some matches and safeties, por favor...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>okay, I really really need some help finding some match schools and safety schools (i am a white girl from the midwest)</p>

<p>-I want to double major in International relations and Spanish (maybe take some arabic classes as well)
-I want a school that has a nice campus (i visited schools like NYU and GWU and they just didn't do it for me)
-I don't really want a school with a huge frat scene, I would rather have a school where there are things to do on the weekend other than get totally wasted
-I like medium and small sized schools, nothing gigantic, but if a school is big and fits my other criteria, I would definately consider it.
-I know this probably doesn't narrow it down any, but I want a school with more of a liberal student body, and it would be nice if the school was above the mason-dixon line. </p>

<p>My stats: </p>

<p>GPA: 3.9 UW, 4.1 W
Rank: 3/140
Taking the hardest classes @ catholic high school
SAT: 2100 (700, 700, 700) (can probably get +100 points in the fall)
SAT II: Bio-M 720, US History 780, Spanish 770
AP: US History-4 (no one @ my school has gotten a 4 in years) US Government and Politics-5
will be taking AP English lang/lit, AP Spanish, AP Euro, AP Calc AB and Honors Physics in senior year</p>

<p>EC's:
Teaching English to refugees at local international center (11, 12 about 5 hours a week)
Tutoring Spanish kids (11, 12 about 4 hours a week)
Alto Saxophone (9-12 7 hrs per week, some decent awards at music competition and acceptance to an audition-only orchestra: 9-10)
Newspaper- 10-12, Layout editor last year, news editor this year, attending a summer journalism program @ University of Iowa this summer
Model Rocket club- build and shoot off model rockets for competition in April (10-12, VP last year, prolly VP again this year)
Girl Scouts: rep for a planning board in my area, will earn the gold award (for service project, put together a guide for spanish immigrants that explains services available to them in my city)
Track (10-12 about 15 hours a week) </p>

<p>Awards:
Student of Achievement @ local radio station
Yale Book Award
Some local music awards
History Dept. Award
Ntnl History Day 3rd regional contest, finalist @ state contest
local Science fair- 2nd place</p>

<p>Summer Stuff/Job Experience</p>

<p>An exchange student in Argentina for 10 weeks
Summer Enrichment classes at local high school
work @ target (about 25 hrs/wk during summer, 10-15 during school year)
Journalism Workshop</p>

<p>if any of you read all that any help would be appreciated!!</p>

2

<p>bump bump bump</p>

3

<p>Have you tried a college search on collegeboard.com? That would help you to kick off your researching.</p>

4

<p>maira, you should take a look at Williams. Small school with excellent academics. Beautiful campus in the mountains of Western Massachusetts. Very selective, but they especially like Scouts, musicians (plenty of performance opportunities) and physically active multifaceted kids. </p>

<p>Political science and history are very strong departments and they also have an international studies concentration. Languages are not Williams strongpoint but they do offer a Spanish major and Arabic courses.</p>

5

<p>middlebury
colgate
bates
colby
connecticut college
vassar
wesleyan
hamilton</p>

6

<p>If you like Williams, Middlebury offers basically the same experience but with much better language programs and a much more internationalized curriculum. (International Studies has consistently been one of the top three major choices). Though Midd is slightly less selective than Williams, both schools wouldn't really be considered matches or safeties for anyone.</p>

7

<p>For matches and safeties? The suggested schools are mostly too reachy or at best high matches...</p>

<p>Other high match: Macalester, Grinnell, Kenyon</p>

<p>Solid match/safer schools: Beloit, Earlham, Hendrix, Lawrence</p>

<p>Safety: Pick a rolling admission school that appeals to you & apply early.</p>

<p>Maira, </p>

<p>my D also wanted a school with options other than frats & getting plastered. She paid a lot of attention to the diversity of social options. In general, the less isolated schools and slightly larger schools had more non-alcohol options (For example, Vassar, with larger student body, adjacent town, and near to NYC, has more variety than Hamilton, up on top of a hill by itself in rural area.)</p>

<p>OTOH, all colleges have quite a bit of drinking/pot. So the key question is "will I fit in and find a critical mass of friends who I enjoy and with whom I will be comfortable?" Most schools offer sub free housing and this will ensure meeting like-minded people even if you drink outside the housing.</p>

<p>The other factor that seemed to be relevant is the degree of overall tolerance/acceptance on campus. For example, a campus where all races/sexual persuasions are accepted tends also to accept non-partiers and respect their personal choices too.</p>

8

<p>i second middlebury...you might have more of a shot there if u submitted ur main tests as ur SAT II's, bc if you combine those scores u have like a 2270 which makes u much more competitive than w/ a 2100. just a thought.</p>

<p>u of michigan might be a good rolling.</p>

9

<p>high matches(40-50% in): wesleyan, middlebury, carleton, haverford</p>

<p>matches(50-60% in): vassar, macalester, wellesley, hamilton, bates, colby, grinnell, davidson, colgate</p>

<p>low matches(60-70% in): reed, whitman, oberlin</p>

<p>high safeties(70-80% in): smith, mt. holyoke, scripps, kenyon, occidental, skidmore</p>

<p>safeties(80-90% in): earlham, sawanee, sarah lawrence, wooster, knox, lawrence</p>

<p>low safeties(90-100% in): coe, simpson, cornell college, luther</p>

10

<p>Rice has many double majors, a beautiful self-contained lush campus, no greek life, a location in the nation's 4th largest city, only about 3,000 undergrads, and is as liberal as most of the top 20 schools.</p>

<p>Everything you said matches perfectly. As long as you don't mind a lot of sun.</p>

<p>It definitely isn't a safety though and is probably a high match/low reach. But I'd say it's worth a shot.</p>

11

<p>How bout Johns Hopkins or Tufts?</p>

12

<p>is tufts a reach or a match?</p>

13

<p>definitely a match. selectivity~ davidson, colgate and vassar.</p>