<p>For my D, her dream school ended up being NYU. Before you protest that NYU is not a non-prestige school, for her major, violin performance, it is. Through auditions, we checked out more prestigious music programs but NYU was all about the individual finding her artistic voice and professional place, not about grooming orchestral musicians for non-existent orchestral jobs. So many music programs are implicitly conformist but NYU seems to be about supporting individual interests with a wide range of performance opportunities that come from being a part of a large university with other strong arts programs and from being in NYC.</p>
<p>I had childhood dreams of going to NYU, got in, and completely ignored the acceptance letter, because my heart was already set on Mt. Holyoke.</p>
<p>columbia. i love the campus it's like it's own seperate world. when you step in it doesn't feel like your in NYC. </p>
<p>i like American U alot too. great location, nice campus. felt very patriotic.</p>
<p>My dream school was Brown too. For many of the reasons you stated. But then, I got rejected. And I realize that Berkeley will be a fantastic place to be. Dream school or not, everything works out, I think.</p>
<p>I'm long out of school, but secretly I wanted to go to St. Johns. In the end I was too intimidated--I knew on paper I probably looked like the kind of student they were looking for, but thought I wouldn't be "intellectual" enough to fit in once I got there. I sent my SATs and they sent them back, nicely, noting that they don't care about test scores, and that was the first jolt. Then I started to doubt my own raw intellectual nerdiness.</p>
<p>Sometimes now I regret it--I think I would have gotten over that concern, found my niche, and loved it.</p>
<p>St. John's should try to improve their publicity, with as many of us wanting to go there as there seem to be, imagine if they had bit more publicity(only found them as I searched through the PR book looking at every school with better than 650 averages on SAT's in order to look at more schools).</p>
<p>Their program seems AWESOME, and if the school was in the 2000 kid rather than 800 kid range I would probably think about it.</p>
<p>also, to chime in again, i would LOVE LOVE to go to pepperdine. like mj93 said, it's on the beach. i mean, who wouldn't want to go to malibu? but yeahh, if i didn't have all these freakin expectations, i would apply to only st. johns and pepperdine. but reality is another story...</p>
<p>Yeah, Olin.</p>
<p>Claremont McKenna. Proximity to LA, mountains, beach, etc. on an extremely politically active campus. It just sounds amazing. A little hot for me though. I also really like Grinnell.</p>
<p>Probably Georgetown... but my parents will no doubt want me applying ED to Penn (for Wharton). But I'm easy to please, I'll jump up and down and scream for any acceptance letter I get, regardless of school. :-)</p>
<p>Dartmouth! and maybe Princeton, if I could get in. They have good "old boy" systems which my kids could benefit from. Plus Dartmouth is all about parties and preppy stuff, and they get all the political candidates every election. And it is in the middle of nowhere (I've been in cities all my life). Plus they have good alumni systems and Princeton is close to a couple cities in case I get bored.</p>
<p>Eugene Lang :)</p>
<p>NYC, artsy, small school, just awesome all around...</p>
<p>Ok, so no one's ever heard of it... But it's pretty awesome. Check it out.</p>
<p>Of the ones I've visited, Definitely Georgia Tech. I visited there on Spring Break and I loved it.</p>
<p>a lot of you may realize later that a prestigious school may not be the best fit for you. a good college visit will definitely answer a lot of questions. find out the types of student activities are around campus, the greek life, the types of people, the environment. a hs student from a small town in arkansas might not enjoy the type of life in nyu. lol im not saying dont look at those schools but to keep your mind open to other schools as well</p>
<p>I've definitely fallen in love with Stanford. The professors, the small classes, the CAMPUS, everything.</p>
<p>I'd be happy to go to Virginia Tech though (one of my safeties).</p>
<p>stanford IS amazing. i plan on going there for med school. unfortunately i rejected stanford undergrad due to financial issues.</p>
<p>Yeah I'm gonna apply to Stanford SCEA in 2 years. It's definitely my dream school =]</p>
<p>good luck! i hope your stats are good enough!</p>
<p>Uf Weee!!!!!</p>
<p>Kalamazoo</p>
<p>It has a really pretty campus, a great study abroad program, and a really international feeling.</p>
<p>Too bad nobody's heard of it and makes fun of the name :( It's a REALLY good school too!</p>