<p>I'm a rising senior getting ready to apply to colleges and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I have absolutely no idea where to apply to, not even an inkling. I live in a poor, rural area of Virginia where few people go to college. Only about a fifth of the students at my high school took the SAT, and the average is below 500 for each section. I don't have anyone who can really help me in this, including my guidance counselor. College isn't something I know much about and I haven't really been preparing for it, but suddenly it's here! I'm hoping the people at this site can help me.</p>
<p>Here are the facts:
I've taken the SAT twice and my combined score is: 700 on Math, 800 on Verbal, 710 on Writing (and a 12 on the essay on one SAT) for a 1500, or 2210 with writing.
I honestly don't know what my GPA is (I know, I know <em>slaps forehead</em>) but I'm guessing its around a 4.0?
I've taken three AP courses: Environmental Science, Statistics, and US History, and am taking three more this next year: English, Government, and Calculus.
Writing essays is one of my strengths.
My extracurriculars are weak. I'm a member of about 4 clubs, the only leadership position is Treasurer of the school literary magazine. I didn't have a whole lot of opportunities here to do some of the amazing things some applicants to colleges have done, like write books and be published in science journals.
I'm a white male.
I don't know our income...somewhere lower-middle I guess, but don't eliminate colleges just because they're expensive. Hopefully I can get scholarships.</p>
<p>I'm not the most impressive applicant ever, but I have a real desire to learn and lot of curiosity. I really want to get out of the place I'm living and go on to something better.</p>
<p>I have no idea what I want to major in. I have no idea if I'd rather be in a city or the country, big school or small school, public or private, close to home or far away, or any of that.
So what I'm asking is...What are the best colleges I could get into, anywhere in the country? And that's it...just "What is the very best I can do?", and nothing else. Straight facts, no sugarcoating! Thanks!</p>
<p>First of all, apply to University of Virginia. If it's not the best public university in the nation (and I don't wanna start a debate here), it is still one of the best. They should know about your high school, and will realize "Wow, he got 500 points above the average on his SAT!" Having a 4.0 will help, taking AP classes will help. You should try to find out your class rank...you might be valedictorian, which will definitely help in the college application process; but don't worry if you're not, as you'll still have a great shot at most schools.</p>
<p>UVA tends to favor in-state students, so they'll likely choose you for that reason too. I wouldn't say you are definitely in, but you've got good chances.</p>
<p>Other schools...well...I'll let other people pitch their usual schools. But UVA comes to mind as a good pick for you, especially if you might want to stay in your state.</p>
<p>You have a good shot at UVa and W and M. However they aren't the kind of schools you apply to like they're safeties, as you probably know, so you should pick some others you like. I will talk about Va schools, since that's what I mostly know. </p>
<p>George Mason is on the rise and they have a campus that was recently (relatively) built. One of their strengths is their great diversity, and in terms of EC oppurtunities, they have a nationally ranked forensics team. If you get on it, there is all expenses paid travel. It might be something you're interested in. It is also close to DC if you find that attractive. </p>
<p>I think UVa, W and M, and Mason would probably be your top choices just sort of going academic oppurtunity wise, but you might prefer Madison, VTech, Radford, Mary Washington, Christopher Newport, or VCU. </p>
<p>University of Richmond is a private school, and pretty pricey, but you might get good merit aid (I don't really know about how much they give out). So you might consider that. </p>
<p>Geographically, I don't know how far you want to go, if you want to stay sort of close then you might also be just as close to many of the NC schools as many of the Va schools. </p>
<p>I think you should post more about your interests. For examples, what kind of courses do you see yourself liking, what areas of study? Any possible careers? Do you like where you live now, or would you like a more urban campus? Do you want a more personal feel, or do you like the idea of a large college with lots of people? More info like that will help people give you more individualized ideas.</p>
<p>i dont know about the aid there, but it sounds like you might like Brown.
