<p>I'd like to have 8 schools (12 at most). does anyone have any tips on narrowing down schools? I most value quality of life, size (large or maybe medium), freshman retention, and quality of education (particularly in linguistics). I live in RI. The schools I'm interested in are:
Safeties: UMass-Amherst, UConn
Safetyish: BU, Penn State
Match: NYU, Brandeis, UMichigan
Reach: Brown ED <3, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, UPenn.</p>
<p>What are your stats? You could probably move one of BU or PSU into either match or safety and eliminate the other so you only have safety’s, matches, and reaches.</p>
<p>Good ECs mostly in linguistics or languages, 3.8 UWGPA at top public, possible sports recruit, 780 M, 740 CR, 690 W, 13 APs, 4.0 at URI (mostly summer courses)</p>
<p>Have you visited these schools yet? Sometimes you think you’re in love with a school, but then you visit it and you change your mind</p>
<p>I’ve visited UMass-Amherst, BU, Brandeis, Brown, and Yale (as well as a couple others I eliminated)</p>
<p>You could afford to whack a couple reaches off that list, simply for being far the largest category. Columbia and UPenn share a lot of DNA with each other, but very little with Cornell. If you like the city-thing of Columbia and Penn, get rid of Cornell. If Providence is the largest city that’s ideal for you, maybe you could drop Columbia. Are there a couple reaches you like less than the others? I feel like 5 reaches is probably a reasonable number.</p>
<p>Youre probably right about Columbia. Maybe Stanford should go because it’s so far. Great advice, guys! 
hopefully I can fit more visits in soon</p>
<p>Could you afford all of those? If not, cross those off. You could also list pros and cons of each and go from there.</p>
<p>Pros and cons lists are good ideas. Money isn’t really a problem</p>