<p>The only schools on my list are well-known schools. I hear there are many schools just as good as the ivies, but I don't know much about them. I see a lot of people on CC applying to "Amherst" and "Bowdoin" and "Georgetown," but I know nothing about any of these schools. Here are the schools I am interested in. Do not note it's similarity to the USNews charts, that is the reason I made this thread.
MIT
Stanford
Harvard
Princeton
Cornell
Caltech
California-Berkeley
University of Chicago
Carnegie Mellon
UT Austin (safety)
USC
Yale
U Penn
Rice
Brown
Duke
Cooper Union (not sure if it has premed)
Columbia University
RIT
U of Washington @ St. Louis
UCLA</p>
<p>I would suggest that you get yourself to the reference section of any library or bookstore and find a couple of those big books that have a few pages about each college in the USA. Read the summary information. Since you are interested in finding out about top schools, look up the top 10 or 15 LAC’s as well – you will see that many of them have stats and selectivity numbers pretty similar to the stats and selectivity at top unis, including Ivies. After you have read about 30 or 40 schools, come up with a list of schools that appeal to you, with the reasons they appeal to you, and repost.</p>
<p>Please note that most of the schools onyour list would be reaches for almost all students. So you might want to find yourself some safeties you like, too.</p>
<p>(just fyi: I’m pretty certain Cooper Union doesn’t have premed -they offer degrees in architecture, fine arts, and engineering)</p>
<p>My family has a HUGE book of Colleges that someone gave us. It literally has every college in it (even a section with 2 year colleges, though I’m sure that won’t pertain to you). It’s called the College Handbook and I’m pretty sure it’s published by the College Board. It’s amazing and would really help you…or at least get you started.</p>
<p>What does LAC stand for?</p>
<p>^ Liberal Arts College</p>
<p>SheenR – If you are in the US and attend high school here, you should have a guidance or college counselor who has resources for you in her office. If you are in a lower grade of hs, maybe you could still attend some of the college night or assembly presentations that (I hope) your school provides for older students to gain more information. You might also want to see if you can make an appointment with the college counselor to talk with her about some of the differences between a liberal arts college and a larger university, and what some of the pluses and minus might be for you at different kinds of colleges, given what you, personally, have as goals for your college education.</p>
<p>The counselor does not counsel on college, only on high school schedules. I am sure that my school has never sent anyone to a highly selective university, not even a mildly selective one. The only valedictorian who’s status I know about is one who got rejected from everywhere he/she applied except Duke. There are no seminars or anything on college. I am on my own, which is why I make threads here.</p>
<p>Your list is a bit too ambitious. You need a lot more safeties on it.</p>
<p>Give us an idea of:
–your stats (gpa, SAT/ACT)
–the rigor of your curriculum
–the major that you’re interested in
–financial situation
–state you live in
–interests
–goals</p>
<p>SheenR-- Glad you’ve clarified that! You’ll get a lot of help here on cc. One place it might be good for you to post is on the Parents’ Board. I think you’ll get the most help, though, once you’ve taken a good look at a handbook about colleges. If you are near a large Borders or Barnes and Noble store, if you go to the reference book section, there will be a bunch of huge paperback handbooks about colleges. Take your list of schools, plus a list of liberal arts colleges, and start reading about different schools. See what GPA and SAT or ACT scores are required to get into these schools. Get a feel for which ones mostly emphasize science/math/and engineering versus ones that offer a wider range of options. Take notes. Then come back onto the parents’ board, talk about how you are going to a large public with little or not support in college application, mention what you are looking for in a college and the ones that you’re thinking about, and I’m pretty sure that people will provide you with a ton of info and help you all the way through the process if you like.</p>
<p>That’s a big list. Maybe this can give you a little more of an idea of the broad “types” of schools. Be aware that this is pretty cursory.</p>
<p>Big rep schools:
UCLA
USC
Duke
Stanford? (can anyone validate this)
UT Austin</p>
<p>Known for engineering:
MIT
Princeton
Cornell
Caltech
Carnegie Melon
Rice
Cooper Union (only a couple majors are offered)
RIT
Columbia (although supposedly a large amount of SEAS students don’t always end up in engineering)</p>
<p>I’m having trouble thinking of other good categories except for categorizing by size of enrollment (don’t want to look up that info right now). In regards to the schools you quoted. Amherst is a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. It’s known for its open curriculum, among other factors. Bowdoin is a liberal arts college in Maine. I don’t know too much about this, although I hear it has good food. Georgetown is a Jesuit university in Washington D.C. It’s popular among political science, economics, and international relations majors, and is well known for Hoyas basketball.</p>
<p>I agree with nysmile. Sheen, you ought to give us your stats/EC’s to help you out better.</p>
<p>MIT -East
Stanford - West
Harvard -E
Princeton - E
Cornell -E
Caltech - E
California-Berkeley -W
University of Chicago -MidW
Carnegie Mellon -E
UT Austin (safety) - SW
USC - South carolina? SE
Yale E
U Penn E
Rice SW
Brown E
Duke Eish
Cooper Union (not sure if it has premed) [It doesn’t.] E
Columbia University E
RIT E
U of Washington @ St. Louis MW
UCLA W</p>
<p>Hmm…</p>
<p>You need a totally different list. Your “safety” accepts 45% of students according to college board. Safeties are generally accepting 50-60%+ applicants. If nothing else, don’t treat it as the bad school on your list. You’ve covered schools in cities, and collge towns. You need less selective schools- more financial safeties, more admissions safeties, and more matches/targets. Keep in mind that these schools have little atmosphere similarities overall. Caltech & MIT are rivals, just like Harvard & Yale. UCLA is nothing like U of Chicago. I don’t know what the running thread is here besides “Hard to get into.” Columbia has a huge core- Brown has none. </p>
<p>None of the experiences will be the same. What do you want?</p>
<p>Are you instate for Texas?</p>
<p>Even if you are, you should count UT as a match, not a safety.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stanford is compared to Harvard often. I think it’s rep is big enough ;)</p>
<p>What about the top public schools, such as UVA, UW-Madison, Michigan, and UNC?</p>
<p>There are web sites that will give you various matches. Register and give your stats and the site will produce matches in various categories, and percentage statistics of “safety” , “reach” etc. It’s a good place to start when you have such a wide open list. I tried to add the web sites, but CC won’t let me.</p>
<p>Felix, do you have a few site links?</p>
<p>CC won’t let me post the web sites. A google search will get you there. There are a few.</p>
<p>You wana type it so it doesnt come out as *******?</p>