ps: you also might want to try the college board's college search thingy:
<a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/index.jsp%5B/url%5D">http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/index.jsp</a>
It will help you narrow your search down...but don't limit your search only to the schools that a web-based tool suggests. only you can decide which places are good for you.</p>
<p>Definitely apply to U of Virginia, William and Mary, and Virginia Polytechnic. Look at University of Chicago-known as an intellectual school. Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, and University of Rochester are worth looking at. George Washington University gives good aid. You can shoot for the Ivy League- Brown and Cornell are definitely possible. Look at some of the better private liberal arts colleges, also. Many offer good financial aid and merit aid. Look at Swarthmore, Oberlin, Rhodes- just ask yourself if they have the right environment for you. I get the impression that you are a white male, so am going on that assumption.</p>
<p>Tufts, Georgetown, Emory, Wake Forest, around that caliber with a reach like Brown, due to your limited EC's, but you're a great applicant and will wind up somewhere excellent.</p>
<p>I would say UVA as a safe match, with a couple schools around UVA range thrown in as well (Gtown, Emory). For tough reaches shoot for a few Ivies or Ivy caliber (Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn, Amherst, Williams). Cornell and northwestern as slightly lesser reaches. With UVA as pretty much a low tuition safety consider yourself incredibly lucky.</p>
<p>first of all, you need to understand there is no single conception of "best" so what you're looking for doesn't exist. For one type of person a rural LAC with lots of personal attention is the right school, for another a bustling urban school filled with energy and scads of people is right. Given that we don't know you, and it sounds like you're not sure what environment you're looking for, it is impossible to say what is best for you.</p>
<p>On the other hand a lot of people think "best" is just determined by ranking, and a school ranked #11 is somehow better than one ranked 15. I hope you don't share this misconception, but if you do there will be no shortage of people willing to nominate schools for you. And given your professed ignorance of how to pick colleges, you have no real basis to choose between them other than rank.</p>
<p>What I suggest is this. You have months before apps are due, time to do some investigating and build a foundation. Rather than jumping into the pool without first learning how to swim, why not start at the very beginning? Get a book or two on college admissions; my favorite these days is a book called "Admission Matters". You can read an excerpt at the publishers site at <a href="http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/78/07879796/0787979678.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/78/07879796/0787979678.pdf</a> Read this book or one of the other ones; when you finish you'll know as much about admissions as most public school counselors. THEN begin your search. Your odds of finding the right school will be much higher if you do it this way.</p>
<p>I would recommend the guidebooks like fiske and Princeton Review. They might help you know what type of environment you are looking for. As for rankings, while choosing Penn over Brown because of rankings is ridiculous, thinking Emory will offer the same network as Duke is also flawed.</p>
<p>Warning: long, rambling post ahead!
Thanks for the help everyone!
Writing this post has caused me to think about this a lot more. I'm not sure about majors and that stuff because I don't really have any defining interests (except for a great dislike of all things math!). I want something that's well-rounded enough for learning about lots of things. And more importantly, I think I'm more interested in that learning than preparing for a career. I've never set my sights far ahead...a year ago, I didn't think I would actually go to college at all. As for the Virginia schools suggested, the problem is, the few people that do go to college at my school go to those schools (its very rare that someone goes out of state). And knowing the people at my school, who are not exactly the brightest, gives me a negative impression of those schools. I can't shake the feeling that I'm entering the same environment, even though I know I know it is a completely different situation. I suppose every college is like that, good people and bad people, I just don't know anything about the people who attend other schools, so I don't have the negative impression already. And I know this sounds like an awful, conceited kind of thing to say, but I honestly feel like I'm on a different level than people I know who are attending Virginia Tech and UVA...but my record doesn't show that! A lot of that is at least partially my own fault, I know, like the extracurricular situation. I'm mad at myself about this, because even though I had few opportunities, I could've been more aggressive. I feel like I ruined it for myself.
