<p>So I'm NOT here to be chanced. I go to a top high school, have good extracurriculars, good SAT/ACT/SAT II scores, and I've done some good medical research and work at my local hospital. I won't need any financial aid. I run a book-trading business with some friends for my high school that has gotten interest from Barnes and Noble, and I come from an obscure state. I have a good hook, the French horn, that has been getting me looks from a lot of top 20 colleges, including the Ivies and WashU. My grades weren't great my 10th grade year, because I was transitioning to my new school, but my junior year grades were really really good. In my opinion, I'm in the "gray area"; qualified, but everyone's qualified nowadays.</p>
<p>So here's my dilemma. I like WashU, a lot. I've been sure of EDing there for a while, but now my family's starting to get to me, that I'm just settling. I know that WashU is on par with the Ivies and all, but is it worth sticking my neck out and applying to an Ivy/Stanford early? I don't want to lose my great chance at WashU ED and some of my other match schools, and end up going to Vanderbilt or Emory, where I have a fifty-fifty shot or better at both according to my college counselor. I'm not saying those are bad schools, but to lose my chance of going to WashU to go there is sort of a let down, to be honest.</p>
<p>I could realistically apply to any of these places EA/ED (places where I'm getting the most interest, in that order)</p>
<p>Cornell
Harvard
Dartmouth
Stanford</p>
<p>I'd be really happy going to these places too:</p>
<p>Duke
UPenn
Brown</p>
<p>So what should I do? ED to WashU, or ED/EA to the Ivies or Stanford? I should also say that I'm interested in done something on the business end of medicine later in life, majoring in something like biochem, minoring in econ, and that my school doesn't let anyone apply to more than one program ED/EA.</p>
<p>I’d do ED to Dartmouth. They’ve got a great business program that you can expose yourself to, and a prestigious medical school as well.
I’d then apply regular decision to the rest of the schools such as Cornell, Stanford, Wash U, and Harvard. If you want, apply to all of the schools, but I’d personally just cut it down to the ones you really want most and have the best program.</p>
<p>Strong as your qualifications may be, I doubt WUSTL is quite a “match” school for you. Strictly by the numbers (GPA x scores x admit rate) it is one of the very most selective schools in the country. </p>
<p>That data is a few years old, and we can quibble over the USNWR formula. Still, it’s hard to see how you’d be “settling” if it’s a highly selective school you really like.</p>
<p>tk21769, I’m legacy there, and the horn teacher there is personally writing me a recommendation to advocate for my admission to the school. I know its competitive, that’s what’s causing the dilemma.</p>
<p>You are acting as if you are a sure in at washu, and that is never the case at any school you are going to be applying to. </p>
<p>On your topic, any of the schools you will be applying to are great and you cannot go wrong / regret you decision with any of them. choose whichever school you feel most comfortable with and stick with that school for ED(in this case, washu since you are lobbying for that particular school). Best of luck!</p>
<p>My horn teacher at the high school that I go to is also close with the Harvard horn teacher. The situation there is not good (4 hornists for 12 spots), and my teacher has been saying a lot of good things about me. The horn teacher at Harvard emailed me earlier this year about visiting, writing me a rec, etc. </p>
<p>The other schools have just about the same story, I contacted Dartmouth and Stanford, and it turns out that they’re in similar situations. I really don’t know how much of an impact that it’ll make though, and applying to those schools early are reasonably contingent on that.</p>
<p>Well, OK, that might be something. But you know, the Music Department at Harvard isn’t really that big on performance. They’re much more about musicology–or at least, they were a generation ago. </p>
<p>When I was an undergraduate, the joke was that Harvard’s Music Department should be seen and not heard.</p>
<p>I question whether being a talented hornist is as big a boost as you appear to think it is. Your teacher’s influence might be a tip if the choice came down to you and another hornist with very similar academic stats. But prior to that it may not make you stand out among the 200 or so other hornists also applying to Harvard, especially if some of them have better stats.</p>
<p>And being a musician won’t get you recruited to an Ivy school in the first place - not in the same sense that a star athlete is recruited. So unless you are so good that you are going to be the new Yo-Yo Ma of the French horn, I wouldn’t count on your musical talent being much more than a very nice EC and not a major admissions boost.</p>
<p>My horn teacher is also the teacher for several top universities, nothing like Harvard though. He isn’t quite sure about the number of hornists applying per year, but he said that it fluctuates around 50, and that from all 4 of his schools, he doesn’t get more than 7 music tapes per year, which is what i’m planning on doing. Horn is something that I’ll definitely do in college, but not after. I don’t know how much it’ll help, but they are in definite need of horn players, and the supply isn’t huge.</p>
<p>I don’t know if USNWR has made such a list available recently or not. The list I cited was one CC poster’s attempt to reverse-engineer it. Here are a few other sources indicating USNWR has ranked WUSTL between 6th and 8th most selective in recent years:</p>
<p>As for the ED dilemma, I suppose a key question for me would be this:
Would you be inclined to choose WUSTL if all the others accepted you, too?</p>
<p>Apart from the prestige factor, those are very different schools, in size, atmosphere, and geographical location and urbanity. If you really love WashU, ask yourself why, and then analyze each other school for its pros and cons. Research your program at each–look at the courses offered, the department websites, the professor’s websites, their areas of concentration, the guidelines for the major. Is there a core curriculum? Do you want one? Can you double-major? Will you want to? Do you love WashU because you’ve spent time there with your parent, and you really feel comfortable there and know it well; or do you love it because you grew up hearing about it and assuming you would go there? Choosing a college is really a research project; good luck with it.</p>
<p>I won’t go through the whole deal on the “Ivy aura”, some believe these schools have a special place in business and would say go to any Ivy school over any other, some don’t. Even if you accept this theory, you have to decide how much of an aura you think there is, and whether it outweighs what you feel is a ‘fit’.</p>
<p>By the way, no one really knows how big a difference there is (or even whether there is a difference between say Brown and Wash U. We all have opinions, but that’s what they are.</p>
<p>In our situation, both my daughters decided on other schools over my alma mater based on fit. One applied to Brandeis ED and loved it there. The other will be attending Northwestern Engineering (which she chose over both Cornell and Wash U). Though I personally love Cornell, in both cases, I think they made the best choices for themselves. (… and by the way, I am one of those who does personally believe in the Ivy Aura).</p>
<p>My advice – you’ve said that you think you’d choose Harvard or Stanford over Wash U (I’d certainly add Princeton and Yale to that list, but it’s your choice). If you think you have a realistic chance at either of those schools, then I’d take the chance and apply SCEA (Stanford I know has this, and I don’t know what Harvard will do next year). If you believe that these are stretches. go for it with Wash U.</p>
<p>As you say, this is not a ‘chance me’ and I have no idea as to how strong your hook is, so I can’t offer specific advice.</p>
<p>EA or ED to one of the Ivies. WashU will take you or, if not, will put you on its notorious 10,000 person waiting list from which you will be accepted as all the waitlisters say yes to their own Ivies. Do not ED WashU.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t ED Cornell or Dartmouth, for sure, if you’d only turn down Wash U for Harvard or Stanford. WUSTL is as good a school as they are, and there is no “ivy aura” that would tip you into liking Cornell or Dartmouth better. There are only the schools; the athletic conference to which they belong doesn’t matter. You might apply to Harvard or Stanford early if you like them better as schools, but don’t go Cornell or Dartmouth in a binding way because you think they have better names.</p>