you are going to get a lot of merit aid at that group of schools, though. (Does Northwestern even have merit aid?)</p>

<p>I do question why you are focusing on engineering. Your math test scores seem fine in light of your mainly humanities-oriented resume, but they do seem problematic if you are applying to engineering programs at these schools.</p>

<p>Coming from New York, you aren’t going to get any geographical boost at Northwestern. Sorry. Coming from New York, you aren’t going to get a geographical boost anywhere that’s very attractive to you.</p>

<p>Anyway, whether you apply to Northwestern or not sort of depends how you feel about Georgetown, Hopkins, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon and NYU. If you like Northwestern a lot more than any of them, sure, apply. If you don’t care that strongly about Northwestern, don’t bother. I think you will probably get into a few of those schools, so you will have some choices there already.</p>

13

<p>My take is that you have a variety of schools with a wide range of financial aid policies.<br>
Have you had the money talk with your parent?<br>
Have you run your numbers through the financial aid calculators at each school?<br>
If admitted, is each school a financially feasible option for your family? </p>

<p>Just looking at your list, you have NYU which is famous for bad financial aid, if you are not Pell or Tap eligible (which is the main source of FA at SUNY/CUNY), you could easily be full pay at Stony Brook (unless you are accepted into the Honors program).</p>

<p>Have you applied for the Macauley Honors program at CUNY?</p>

14

<p>NU doesn’t have merit aid (you also will not get any kind of bump at NU for being from New York). NU does give out small scholarships for National Merit. I thought Boston College has a full tuition merit aid scholarship - the president’s scholarship or something like that? If you really want to go the merit aid route, do a little research here on CC for schools that give merit aid. Tulane? Case?</p>

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<p>Just to clarify, I don’t need merit aid. It would just be nice to have. Otherwise, my family could pay full price for college. That’s not actually an issue.</p>

<p>I know it doesn’t look like I’m interested in engineering according to my ECs and whatnot, but I really am. I just haven’t had as much chance to pursue it, outside of my research. Even though my research is in biology, its given me a strong taste of what I want and don’t want to do.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, my GC is letting me apply to all these schools. I need to get her a really nice Christmas gift. Most of the schools are on the common app, and I got different recommendation letters from different teachers for the 2 schools that have their own app, so its okay. </p>

<p>A few questions about Carnegie Mellon

  1. Do I lose the full-pay admissions advantage if I apply for merit scholarships? They have a Carnegie Scholarship for middle income students who aren’t eligible for financial aid, something I’d like to apply for.
  2. According to their website, they are 40% girls, and looking to recruit women. Could that help?</p>

<p>Of my “match” schools, I like CMU the best, although it is a little too far away. Next is probably Johns Hopkins or NYU. Last year, a boy from my school with a 2100 SAT, IB classes, A/B grades, some extracurriculars got into CMU.
How much of an effect could interviews have? I seem to do pretty well with those.</p>

<p>Interestingly enough, Georgetown is the only college which requires you to put down your religion (won’t let you submit without it).</p>

16

<p>

NO (true for any school. if anything, it gives you an advantage - you show interest by completing the application)</p>

<p>Interviews usually have minimal impact, but doing them shows interest (for school that care)</p>

<p>A girl interested in engineering may have some advantage.</p>

<p>Your scores are fine for any school, btw. They will not keep you out.</p>

17

<p>I think you’ve got a reasonable chance at a number of your schools. If you are interested in engineering why are you applying CAS at Tufts and Columbia? Your odds would be better at both schools as a female engineer. I think you might get a bit of a geographical and gender boost at CMU. Which schools are you applying to there? I don’t think you need to apply to Northwestern unless you like it better than the other match schools on your list.</p>

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<p>Well, I’m not completely sure I want to do engineering. I’m also interested in economics/finance/business, although again, my application doesn’t necessarily support that. </p>

<p>I don’t like Northwestern better than other schools on my list, so based on what I’m hearing, I should be ok without it. I don’t think I’ll apply.</p>

<p>At CMU, I’m applying to in this order: 1) Tepper School of Business 2) Information Systems program 3) Carnegie Institute of Technology (Engineering) 4) Mellon School of Sciences. You rank the colleges but only get into one. It’s not impossible to transfer.</p>

<p>At Columbia, it basically is impossible. I love Columbia, but am not certain, and would do economics there.
There, and at Tufts, the adcom reps have told me that low math scores would be a major problem for an engineering student, female or not.</p>

<p>I would also like to point out that on my application, especially with the research supplement, science research comes across as the dominant and most successful (awards) EC. My school has no science/math clubs and limited interest in it.</p>

19

<p>I would expect you to get in to NYU, Northeastern, Drexel, Stony Brook, and Bucknell. I think you are likely to get in to Cornell, JHU, CMU, Tufts, and Georgetown. I think that the female engineer thing will help you at CMU, but that your resume supports a humanities focus better. </p>

<p>I don’t see why you would apply to Northwestern unless you like it better than those.</p>

20

<p>If CMU is too far for you, remember that Northwestern is further away than that from the northeast. Also, NU is not in the city. Doesn’t seem to meet those criteria for you.</p>

<p>You sound nervous. You do not have “bad” SAT scores. Who told you that?</p>

<p>You have a good range of schools on your list already. Relax. The decisions will come when they will. Go have some fun and enjoy your senior year. Looks like you deserve it.</p>