Trying to trim down my list

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Here's what I have so far;</p>

<p>Yale, Stanford, Pomona, Williams, Carleton, Wash St Louis, Rice, Haverford, USC, Oberlin, URochester, The College of New Jersey</p>

<p>I live in New Jersey, and I'm basically looking to get into either a) a really good school and pay whatever or b) get into a decent/ok school and don't pay that much. Most of these schools here that aren't in the first 4 have some sort of merit aid I think.</p>

<p>I don't know for sure what I want to do yet. I have a lot of interests, focused on music, science (physics) and math although I also enjoy literature/philosophy type stuff. (this is why I'm mainly looking at liberal arts schools)</p>

<p>Stat wise, I'm an asian male junior, I have around 3.9 gpa, 2340/1590 SAT, 4 aps this year 3 next year (only because multi calc isn't an AP course; the 7 are USH, Calc BC, Spanish Language, English Language, Physics C, Spanish Lit, English Lit). EC's I will hopefully be an Eagle Scout by the end of the summer, I've been in the orchestra and boy scouts for 7 years, and I also swim on the varsity level in high school.</p>

<p>I have 11 on this list, which really isn't too bad I guess, but I'm thinking I want to get to 10 at the most. Can anyone help me out?</p>

2

<p>Does your comment about paying whatever mean that your family can afford whatever? You should make it into at least your last four schools on the list.</p>

3

<p>11 applications is very doable. I do have one question: if you want an LAC, why are you applying to mostly universities? Six of your schools (Yale, Stanford, WUSTL, Rice, USC, Rochester) are universities, four of which are very large. If you’d rather go to an LAC, I’d consider knocking a couple of the big universities off your list. Are you applying to Yale and Stanford because you want to go there or because they’re YALE and STANFORD?</p>

4

<p>I agree with lllllll</p>

<p>If you want to go to a medium to small college/university then try to find a safety that is also medium to small. </p>

<p>Once you have a safety that’s workable then you can apply to as many reaches as you have the energy for.</p>

<p>If you truly don’t mind paying “whatever” then you should consider applying ED or SCEA to your #1. </p>

<p>Be sure to submit an arts supplement even if you don’t intend to major in music.</p>

5

<p>Stanford is there because I visited and liked it a lot. Unlike a lot of larger universities, I feel like it offers a much better support system, etc. I also like how inter-disciplinary and flexible they are; encouraging doublemajors/concentrations across the different colleges within the universites.</p>

<p>Yale’s really not that big, less than 6000, which I am fine with. Yes I suppose it being yale has something to do with it, but I’m also legacy there, so I figured why not?</p>

<p>USC I also visited and it felt a lot smaller than a school of similar size (Rutgers). I felt there was a much stronger sense of community, etc.</p>

<p>Thanks for the input though, I didn’t actually realize that so many were quite that large…</p>