<p>One of Brown’s strongest draws is a unique student body, which will be difficult to find in another school. Most of the LACs that are similar in some respects are also in remote areas, which is a deal breaker for some. My daughter, who is a freshman at Brown, also liked Wellesley (doesn’t help your son!) and the University of Chicago.</p>
<p>busdriver, I sympathize. My oldest son was a computer science nerd. It was so easy to come up with a decent list for him. My younger son went into the search thinking he liked history, but definitely didn’t want to be an academic. What college doesn’t have history? An interesting thing happened as he started looking at colleges and thinking about what he cared about. He discovered this major called international relations. While he worried a bit about letting it define his search (what if he didn’t like it after all once he was there?), it did help sort the colleges. One of the best things I thought that happened through the course of the college search was that my kid began the process of understanding himself. When he finally had to choose between four colleges in April, he made the choices for good reasons.</p>
<p>Busdriver:</p>
<p>What you described in post #99 sounds like your S would be a great fit for Univ. of Rochester. Are you able to visit that school when you fly into NY in Feb? It’s REALLY upstate, near Canada. Would your S mind going to a school that gets a lot of snow?</p>
<p>The question then becomes how big a city does he want? UChicago is another good suggestion, obviously bigger city. Probably just as hard to get into as Brown these days.</p>
<p>CMU is in Pittsburgh…beautiful green campus on the edge of the city…not a laid back atmosphere…kids and workload more intense, I’ve heard.</p>
<p>These three schools I’ve mentioned all have Science/Math/Econ/Business courses your S is interested in.</p>
<p>busdriver11, if your son does even better on the SAT the next time…does he have a shot at Brown?</p>
<p>Do kids from his high school, similar to your son, with slightly higher test scores, get into Brown?</p>
<p>An alumni relations person at Brown told me the two schools they consider “little Browns” are Macalester and Lewis and Clark.</p>
<p>levirm, I’ll try to check out Case Western the next time I’m in Cleveland. The same with Rochester, chocchip. We won’t be able to visit during the Feb trip, but we’ll plan on a longer visit in the summer. Which is probably a better time to be visiting Rochester, anyways.</p>
<p>He is definitely going to look into Macalester, and will definitely apply to CMU (we’re very familiar with their community), and I hadn’t heard much about Lewis and Clark, but I’m looking into it.</p>
<p>As far as the size of the city, chochip, though he’d prefer a larger city nearby, it’s not essential. I think he just doesn’t want to be extremely rural, but if one has access to a subway system to go to NYC for the day, that sounds pretty nice.</p>
<p>dstark, I don’t have access to naviance right now, so I can’t answer that. But I’m sure that even those with 4.0GPA/2400SAT’s aren’t always getting into the ivies. Sure, it’s worth putting in an application, as long as the kid knows full well it’s a random shot. The odds are low for even the top students.</p>
<p>I agree, mathmom, the search helps them understand what’s important to them, and what is of interest. At first, though, it seems so overwhelming, with thousands of schools out there. Which is why cc is great for a parent helping them to understand and narrow it down. There are probably a huge number of schools a kid would be happy at, though I think that since we are going to invest so much money in this, it would be better to increase the odds and point him towards schools that could be the best experience and fit for him.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman Physics major at Vassar. They have a program with Dartmouth where he attends Vassar for 3 years and Darmouth for 2 years. He gets a Physics degree from Vassar, an Engineering degree from Darthmouth.</p>
<p>Gosh, borghugh, that is a very sweet deal. How can you go wrong with a physics degree from Vassar, and an engineering degree from Dartmouth? He must be extremely bright!</p>
<p>Is he happy and doing well so far, this freshman year? Was it a good fit for him?</p>
<p>Busdriver, if you look down at the bottom of the page, there’s a section called, “similar threads,” which might be useful.</p>
<p>Hi poetgrl (hon)—okay, that one cracked me up.</p>
<p>You know, wouldn’t you think I would have looked down there and seen that? That just one time, I would have scrolled down and seen the “similar threads”. Funny how you don’t see something, even when you’re staring it in the face. Thanks! 
(you taught me that too)</p>
<p>As far as the Ivy’s my S is kind of in the camp of " if the masses are all going in one direction than I definitely won’t be" Follows the path least taken. I’m happy because college admissions is going to be A LOT less stressful. Yes, he does want to apply to some reaches for him, but probably not a lot of the kids at his school will be applying there too. Most kids at his competitive prep school WILL be applying with the masses.</p>
<p>“Most kids at his competitive prep school WILL be applying with the masses”</p>
<p>If it’s a well known prep school, and he’s the only kid applying…he will probably have a strong advantage. Particularly while not having to compete with the others at his school.</p>