All of this leads to me thinking I do not want to stay in Virginia...an idea that my parents do not care for. I really want to break free of just everything! Where I live, the people I know, and start over! I would love to finally achieve something special and prove to people that I am capable of something really great. But then my other, more reasonable side says I have all the wrong reasons in mind and that I'm setting myself up for disappointment by applying somewhere really selective. I'm definitely going to be doing a lot of thinking this summer...and I am buying one of those college guide books! Thanks everyone for the possible colleges, and also for spurring a lot of thinking on my part about what I really want!</p>
<p>Hmm, well, UVA is a really good school. I am in NoVa, and all the "honor graduates" except one (sort of like valedictorian but we don't rank) were going to UVa. Is there a way you could maybe visit it and talk to some people (that you don't know), get a feel for it? </p>
<p>Also, you might like moving up north, although if your parents don't want you to go far they might not like that. In which case, the northern Va school is George Mason. UMD college park is really not much farther away, so maybe your parents would agree to that if you like that school. Also all the DC schools like Georgetown, GW, and American really aren't any farther than Mason either. </p>
<p>Duke is probably not incredibly far from you? Maybe not farther than other parts of Va. There are good schools in NC, like Wake Forest.</p>
<p>Edited: Oh, and also, I think you should apply to some selective colleges, because you have a chance at getting in. Even if you don't get in, as long as you apply to the Va schools you'd apply to anyway, then getting a rejection is probably better than wondering. If you feel like you can handle the applications, and you really want to go there, I think you should apply where you think you want to go, and you might be happy with the result.</p>
<p>You sound extremely intelligent and from your descriptions of what you are looking for in a college makes me immediately think of some of the top 10 LACs.</p>
<p>Most-if not all-of those will have many non-career oriented students who study for love of learning and have extreme flexibilty to study whatever may interest you.</p>
<p>However, if you got stuck at a big name school like UVA and ended up in their business school, you would have a lot less flexibility with course selection and changes in your major.</p>
<p>Is there any way you can visit some colleges? My kids said they had no preferences about size or location. But once we started the visits, it turned out they developed some.</p>
<p>Why don't your parents want you to go far away? Depending on your proximity to an airport and where your college is, travel to and fro may be quick and cheap. I'm in Maryland, my daughter goes to Brown -- and all it takes is a dirt cheap (Southwest Air) flight that takes about an hour. My son is in St. Louis at WUStL -- a bit more expensive and longer to fly, but not bad. With email and cell phone plans, physical proximity isn't necessary to stay in touch.</p>
<p>You might order some videotaped tours of different sorts of campuses (<a href="http://www.collegiatechoice.com%5B/url%5D">www.collegiatechoice.com</a> is the one I know of). Get one of those "what these schools are really like" books and read about student life at different places and/or read through the posted comments on <a href="http://www.studentsreview.com%5B/url%5D">www.studentsreview.com</a>. You might find yourself with some preferences, which would definitely help in coming up with a list. Your application will be a strong one, so you need some way to narrow it down!</p>
<p>A couple words about ECs ... admissions committees do take into account what opportunities are available to you. (Coupled to that, you have a geographical diversity edge, at least outside of Virginia.) Also, think of things you do outside of school. ECs aren't limited to school clubs. And there is no reason to worry about 4 ECs -- that's how many my daughter had!</p>
<p>Finally, do you have any preference about core curricula, distribution req's, etc.? There are schools where it seems like a lot of the first two years are determined for you all the way to those where there are no requirements at all. If you like the former sort of place, consider places like Chicago; if the latter, places like Brown. No reason to pick these two places -- I'm just familiar with them because my daughter's final decision was between these two and the required course matter ended up being pretty determinative for her. (Then, it wasn't hard to come up with her list because her interests were very defined -- she applied everywhere that had what she wanted. The reason she ended up with two very different sort of schools ...)</p>
<p>Sounds as if you need to consider finances. I would apply to some of your state schools for that reason. Have you considered William and Mary, if you don't like the UVA and VPI atmosphere? Many of the better liberal arts colleges offer good aid. Check out Bates, Amherst, Rhodes, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan. As for major universities, you sound like a University of Chicago person. If you apply to U Maryland College Park, you will end up in one of the honors programs. Johns Hopkins is very intellectual, and not too far away. They aren't known for giving a lot of aid, but it may be worth a try. American University may be worth looking at- you may get aid there.</p>
<p>You may know some students at UVa, but you certainly don't know all the students there. Could it be that the ones you've met are mostly on the low end of the admissions spectrum? One advantage of a large university is the tremendous diversity among students. You've lived in a limited area where your intellect separated you from your peers, but that would not be the case at a top tier college. There are many people at UVa whose intelligence would eclipse yours. Don't eliminate it just because you don't like some of the attendees!</p>