UPDATE: Junior Starting College Seach

College Search & Selection
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<p>Original thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1262272-junior-starting-college-search.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1262272-junior-starting-college-search.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>After I posted on here, I did some more debate stuff, took more tests, and visited colleges. </p>

<p>Here's my new and updated information. The rest of my information is in the other thread if you need it. If I were to include everything, then this post would be really long. This post is a shortened and updated version of the one in the thread above because I'm not sure how much I could update and cut out while keeping context.</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0 unweighted/around a 4.6 weighted (pretty close to the hardest curriculum offered to me)</p>

<p>SAT I (superscore): 2190; 760 CR, 710 Math, 720 Writing (10 Essay). I've taken 2 SATs, one of which was 760 CR, 710 Math, and 680 Writing (11 Essay) and the other was 730 CR, 680 Math, and 720 Writing (10 Essay). </p>

<p>SAT Subject Tests: see old thread; taking Chemistry, Spanish, and Math II in June</p>

<p>ACT: 34; 30 English, 34 Math, 34 Reading, 36 Science, no writing score yet but I heard it doesn't matter much. </p>

<p>AP: Taking AP Chemistry, AP Euro, and AP English Language in a couple of weeks. See old thread for more info </p>

<p>Rank: Our school doesn't do rankings, but I was selected as one of the top 8 students in our 200 person class for something at our school. This would go on my transcript. </p>

<p>Class Schedule: </p>

<p>11th grade: (only first semester and third quarter)
AP Chemistry: A/A
AP English 11 Language and Composition: A/A
Precalculus Honors: A/A
Spanish IV Honors: A/A
AP European History: A/A
Writing Center Tutoring: not for credit</p>

<p>12th grade: (just schedule)
Physics Honors
AP Macroeconomics/AP Microeconomics
AP Calculus AB
AP English 12 Literature and Composition
AP Computer Science A
AP Spanish Language
Teaching assistant/Humanities</p>

<p>ECs: (remember the old thread)</p>

<p>Debate:
As of January, I've placed in the Top 32 at three really, really competitive national tournaments. Then I placed in Top 64 at the Harvard tournament (300+ competitors). After that my season ended.</p>

<p>Debate leadership:
Co-Director of Lincoln-Douglas Debate. I coordinate practices and rosters for tournaments as well as teach novices how to debate. I am going to be one of the Team Captains next year. </p>

<p>Speaking of coaching novices, one of the novices I was coaching got to 2nd Place and Top Speaker at the Novice State Championships this year in April. Also, one of the novices I coached last year got to Top 4 at the State Championships this year with a bit of my help.</p>

<p>Other things:</p>

<p>(most of this is in the old thread since I've been focusing on debate this year)</p>

<p>Mu Alpha Theta: (11) Math honor society at our school. We have to take 4 membership exams, and I just got formally accepted for taking them. </p>

<p>Given all of the above and the old thread, I have about 200 hours of community service.</p>

<p>I'm interested in chemical engineering, computer science, math, or some kind of pre-med program, but mainly the former. Petroleum engineering also sounds cool, but I don't know where I would study it outside of UT-Austin and Stanford. Here is my list of schools after my previous thread: </p>

<p>Brown University
Bucknell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Florida State University
University of Florida
Harvey Mudd College
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
Rice University [Visited]
University of Rochester
Stanford University [Visited]
Stevens Institute of Technology
University of Texas-Austin
Tufts University
Tulane University
Washington University in St. Louis [Visited]
Worchester Polytechnic Institute </p>

<p>I visited WashU, Rice, and Stanford and really liked them all. I'm interested in safeties and matches that are similar enough to them since my list is reach-heavy and doesn't have many matches unless I'm not seeing part of the picture. </p>

<p>I would prefer a college that is medium sized, temperate in weather, but distance, climate, and size are not deciding factors for me. I like schools like Rice, WashU, and Stanford where students are happy, but the school has challenging and varied academics in case I don't like engineering. </p>

<p>Also, if you guys could critique and help me shorten down my already long list, that would be cool too. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

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<p>You sound like a real planner. I can only give input on some schools.</p>

<p>First, all Ivy’s are reaches for everyone. You could have the greatest stats and still not get in. Stanford is a big reach as well. </p>

<p>Stevens, WPI are both small STEM schools meaning focused on engineering and the like and do not have more rounded curriculums. That means the students who go there fit that criteria as well. They would both be safeties for you. </p>

<p>Lehigh is a good choice, a match school, but they want students to show LOVE to them in their application so you must either visit or go to their events and make more deliberate contact. Greek scene is big there. I believe they are strongest in Civil eng. </p>

<p>Layfayette is a LAC with a decent undergrad engineering but is easier to get into than Lehigh. They are rivals. Also much smaller school. </p>

<p>Univ of Roch is ranked the same a Lehigh but not as high in undergrad engineering. Their engineering specialty is optics and biomed. It is also very cold and snowy in Rochester so weather can’t bother you. They have an open curricululm that attracts many students and Eastman school of music is part of U of R. </p>

<p>When I did research for my son, I spend a lot of time reading the website. COLLEGE P…R…O…W…L…E…R ( so cc doesn’t block this). You can spend hours reading about the schools there. Good luck.</p>