Starting college search for summer, and I need help with research

College Search & Selection
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<p>I am a junior beginning on the college search. I'm really excited about it, and plan to spend time as needed this summer to enter next year with a strong start. However, I am having trouble even beginning to look for colleges.</p>

<p>I go to a good prep school, and I have good stats (all perfect so far; need two more SAT IIs). My passions are math and languages at the moment, although I would love to go into economics. These are reflected in my ECs, which I spend a lot of time on.</p>

<p>As is the case with most students, I know which stretches I want to attend, but I am having problems with the safeties and targets. I'm looking for schools with strong math and econ programs, but not necessarily tech schools (like MIT). Also, when visiting colleges, I realized the importance of an intelligent and active student body who have vibrant extracurricular interests. Diversity isn't that important to me. A normal, social student body is preferred (the day I visited MIT, this seemed to be lacking). I'm also looking for medium-sized schools, which I know eliminates some LACs. My own school is small, and I'm really looking for something a bit larger at this point. I want small-ish class sizes, although I would be fine with larger lectures during the frosh/soph years. </p>

<p>I know it's a lot of requirements, but my problem is finding schools in which I would be interested given what I'm pretty sure I want. I have tried looking at math competitions like Putnam, but my stretches pretty much dominated it. In other words, I learned nothing. I have all the books - Fiske, Barron's, Princeton Review, but those haven't been too fruitful either. The counseling at my schools mainly begins in the fall, but my counselor is fine with me beginning over the summer. This means, however, that it will have to be independent.</p>

<p>Are there any channels which I can pursue to help me create a short-list? It can be like thirty schools, but I do want to have some specific names going into next year (which will be busy anyway). Does anyone have any suggestions of schools or ways to investigate them? The college filters are a bit too objective for what I'm looking for, I think.</p>

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<p>Oh, and about location: I don't want it to be too big of an issue yet, because I would rather find schools that match the other criteria first.</p>

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<p>Summer of your junior year is a bit late, but that's okay. It's good to stay positive.</p>

<p>Here's a link about undergraduate schools for economics: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/192354-best-undergraduate-economics-program.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/192354-best-undergraduate-economics-program.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Here's a link about undergraduate schools for math, but I don't know how helpful it'll be.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/381584-top-undergraduate-programs-mathematics.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/381584-top-undergraduate-programs-mathematics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Overall I think these links will help you come up with a big list.</p>

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<p>Thanks. And I know it may be late for some, but it isn't late for my school (we got our college counselors assigned in the spring this year). Literally everything starts in Fall. People who do nothing until Senior fall are fine, such as my friend who got into Princeton. We have like 1/4 acceptance rates into most Ivies with sizable samples, but I want to investigate other schools ahead of time. It's honestly mainly for scheduling, because I will be very busy next year and want to have time to juggle everything. I'll check out the links.</p>

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<p>You can search this forum on economics, and again on math. People have posted school rankings on both many times. You can search on Alexandre- he has done many of the posts. Then, look for schools on both lists, and there you are. I'm sure you know that University of Chicago should be on your list.</p>

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<p>Yes, I am thinking about applying to UofC. And I loved it when I visited it. I'll check out the forum more then, thanks.</p>